Pastor Santiago Rodriguez, of the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church located between the Providence Place Mall and the Renaissance Hotel, emceed the event, introducing speakers and leading the crowd in chants of “Show Your Love to the Workers” and “Fair Wages.”
Also speaking was local legend Yilenny Ferreras, hotel worker and one of the four hunger strikers who shamed the Rhode Island legislature into making a small gesture of raising the minimum wage in the state to $9. Her speeches are full of fire, and her story resonated with the crowd.
Reverend James Ford of the First Unitarian Church in Providence and Reverend Ellen Quaadgras of the Westminster Unitarian Church in East Greenwich spoke next. It was under the leadership of Ford that the UUA General assembly made the difficult decision to boycott the 850 rooms they had originally asked for at the Renaissance. Given the hotel’s refusal to fairly engage with its employees over union and salary, plus its loss of LGBTQ friendly TAG Approved status, it would have been hypocritical to do any less. Still, 850 rooms were a lot to make up for, and the UUA GA had to scramble to find adequate lodging for all their attendees.
Speaking next was B Doubour, a fast food worker at Wendy’s who spoke of the difficulty she has paying bills and supporting her kids on the minimum wages the company pays.
Lauren Jacobs, National Organizing Director for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United spoke next, reminding the audience that the real minimum wage in Rhode Island is not $8, it’s $2.89. That’s what tipped workers in Rhode Island are entitled to. Often, their checks from the company they work for are for $0 after taxes are taken out. “Do you know what they call a worker who works for free?” Jacobs asked. “A slave!” answered the crowd.
The Rev. Amy Carol Webb, Musician and Minister at River of Grass UU Congregation in Ft. Lauderdale then lead the crowd in a song.
Rabbi Jonathan Klein, Executive Director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice in Los Angeles spoke next about the need for organizing around social justice issues. He hopes Rhode Islanders can get past difference is race, class and union divides to work together for a fair living wage for everyone.
Donald Anderson, of the RI Council of Churches, told the crowd that his group fully supported the efforts of workers in Rhode Island to earn a living wage.
After the speakers were finished Jesse Strecker, Executive Director of Rhode Island Jobs With Justice asked the crowd to follow Pastor Santiago Rodriguez into the hotel to speak with Renaissance Hotel Manager Angelo DePeri about an employee who faces termination due to their involvement with the unionization effort. As the crowd moved from the field to the parking lot, Providence Police and hotel security intercepted telling the leaders that the hotel, a public building receiving over a million dollars in tax breaks from the City of Providence every year, was not letting anyone from the crowd inside. In fact, DePeri was not interested in meeting even one person from the crowd as a representative.
The fact is, good and moral people want fair wages for all workers. The battle for economic justice has begun.
All pictures and video above are available for use under the Creative Commons license. Please use them far and wide.
(cc) 2014 Steve Ahlquist
]]>With a stroke of his pen Governor Chafee signed into law the 2015 budget, marking what House Speaker Nick Mattiello endlessly referred to as a new era in regional “competitiveness” for Rhode Island. Simultaneously the Governor dashed the hopes of Providence hotel workers who were cavalierly targeted by a measure inserted into the bill that eliminated the ability of cities and towns in the state from deciding their own minimum wages.
While the governor, Senate President Paiva-Weed and the Speaker were inside the State House giving self-congratulatory speeches about the bold new budget and the bold new economic direction the state was taking, outside the State House Mirjaam Parada, Yilenny Ferrares, Santa Brito and Shelby Maldonado continued their hunger strike, hoping to convince the governor to veto.
Were the efforts of the hotel workers and the hunger strikers ultimately futile? I think not. Both houses of the General Assembly just passed a bill to raise the minimum wage to $9 in 2015. Given the priorities of the Mattiello House this year, in which lowering estate and corporate taxes was seen as more important than helping the economically vulnerable, and given the open hostility some legislators had evinced towards the idea of raising the minimum wage so soon after the last increase, the $9 minimum wage is an important victory.
It was only the efforts of the hotel workers and the hunger strikers that shamed members of the General Assembly into doing something akin to the right thing for minimum wage workers. In fact, I heard rumors yesterday that the only way the Senate would approve Mattiello’s corporate kiss-up budget was for the Speaker to see his way clear to a slight increase in the minimum wage, but of course the exact mechanisms by which the legislature conducts its business are always hidden from public view.
Even as the Mattiello budget was signed into law and the $9 minimum wage was passed in Rhode Island, the Massachusetts legislature, in a move lauded by President Obama, acted to raise its state’s minimum wage to $11 an hour. (Note to Rhode Islanders: This is how real Democrats behave.) For all of Speaker Mattiello’s talk of being regionally competitive, the failure to set our state’s minimum wage to a similar standard demonstrates a lack of economic understanding and leadership. Following the economic logic on evidence at the State House, one should now expect the best minimum wage workers in Pawtucket and East Providence to cross the border into Massachusetts for the $11 an hour fast food jobs, leaving the $9 jobs here in Rhode Island to the second tier workers. The extra $80 a week will be worth the extra five to ten minutes it will take to get to work in the morning for most workers.
The hotel workers here in Providence were fighting for $15. They fought and won here in the city, only to have the state come in and snatch victory from their grasp. At that point, the fight switched from a battle for fair wages to a battle for access to democracy. It was only the efforts of the hunger strikers and their supporters, calling attention to the miscarriage of justice and the abuse of legislative power, that shamed the General Assembly into doing anything to alleviate the suffering of the most economically vulnerable.
Mirjaam Parada, Yilenny Ferrares, Santa Brito and Shelby Maldonado are heroes of democracy, bravely showing the way forward in the fight for economic justice in Rhode Island. But more than that, they are just good, kindhearted people, putting the concerns of others ahead of their own. I am better for knowing them, and glad there are such people working to make the world a better place.
Their hunger strike is over, and I can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with next.
]]>There was a rally at the State House last night for the Hunger Strikers urging Governor Chafee to veto the budget that features an item that would ban cities and towns in Rhode Island from raising the minimum wage, a direct attack on Providence hotel workers seeking to have a vote in November on a proposed $15 minimum wage. Shelby Maldonado, Santa Brito, Mirjaam Parada and Yilenny Ferreras are entering Day Three of their hunger strike this morning, pending a meeting with the Governor.
Last night each of the hunger strikers addressed the crowd of over 110 supporters, except for Santa Brito, who was suffering from a headache brought on by a lack of food. The women were all seated, shaded with umbrellas and hats in the hot sun, and subsisting on water.
Defending democracy is hungry work.
]]>There will be a rally today at the State House at 5pm to support these brave women, and also to support the Just Cause bill, which would protect tenants from no-fault evictions. The Senate has passed this measure, but the House has yet to do so. Passing this bill would allow tenants to stay in their homes and pay rent to the bank, after their landlord is foreclosed upon, as long as they pay rent and do not violate their lease.
Come out today and let the General Assembly know that we want legislation that helps everyone, not just the rich and connected.
]]>Dr. Nick Tsiongas was not in any way advising that these women go on a hunger strike, but given that they were committed to this course of action, did offer some advice on how to do so in the safest possible way.
Shortly after Dr. Tsiongas talked to the women and to me on camera, word came down from the State House facilities department that the tents being used by the women to keep themselves out of the hot sun had to come down. Unbrellas and folding chairs would be allowed, but the tents, it was said, might cause damage to the marble on the Smith Street side of the State House.
I spoke briefly to hunger striker Mirjaam Parada, the woman who came up with the idea of the hunger strike. She got the idea from history, and the efforts of people in El Salvador to call attention to the terrible conditions there as the Reagan Administration funded the right wing Contra death squads in the 1980s. A raise in the minimum wage will not benefit Parada directly, she already makes more than $15 an hour as a cook. She is involved because she is committed to the idea of democracy and to the rights of workers.
The same is true of the other two women who could begin the hunger strike today. Shelby Maldonado is a Central Falls City Councillor and union organizer. Santa Brito was employed at an area hotel, but was fired shortly after the birth of her son, possibly because of her outspoken labor organizing activities. Neither will directly benefit from a wage in the minimum wage. Instead, they are committed to the right of all workers to a living wage and to the principles of democracy.
Our state legislators could learn a lot from these brave women, if they would only stop and listen.
You can listen to Dr. Nick Tsiongas’ advice to the hunger strikers below.
]]>Four Providence hotel workers and a Central Falls city councilor say they will go ahead with their planned hunger strike despite even though the state legislature already acted on their issue and Governor Chafee said he intends to sign the municipal minimum wage mandate into law.
“My neighbors should be able to vote on whether or not the hotel owners should give us a raise,” said Santa Brito in a press release. “I am fighting for the future of my son.”
Brito, a leader of the effort, worked at the Renaissance Hotel. She will be joined by Mirjaam Parada, who works at the Omni Hotel, Yilenny Ferreras, who worked at the Providence Hilton and Central Falls City Councilor Shelby Maldonado.
“As an elected official, I want the power to address issues directly, like the minimum wage, for my constituents,” Maldonado said. “I know that workers in my community, many of whom are hotel workers, need a raise. I want the people of Providence to vote and be heard.”
The hunger strike arose from the Providence hotel workers fight for a $15 an hour minimum wage.
The issue began when city hotel workers petitioned the Providence City Council to institute a $15 minimum wage at hotels with more than 25 rooms. On the same night the City Council put the issue on the November ballot, last Thursday, the state House of Representatives passed a budget amendment that prevents cities and towns from implementing a minimum wage higher than the state rate. The Senate approved the budget bill on Monday and Governor Chafee has since indicated he will sign it into law.
The hunger strike is expected to begin on Thursday.
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