Forum Post: #LivingOffTipsNY

Dear friends,

Thanks so much for participating in our Twitter Rally to @NYGovCuomo.

Sample Tweets:

Tipped workers need a raise! We call on @NYGovCuomo to convene the wage board ASAP! #LivingOffTipsNY

Tipped restaurant workers need economic security! Time 2 eliminate sub-#MinimumWage! @NYGovCuomo: convene the Wage Board! #LivingOffTipsNY

$5/hr is not enough 2 feed a family! Time 2 convene the Wage Board @NYGovCuomo. Tipped workers deserve a raise! #LivingOffTipsNY

Almost 75% of servers are #women. The sub #minimumwage for tipped worker is a woman’s issue. #LivingOffTipsNY @NYGovCuomo

No one should not have 2 depend on the generosity of customers to survive. Time 2 convene the Wage Board @NYGovCuomo! #LivingOffTipsNY

No one should earn less than the #MinimumWage – tipped workers need a raise! @NYGovCuomo #LivingOffTipsNY

Gender equity = abolishing the sub #minimumwage for tipped workers! @NYGovCuomo #LivingOffTipsNY

Also, here is a link to our New York Times Letter to the Editor which was published on Saturday: http://nyti.ms/1imGkPr - feel free to include it in your tweets.

To the Editor:

Most New Yorkers don’t realize that tipped restaurant workers in the state earn a subminimum wage of just $5. As you note, the restaurant industry fiercely opposes raising their base pay (“Proposal to Raise Tip Wages Resisted,” Business Day, Jan. 27). Last year, the industry successfully lobbied Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to exclude these workers from New York’s minimum wage increase.

While a server in a high-end Manhattan restaurant may earn enough in tips to live comfortably, the reality for most tipped workers, including bus people and bartenders’ assistants, is very different. Living off tips means that workers face a family poverty rate that is three times the rate of the general work force and struggle to put food on their own tables. The majority of these workers are women and minorities.

Last year Governor Cuomo made a promise to use his executive authority to convene a wage board that would be empowered to give the state’s tipped workers a raise. It’s time for the governor to act on that promise and lead New York in closing the income gap.

Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York