Pete Meyers, Coordinator
Pete Meyers is one of the Founders of the Tompkins County Workers’ Center (TCWC) which was founded formally as an organization in 2003 (then as the Tompkins County Living Wage Coalition).
Pete hails from South Bend, Indiana, where his parents were active against the Vietnam War and were active ‘housing testers’ (discerning whether housing was discriminatory in who would be rented out to). He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, and not long after got a Master’s Degree in Existential Phenomenology Psychology at Duquesne University, also in Pittsburgh.
He moved to Brooklyn, NY, for what would become his most formative work experience where he worked as a drug counselor for four years at William E. Grady Technical Vocational H.S. in Coney Island. During this stint, Pete traveled to Nicaragua during the Sandinista Revolution from the United States, an experience which, combined with working in the high school, helped to develop his politics in a Paolo Freirian direction.
While working at the High School After this four year stint, he then worked as the Produce Manager for four years at the Flatbush Food Coop, where he redistributed his wages for a year to the lowest paid staff in the Coop.
In 1993, Meyers moved back to South Bend for seven years where he became the Director of the Readmobile in the Public Library system. Within a month he was fired from his position when advocating for an Assistant that he would supervise who was African-American. Their cases both went to Federal Court in 1999.
In 2000, Meyers moved to Ithaca and immediately got a job at Catholic Charities of Tompkins/Tioga Counties as a Mentor in a Welfare-to-Work program. It was this experience of people being kicked off of welfare into minimum wage jobs that led Meyers to take a lead role in creating the Living Wage Coalition.
Meyers’ commitment is to be part of organizing a movement that will usher in the Beloved Community in real and tangible ways for the world’s population, starting first and foremost those in our immediate midst. We are ona move!
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