Action Alert: Help Raise Minimum Wage for New York Tipped Workers

May 1 2009
Contact: Raj Nayak, Staff Attorney , National Employment Law Project
212 285 3025 x352, 
Does your organization or your partners have tipped workers or advocates who are able to testify -- from around the state -- and tell the New York Restaurant and Hotel Industry Wage Board why they need a raise?

The current minimum wage for tipped workers in the food service industry in New York is $4.60 an hour.

The New York Wage Board is meeting this month and traveling the state to hear public testimony. They will soon issue a decision about whether (and how much) to raise the minimum wage for tipped workers. The Wage Board can kick off a minimum wage increase for hard working tipped workers -- like waitresses and waiters, delivery workers, car wash workers and others -- without passing a new law in Albany. Next opportunities to testify:
  • Friday, May 15, from 12-3pm in Albany.
    NYS Department of Labor, Building 12, Harriman State Office Campus, in Training Rooms D & E on the first floor.
  • Wednesday, May 20, from 11am-4pm in New York City.
    Center for Worker Education, 18th floor, classrooms 18B - 18C, at the Joseph S Murphy Institute, City University of New York (CUNY), 25 West 43 St.