Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has kicked off the New Year forging ahead on the minimum wage fight with an announcement that the roughly 28,000 State University of New York employees will make at least $15 per hour by July 2021.
The announcement was part of a rally held in New York City on Jan. 4 at the 32BJ Services Employees International Union headquarters where Cuomo was joined by U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez and Brooklyn-born actor Steve Buscemi.
Pending a vote by the SUNY Board of Trustees expected at its January board meeting, all state university employees, including full-time staff, student workers and work study participants, could see their pay increased to $9.75 an hour in February. This will incrementally increase to an hourly rate of $15 on Dec. 31, 2018 in New York City and July 1, 2021 in the rest of the state.
The total wage increase is expected to cost SUNY $28 million, according to a press release from Cuomo’s office.
This pay raise plan for SUNY workers closely follows the gradual wage increases to $15 per hour experienced by fast-food workers and state-employed workers who started earning $9.75 per hour Dec. 31, 2015, and will reach $15 at the same time as the SUNY employees.
All other workers in the state saw minimum wages increase to $9 per hour the last day of 2015, the last uptick from a minimum wage law signed by Cuomo in 2013.
For the first time since May ”“ when Cuomo began a multi-pronged effort to increase minimum hourly pay rates to $15 per hour through direct action ”“ the governor outlined a strategy Monday describing how he plans to make New York the state with the highest minimum wage in the country.
“First, we are chipping away at it. We”™re making a little progress, a little progress, a little progress. It was Vince Lombardi, three yards, four yards every down,” Cuomo said.
This piecemeal game plan, which in 2015 has consisted of the governor empaneling a wage board that recommended increasing hourly rates to $15 per hour for fast-food workers and directly raising the minimum wage for state employees, is what the governor is calling Track One.
“Track two is we are going to go to that New York state Legislature and we are going to win this battle the old-fashioned way,” he said. “We are going to knock on doors, we are going to make phone calls, we are going to say to elected officials, ”˜There are 3 million New Yorkers who need a raise, you vote against $15, you vote against the 3 million New Yorkers who need it.”™”
The first litmus test with the state Legislature will take place Thursday when a public hearing is scheduled to discuss the potential impact of a $15 statewide minimum hourly wage on workers and employers. Sen. Jack M. Martins, a Republican who represents part of Long Island, is the chair of the senate Standing Committee on Labor and will oversee the hearing.
During the 2015 legislative session, Cuomo and the Democrat-led Assembly failed to pass a minimum wage increase in the state budget.
While Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie, a Democrat who represents the Bronx, has stood by the governor”™s minimum wage campaign throughout 2015, the Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan, a Republican who represents part of Long Island, told the Business Council of Westchester in September that he anticipates the minimum wage fight being “contentious.”
