8 AWP Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 June 14–20, 2019
Kids plea for change
Tots rally at Schumer’s house for the Green New Deal
Photo by Caroline Ourso
Donna Aceto
Smiles and love were everywhere on Park Slope’s
Fifth Avenue.
Our Perspective
Finally, Justice for
Downstate Car Wash
Workers Moves Forward
By Stuart Appelbaum, President
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, UFCW
Twitter: @sappelbaum
minimum wages are experiencing. Workers
have testified about their inability to live in
dignity because they can’t afford decent
housing for their families; and how they can’t
look for other work because they cannot
afford adequate transportation. Workers
struggle with paying their bills and putting
food on the table.
For the car wash workers in New York City
– especially those without union representation
– sub-minimum wages have been a vehicle for
wage theft and systemic underpayment.
Investigations have shown that employers
don’t always make up the extra pay for workers
when tips are short; and car wash workers
don’t always receive the tips customers
presume are going into their pockets.
The new law would take away one major
opportunity for unscrupulous car wash
owners to underpay their workers, and that’s
important in an industry where operators
have been fined and directed to make
restitution for wage theft to the tune of
millions of dollars.
Banning the so-called “tip credit” in the
car wash industry downstate would help lift
up 5,000 mostly immigrant
car wash workers in
New York. We applaud
the state legislature
and look forward to
swift action by
Governor Cuomo.
PRIDE...
Continued from page 1
When the New York State Senate
passed a bill amending the subminimum
wage for car wash workers
on June 5 and the Assembly passed the same bill
a day later, the state legislature sent a clear
message to car wash employers that their
workers in New York City, Westchester and Long
Island should be paid at least the minimum wage.
Under current law car wash owners have been
allowed to pay workers well below the minimum
wage. It’s a confusing and unjust system and has
often led to wage theft in the industry. The new
law will be a revolutionary change for underpaid
workers, too many of whom often suffer from
wage theft, and are forced to struggle to survive in
one of the nation’s most expensive places to live.
It’s a resounding victory for car wash workers,
who have been fighting for their rights and better
pay since 2012, when the RWDSU, Make the
Road New York and New York Communities for
Change began working to reform an industry that
was rife with exploitation.
The current system – which bases car
wash minimum wages based upon location,
car wash size, and anticipated tips per
employee – has created a confusing web of 8
different possible sub-minimum wages in
New York. That confusion often provides
employers with an outrageous license to
steal, and even well-meaning employers
have sometimes run afoul of the law due to
its complicated nature.
At labor board hearings held last year,
officials and the public heard first-hand
about the struggles workers affected by sub-
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By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
They’re not gonna take
it!
More than 50 demonstrators
gathered outside the home
of Sen. Chuck Schumer (DNY)
near Prospect Park on
June 9 at a youth-oriented
protest to demand that the
lawmaker sign the ambitious
Green New Deal, according
to one parent who
attended the event with his
two children.
“This was a very explicit
request to sign onto the Green
New Deal, which he has not
done,” said Stephan von Muehlen.
Von Muehlen brought
his sons Conrad and Sheppard,
who wrote letters to
New York’s senior senator
pleading for action on climate
change.
“I worked on a letter with
Conrad. It basically said that
climate change is scary,” said
von Muehlen. “They’re the
ones that are going to have
A father-and-son duo drop a letter to Senator
Schumer in a box outside his Park Slope home.
to live with the consequences
if we don’t act.”
Another protester said the
youth-centric protest was necessary
to capture the legislator’s
attention, and put the
climate-problem in perspective.
“He’s made a lot of references
lately to his grandkids,
and how they are going
to inherit the environment
we’ve made,” said Robert
Wood. “So it was important
to have kids deliver this message
to him.”
The young climate warriors
hope their message
will finally reach the Democratic
Senate leader, who
has yet to show enthusiastic
support for the ambitious
Green New Deal resolution
— which is sponsored
by Queens Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez.
“The time for coming together
and compromising is
kind-of over. And the younger
folks recognize it,” said von
Muehlen.
grew up in Park Slope, moved
elsewhere, including San Francisco
and, most recently for
five years, New Orleans, moving
back to the Flatbush side
of Prospect Park three years
ago was a welcome coming
home.
“I would say one of the reasons
I’m back in New York
is that I didn’t want to have
any more anxiety about being
gay,” Kaplan said. “After so
many years of being stressed
about it as an adult, it’s really
nice to be older and be like really
gay in a really gay city. I
mean this city is so gay. It’s
so relaxing. It’s normal here
to be gay.”
Kaplan and her business
partner in a T-shirt company,
Sasha Rose, who was visiting
for 10 days from New Orleans,
had spent the afternoon
vending their T-shirts at the
Pride Festival, and said they
LGBTQ in 2021, to ensure that
queer representation on the
Council will not vanish as a
result of these term limits.
Menchaca was joined in the
parade by nearly a dozen of his
Council colleagues, including
out gay Speaker Corey Johnson
from Manhattan and Daniel
Dromm from Queens.
Jared Arader, who is president
of the borough’s LGBTQ
Lambda Independent Democrats,
echoed Menchaca’s
emphasis on the 2021 elections.
“This is our opportunity
to show Brooklyn’s LGBTQ
community that we are engaged
in local politics; we
care about local politics,”
he said.
were ready to sleep once the
parade wrapped up.
“We want to be ready to go
to Riis Beach tomorrow and be
gay there,” Kaplan said.
Borough President Eric Adams
said the Brooklyn event
perfectly captures a half century
of LGBTQ traditions that
have grown up since the Stonewall
riots in 1969.
“It actually says that the
spirit of Harvey Milk, who
died in San Francisco, continues
to cascade here in Brooklyn
with a large parade,” Adams
said, before boasting, “It
proves that Brooklyn is ground
zero for Gay Pride.”
Carlos Menchaca, the first
out gay member of the City
Council elected from Brooklyn,
also hailed the spirit of the
Park Slope celebration.
“Everyone feels welcome,”
he declared, before turning to
one of the evening’s political
implications — that he and his
four gay Council colleagues
all face term limits in 2021.
Activists several weeks ago
announced an effort, dubbed
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