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06/14/2005:

"A Movement Grows In Brooklyn"

No one needs to tell Sofia Campos what hard work is all about. Since coming to New York City from Mexico in 1993, she has been employed at a succession of the low wage jobs that newly arrived immigrants often fill. But nothing prepared Sofia for her experience working at a small chain store in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.

"I worked from 9 a.m. until 7:30 at night, six days a week," Sofia said.

"I earned $240 per week, but I would have been earning $358 if I had been paid the minimum wage," she added, noting that several of her co-workers were also underpaid.

Sofia's story is not unfamiliar to the workers at the 175 stores that line this busy section of Knickerbocker Avenue. Like her, many come to Bushwick from the Caribbean or Latin America and find work at retailers who deny them wages they are legally entitled to.

Luckily, Sofia reached out to Make the Road by Walking, a Bushwick-based community organization. Together, they launched a consumer boycott that eventually forced the employer to pay Sofia and her coworkers the $65,000 they were entitled to.

Working with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the activists forced another merchant to pay more than $27,000 to four employees who had each been paid only $320 after putting in 72 hour work weeks.

Has it always been this way in Bushwick? Hardly. From the 1950s through the early 1970s, most of the stores on Knickerbocker Avenue were "mom and pop" operations whose owners often lived in the community they served. Most importantly, employees at more than half of the stores on Knickerbocker Avenue were protected by union contracts. They not only earned more than the minimum wage, they also received health insurance and other needed benefits. To retain good workers, many non-union businesses felt obliged to follow suit.

However, the mom and pop retailers have since been replaced by small, non-union chain stores. Instead of treating employees as a valuable asset, these businesses often regard them as expenses to be cut.

What is happening on Knickerbocker Avenue is not unique to Bushwick, either. A 2003 study for the Economic Policy Institute by Dr. Moshe Adler of Columbia University found that the wages and benefits of New York's retail workers are so meager that taxpayers spend $1.1 billion annually to provide the health insurance, rent subsidies and other assistance they and their families need to survive. In other words, retailers are nickel and diming workers and New York taxpayers are getting stuck with the tab.

americanprogress.org