February 17, 2014
By Marc Bussanich
New York, NY—Minimum wage workers were joined by elected officials at City Hall to call on Albany to allow New York City set its own minimum wage. In an interview, Councilmember Daneek Miller said he would introduce a resolution in the Council that councilmembers would take to Albany and lobby for a higher minimum wage. Video
Elected officials, such as the Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, said now is the time to allow New York City to dictate its own minimum wage as other cities around the country have already done it.
“We want to capitalize on the national momentum and growing success to lift fast food, airport and other low-wage workers out of poverty by raising the minimum wage,” said Mark-Viverito. “Other major cities have already done this—San Francisco, San Jose and Santé Fe have all supplemented their state minimum wages to be more in line with the high costs of living in their cities.”
There already is support among Democrats in Albany to raise the wage. State Senate Democratic leader Andrea Stewart Cousins is the primary sponsor for the Senate Bill, S 6516, that would provide municipalities the ability to impose minimum wage standards that are more favorable to employees than those adopted by the state.
On Tuesday in Albany, Cousins helped launch the #RaiseUpNY coalition that aims to build support statewide for the legislation.
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