Saturday, 7/28: Share YOUR Thoughts on a Countywide Living Wage

A group of community leaders* (see list below) are studying the benefits and challenges to paying all workers in Tompkins County a local minimum wage that is a Living Wage**.

We are asking workers throughout Tompkins County, INCLUDING YOU, to join us for an Information Gathering Session on July 28th, from 11 am to 1 pm at the Dryden Community Café (corner of W. Main Street and South Street on Route 13 in Dryden) to provide input on four questions we’ve designed around the impacts you may experience involving such a change to our wage laws. [Let us know if you need childcare! Refreshments will be available.]

This Session will help us formulate a more in-depth study on the benefits and challenges to paying a Living Wage in Tompkins County. We need to hear your point of view and your ideas, whatever they are. We’re having a series of these sessions, each focused on different parts of the community from small to large businesses, for-profits and non-profits, restaurants to health care, to government and community members so that we can look at the issues that matter most to you. Please RSVP to this invitation by clicking here to go to a Google Form; or call 607-339-1680; or email pete@tcworkerscenter.org to let us know if you can join us!

Sincerely,
Pete Meyers
Rob Brown
Cynthia Brock
Mandi Ellis
Shaianne Osterreich

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*The Living Wage Working Group is chaired by Anna Kelles, Tompkins County Legislature District 1; Sally Klingel of the Scheinman Institute at Cornell’s ILR School is the facilitator. Pete Meyers, Coordinator of the Tompkins County Workers’ Center is the organizer.

Other members include:

  • Cynthia Brock (City of Ithaca Common Council, First Ward);
  • Dan Brown (Executive Director, Franziska Racker Centers);
  • Rob Brown (Operations Manager, Tompkins County Workers’ Center);
  • Mandy Ellis (NY Statewide Organizer, Civil Service Employees Association);
  • Gary Ferguson (Executive Director, Downtown Ithaca Alliance);
  • Bill Goodman (Supervisor, Town of Ithaca);
  • Ian Greer (Senior Research Associate, Cornell ILR School);
  • Pam Gueldner (Owner, Manndible Café);
  • Lisa Holmes (Director, Tompkins County Office for the Aging);
  • Michael Hoysic (Human Resource Manager, GreenStar);
  • Jason Leifer (Supervisor, Town of Dryden);
  • Eric Levine (acting CEO, Alternative Federal Credit Union);
  • Leslyn McBean-Clairborne (Tompkins County Legislator, District 1; Director GIAC);
  • Shaianne Osterreich (Board Member IC3 Downtown Children’s Center, Chair Ithaca College Economics Department);
  • Kathleen Pasetty (Owner, Fork and Gavel Café);
  • Kathy Schlather (Executive Director, Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County);
  • Erin Smith (Leadership Team Member, Tompkins County Workers’ Center);
  • Jennifer Tavares (President & CEO, Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce).

** A Living Wage in Tompkins County as determined by Alternatives Federal Credit Union’s biennial Living Wage Study last updated in August, 2017. For more info go to https://tinyurl.com/y7e5f6qa