CVH, Melissa Mark-Viverito, DC37, TWU stand up against unpaid work Bloomberg seeks to force NYers to perform

Participants in the press conference will include CVH leaders, and senior leadership from District Council 37 and the Transit Workers Union Local 100, as well as Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, Chair of the Parks & Recreation Committee.

They will be releasing a statement in which they are joined by labor union leaders including Robert Schwartz of American Federation of Government Employees-Local 1151; Julie Kushner, Director, United Auto Workers Region 9A; Stuart Appelbaum, President of Retail, Wholesale, Department Store United. Also signing the statement are elected officials including: U.S. Representative Ed Towns; NYC Council Members Chin, Dromm, Foster, James, Lander, Levin, Palma, Rivera, Rodriguez, Rose and Williams. Ally organizations joining include Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, Women of Color Policy Network at NYU Wagner, National Center for Law and Economic Justice, National Jobs with Justice, Hunger Action Network of New York State, Dutchess Outreach Inc, Rev Ozzie Edwards of HCNSA and religious institutions including Walker Memorial Baptist Church and Rev Debra Jamieson of Focus Churches of Albany.

In 2012, nearly 17,000 people were doing unpaid WEP every day in NYC and recently Mayor Bloomberg has begun forcing New Yorkers receiving food stamps to do WEP. Cuts to the Park Opportunity Program will be discussed at a City Council Parks & Recreation Committee budget hearing to take place right after the press conference. The NYC Human Resources Administration and the Parks Department have both proposed cuts to the Parks Opportunity Program (POP), which is a program providing a pay check, job training, and one day of classroom training to people on public assistance through the JTP program. Mayor Bloomberg is proposing to replace JTPs with WEP workers, which would force people on public assistance to work for their benefits without a pay check, without paying into social security, no union membership, and no qualifying for earned income tax credit.

The statement was organized by CVH, which is a grassroots, membership-based organization of low-income families with chapters in New York City and New York State. CVH has over 15,000 low-income members in NYC.