On May 19, Local 100 member and steward Timothy Simpson stood before the Dallas City Council to say that the $750,000 the city will spend to defend itself against multiple charges of racism could be better used to give minimum wage sanitation workers a pay raise. He also explained how difficult it is to support a family on the minimum wage.

City of Dallas supervisors either allowed or encouraged hangman nooses to be hung on the locker doors of Black employees in the waste water treatment plant, resulting in the charges. Dallas has 177 attorneys on staff, but it is hiring an outside firm to defend itself against the charges, paying $250,000 for each of three charges.

Rev. Peter Johnson, founder of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference, followed us and offered to mediate the cases if the money saved would be used for pay raises. We also received a promise that the water plant workers would support our march, which is now planned for July 18.

Also in attendance was Reverend Charles Stovall, a United Methodist Pastor and the Founder of the Dallas Interfaith Worker Justice chapter.

The lesson to be learned here is that when we don't fight back against injustice the people in power will assume they have permission to be more abusive. In the 1980s, laborers at the waste water treatment plant complained that city supervisors were putting racial caricature cartoons in the lockers of the black workers and on the tables in the break rooms and blaming it on the white workers to keep the workers disorganized and fighting each other. No one took up the fight at that time and things have just gotten worse.

Wednesday, June 9, the Dallas City Council will be voting on the city’s budget, and we have been lobbying the city to include a living wage for the sanitation workers from Local 100. All sanitation workers make the minimum wage of $7.25, which is far below a living wage for a family of four.

The council is split on the idea of raising our members pay in sanitation to $8.88. When one member protested, our friend, Councilwoman Angela Hunt, said, "We're talking about taking people out of poverty; not talking about raises. I think that is the wrong way to look at it".

The final budget will be voted on in September.

The city Manager has also called Rev. Johnson to discuss raises, and we will meet with him to define our wage demands.

Dallas leaders speak all time time about becoming a first class city, but it will never happen until the lowest paid city workers are paid more than the minimum wage. Call the Dallas City Council and ask them to support a living wage for sanitation workers.

Unite and Fight!

Dos empleados de la Cocina HISD
Hablando en contra de la Reducción de Horas
En la Reunión de la Mesa Directiva

Carol Barrett de DeBakey High School le dijo a la directiva Que “cuatro horas no es suficiente para vivir,  Yo he tenido que llenar el desempleo y las estampillas de comida. Yo quiero mí horas de regreso, Yo quiero que mis hijos tengan buena salud con comida nutritiva, no con Pop Tarts y galletas de animalitos en el desayuno.”

Shauntel Whitney de Pin Oak Elementary menciono, “No tiene Sentido para mi alimentar a los niños de la escuela y no poder Darle de comer a mi familia. Yo quiero que la directiva cambie La póliza y me deje cocinar comida saludable para los niños y Me regrese mis horas regulares.”

Par luchar por tus horas regulares
Aplicar para estampillas de comida y desempleo
Llama al: 713-863-9877

Unete a la lucha y ayudate a ti mismo
Y ayuda a otros niños del HISD al mismo tiempo.
Texas United School Employees Local 100