Blog
While Superstorm Sandy ravaged communities regardless of race or class, the storm exacerbated already stark inequality in New York. With thousands still without electricity, widespread mold infestations threatening the health of people in immigrant communities, and long lines for food across low-income communities, Sandy has had a particularly brutal impact on those with the least means to cope.
In the weeks following Sandy, CPD helped to bring together over 60 community organizations, labor unions, and faith groups that recognized the need for a more progressive recovery agenda to ensure the failings of the Gulf Coast and 9/11 recoveries were not repeated.
The Alliance for a Just Rebuilding (AJR) was formed to address both immediate relief and long-term rebuilding issues. CPD is proud to be playing a central coordinating role in the alliance.
In the coming months the Alliance will work to ensure that state rebuilding efforts focus on building sustainable infrastructure, protecting workers’ rights and addressing economic inequity and unemployment.
The campaign to raise New York State’s minimum wage intensified last week. Governor Cuomo is hard at work on the issue, declaring, in his recent State of the State address, his strong support for a raise. CPD is working hard, with key allies, to coordinate the campaign to raise New York’s minimum wage to $8.75 and to index it to keep up with inflation.
Over 300 workers, advocates and members of the clergy marched on the state Capitol in Albany last Tuesday to deliver a petition of 30,000 signatures.
December saw Local Progress, the new national municipal policy network, take action on cutbacks to crucial services at the local level. With the President and Congress locked in a high-stakes game of chicken over the “fiscal cliff," CPD drafted and distributed a model resolution for city councils across the nation to pass.
The motion calling on the federal government to address the fiscal crisis with progressive revenue streams rather than cuts to crucial services. Arguing that unwise cuts to federal spending inevitably shift costs onto states and municipalities, it called on Congress to focus on creating a robust economic recovery rather than rapid deficit reduction. The cities of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, Baltimore, and Yonkers all passed resolutions with huge majorities.
These resolutions are a taste of things to come, as the Local Progress network embarks on an ambitious program of coordinated campaigns for 2013.
The Progressive Caucus of the New York City Council has released a powerful 13 point vision for a progressive New York City in 2013, as the city gears up for citywide elections.
CPD played a major role helping to pull together stakeholders and draft the policy document, in consultation with leading progressive forces in NYC, including the Working Families Party and the Center for Working Families.
You can read the full report here, and sign up to support the principles here.
CPD congratulates our friends at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) for their successful advocacy to pass a statewide highway safety law, which will enable over 250,000 undocumented immigrants in Illinois to obtain drivers’ licenses – the first successful statewide effort of its kind in over a decade.
At the bill signing, ICIRR also announced the national campaign to enact federal immigration reform, which will create a road to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented immigrants nationwide.
We look forward to working with ICIRR and other partners across the country to ensure that this victory is the first step toward full equality and inclusion for immigrants across the country.
CPD congratulates our good friends, the Maine People’s Alliance, for the vital role they played in the success of the Maine marriage equality referendum on election night.
The victory represents the first successful proactive marriage equality ballot measure in the country. It is largely through intensive organizing work of partners such as MPA that the referendum passed. Maine is now the final New England state to pass marriage equality. Great work MPA!
Last week, the County Executive of Suffolk County, Long Island signed a new Executive Order that will provide comprehensive interpretation and translation services at all county agencies for more than 120,000 limited English proficient (LEP) Long Island residents. The new language access program will ensure that all Suffolk families are able to access government services and benefits. The order also protects the confidentiality of residents’ immigration status - a policy that is critical to building trust between immigrant communities and their local government.
The Center for Popular Democracy is proud to have worked with our partners to draft the Suffolk County Language Access Executive Order and to build the campaign for equal access to government services throughout New York State.
Over one million New York City workers lack paid sick time to care for themselves or their loved ones. For these workers, the choice is stark: work through illness, endangering coworkers and customers, or face losing pay and the possibility of losing your job. Paid sick leave legislation has been enacted from San Francisco to Connecticut, from Seattle to Washington, DC, but, in New York, the Paid Sick Time Act has been stalled. The New York Times has twice endorsed the bill and the Center for Popular Democracy is working hard to organize and move this bill passed its final hurdle.
In partnership with the NY State Paid Family Leave Coalition, CPD has been playing a lead role on campaign strategy, legislative drafting, and faith organizing in support of the bill.
Enthusiastic congratulations also to our core partner, CASA de Maryland, for leading the referendum fight on the Maryland DREAM Act, which was approved overwhelmingly by Maryland voters on November 6th.
The Act, which grants in-state tuition benefits to most immigrant college students, sets a new precedent in the fight for immigrant rights and equality – this is the first time tuition benefits have been approved by popular vote. ¡Sí se pudo!
At $7.25 per hour, New York’s minimum wage remains decades out of date. With growing numbers of New York State residents relying on low-wage jobs to survive, too many workers do not earn enough to afford basic expenses. CPD is working hard on the campaign to raise the minimum wage to $8.50 per hour.
Sign the petition to increase New York state's minimum wage
