Listen: Workers Press the Fight for Equity and Pay Parity

Pay Parity Now: struggling workers urge New York legislators to back a 3.2 percent cost-of-living adjustment in this year’s budget. Photo/Bob Hennelly

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By Bob Hennelly

The Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour marks the second week of Women’s History Month by welcoming New York City Council Member Alexa Aviles (D-38th District), who talks about the decades-old gender and race-based pay discrimination that still plagues the FDNY’s EMS workforce. The Brooklyn lawmaker also discusses the major impact the federal government’s curtailment of COVID-era supports for working families, including the Expanded Child Tax Credit and Medicaid expansion, is having on her constituents. Aviles also offers an update on the Council’s efforts to bring more transparency to Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed $109 billion budget, as well as recently-passed legislation to reduce diesel air pollution generated by the cruise ship industry in her district.

In the second half of the show, we hear from Michelle Jackson, executive director of New York State’s Human Service Council, which is fighting to improve the pay for hundreds of thousands of social service workers who are employed by close to 170 non-profits helping millions of New Yorkers of all ages who need some assistance to live their best lives at home, in congregant living at school, as well as in the broader community. This workforce is made up mostly of women of color whose wages are so low, two-thirds of them struggle to get by in near poverty — with close to one in four having to rely on food stamps just to feed their families. They went up to Albany this week to urge state budget makers to include a 3.2 percent cost-of-living adjustment in the state’s budget for a workforce that put so much on the line during COVID.

Listen to the entire show below: