ATLANTA
City workers win pay hike
By Dianne
Mathiowetz
Atlanta
Hundreds of angry and determined sanitation workers packed a
city council finance meeting on Feb. 16. They demanded a
$2,000-a-year pay raise.
Firefighters and police had already secured a similar
increase in pay. But the workers--mostly African Americans--who
pick up the garbage, fix the streets and maintain the parks
have not had even a cost-of-living raise in eight years.
While performing physically hard and often dangerous work,
many of these men and women earn about $16,000 a year for jobs
that are essential to the running of Atlanta. The city had even
reneged on a measly $600 bonus promised for last summer.
The message to the council members working on the budget was
clear: Find the money by the time the full city council met or
there would be no garbage pick-up.
The weekend before the city council meeting, the Atlanta
Labor Council and neighborhood groups announced their support
for the workers' demands. Many Atlantans, shocked to learn how
low the pay scale was, called for a living wage for all city
workers.
Wearing bright orange T-shirts, city workers began filling
the council chambers hours before the scheduled meeting on Feb.
19 to be sure they got seats. Spirits ran high as sign-carrying
workers chanted and sang, waiting for the meeting to be
begin.
In the face of a clearly united and militant work force, a
majority of the city council quickly endorsed the $2,000 pay
raise and promised the $600 bonus will be paid in July. After
the vote representatives of AFSCME--the city workers'
union--made it plain that if the city fails to live up to its
agreement workers will walk off the job.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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