ACORN News December 10, 2004

[colist at comm-org.utoledo.edu]

[ed:  this is one of the regular ACORN updates.]

From: "Camellia Phillips" <acornnews at acorn.org>

ACORN News: December 10, 2004In This Issue

            1. New York State Raises Minimum Wage

            2. ACORN Presents Jackson-Hewitt with "Turkey of the Year" 
Awar d

            3. Massachusetts Introduces Statewide Measures to Benefit 
Low-i ncome Families

            4. Cook County, Illinois, Expands Living Wage

            5. 350 Rally in Brooklyn for Education Reform

            6. Cincinnati Blocks Bus Fare Hike

            7. Tampa Wins Neighborhood Cleanup Demands

            8. Las Cruces, NM, ACORN Opens

                
                   
           
            ACORN News December 10, 2004

            New York State Raises Minimum Wage

            On December 6, the New York Working Families Party, working 
clo sely with New York ACORN, won a major victory when the State Senate 
joined the State Assembly in voting to override the Governor's veto and 
enact a st atewide minimum wage increase. The measure was initially 
passed by both hou ses of the state legislature on July 21, but vetoed 
by Governor George Pata ki days later. The law will go into effect on 
January 1, 2005, and will rai se the state minimum wage floor by $2 per 
hour over two years - from the cu rrent $5.15 to $7.15 by January 1, 
2007. The law will also raise the hourly
 minimum wage for restaurant and bar employees who earn tips, from the 
curr ent level of $3.30 per hour to $4.60 by 2007. An estimated 1.2 
million work ers throughout the state will benefit from the minimum wage 
increase. The W orking Families Party, New York ACORN, and other allies 
have been working o ver the last several years to raise the state's 
minimum wage, including hol ding demonstrations, meeting with elected 
officials, flyering, organizing l etter writing campaigns, holding 
candlelight vigils, and publishing op-eds and research reports. For more 
information, contact Bertha Lewis at nyacorn brk at acorn.org or 718-246-7900.

            ACORN Presents Jackson-Hewitt with "Turkey of the Year" Award

                  

                 

                  Delaware ACORN delivered a "Turkey of the Year" award 
cer tificate to Jackson-Hewitt.
                 
            During Thanksgiving week, ACORN members in more than 30 
cities across the country held protests at Jackson-Hewitt offices to 
present compa ny representatives with "Turkey of the Year" awards for 
stealing millions o f dollars from low-income neighborhoods through the 
sales of Refund Anticip ation Loans (RALs) and other overpriced bank 
products. Jackson-Hewitt is th e second largest tax preparer in the 
country, and regularly targets low-inc ome families - 73% of 
Jackson-Hewitt's customers make less than $29,000 per
 year and 70% of their customers are sold a RAL or other high-cost bank 
pro duct. ACORN members found a variety of ways to make their point:

                  

                 

                  Arizona ACORN members protested at a Glendale 
Jackson-Hew itt location.
                 
                 In Wilmington, Delaware, ACORN members presented the local
 Jackson-Hewitt office with a giant Turkey of the Year certificate and a 
tr ay of day old turkey.  
                 In San Antonio, Texas, an ACORN leader presented a 
local J ackson-Hewitt franchise with their award and then chastised the 
staff for r ipping her off last year with a RAL for which she ended up 
waiting a month and was charged over $400.  
                 In Philadelphia, when ACORN members presented the local 
ma nager with a Turkey of the Year award, a woman who was at the 
Jackson-Hewit t office taking a class to become a tax preparer with the 
company, stood up
 and announced that she was also an ACORN member and urged the manager 
to a ccept the award and listen to ACORN's concerns.

            In the coming tax season, ACORN will continue protesting at 
Jac kson-Hewitt offices until the company agrees to reform their 
products and s ales practices. ACORN will also be conducting grassroots 
door-to-door outre ach campaigns in neighborhoods around the country to 
help more families cla im their Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) 
benefits, to warn them about high- cost RALs, and to let them know about 
free tax preparation sites. For more information, contact Jordan Ash at 
financialjustice at acorn.org or 651-644-50
61.

            Massachusetts Introduces Statewide Measures to Benefit 
Low-inco me Families

            In the first week of December, Massachusetts ACORN and 
allies i ncluding the AFL-CIO, Greater Boston Legal Services, and 
Neighbor to Neighb or, worked with legislators to introduce two bills 
into the state legislatu re that would benefit low-income working 
families in the state. The first b ill would increase the state's 
minimum wage from the current $6.75 to $8.25
 by January 2007 and add annual indexing of the wage to inflation. It would
 also add coverage for public sector employees and create a Minimum Wage 
Co mmission to consider future increases. The second proposal, which has 
alrea dy drawn 30 co-sponsors in the state legislature, would increase 
the state' s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for working poor families 
from 15% to 30%
 of the federal EITC. The bill would also ensure that individuals who 
are e ligible for the federal and state EITCs are informed by their 
employers and
 through community outreach by the Department of Revenue. Increasing 
awaren ess and utilization of these tax credits will enable low and 
moderate incom e families to pay fewer taxes and have more income 
available to meet their basic needs. These new bills would expand upon 
successful efforts by ACORN and allies in 1999 that resulted in raising 
the state minimum wage to $6.75
 and increasing the state EITC. For more information, contact Chris Leonard
 at maacornns at acorn.org or 617-436-7100.

            Cook County, Illinois, Expands Living Wage

            In December, the Cook County Board of Commissioners passed 
an a mendment to raise and expand the county's six-year-old living wage 
ordinanc e. The amendment, which was sponsored by Commissioner Roberto 
Maldonado and
 supported by Illinois ACORN, will increase the living wage level from $7.6
0 to $9.43 per hour, add a category for employees without health 
benefits t hat requires payment of $11.78 per hour, index the living 
wage level to the
 poverty level so it will go up automatically every year, and expand 
covera ge to more contractors and to some subsidy recipients. 
Commissioner Maldona do began the campaign to raise and expand the 
living wage back in July of t his year, with the help of ACORN, SEIU, 
AFSCME, UNITE HERE, Centro Sin Fron teras, and others. The amendment 
enhances an ordinance that was passed in 1
998 after the Chicago City Council passed their living wage ordinance. 
Now both ordinances are indexed to inflation and will go up 
automatically each year. For more information, contact Madeline Talbott 
at ilacorn at acorn.org o r 312-939-7488.

            350 Rally in Brooklyn for Education Reform

            On November 16, more than 350 parents, teachers, community 
resi dents, and health care workers rallied at Thomas Jefferson High 
School in B rooklyn, NY, to call for major investment in middle grades 
education in Eas t Brooklyn. The rally was organized by the Brooklyn 
Education Collaborative
 (BEC), which was created in February 2004 by ACORN, Cypress Hills 
Advocate s for Education, 1199 SEIU/Child Care Fund, the Institute for 
Education and
 Social Policy at New York University, and the United Federation of 
Teacher s, to promote change in three major Brooklyn school districts. 
These distri cts, 18, 19 and 23, all have exceptionally low reading and 
math scores, hig h school graduation rates that are eleven percentage 
points below the cityw ide average, and high teacher and principal 
turnover. At the November 16 ra lly, the Brooklyn Education 
Collaborative also called on the Department of Education to work with 
them to implement BEC's 8-Point Middle Grades Reform
 Platform, which calls for measures including increased mentoring and 
suppo rt for new principals and teachers, high quality after-school and 
extended- day programs, and strong community/school connections. Of the 
campaign, New
 York ACORN Vice President Pat Boone said: "This is not rocket science. 
We all know what our children need in school. BEC has come together 
because it
 is time that they get it." For more information, contact Bertha Lewis 
at n yacornbrk at acorn.org or 718-246-7900.

            Cincinnati Blocks Bus Fare Hike

            In November, when Cincinnati's Metro bus system proposed a fare
 increase of 53% - from 65 cents to $1 per ride - after a year of 
continuin g service cuts in inner-city neighborhoods amidst increasing 
service to sub urban areas, ACORN members immediately took action. In 
order to raise fares , Metro must get approval from both the Southwest 
Ohio Regional Transit Aut hority Board (SORTA) and the Cincinnati City 
Council. On November 23, ACORN
 members rallied at a Metro-hosted public forum on the issue to demonstrate
 community opposition to raising fares. Then, both on December 2 and 
again on December 8, ACORN members testified at City Council hearings in 
support of a council motion that would prohibit Metro from passing their 
budget def icit on to bus riders through a rate hike. With ACORN members 
filling the f ront rows of the City Council chamber, the council voted 
5-4 to reject the proposed rate hike. For more information, contact 
Diedre Murch at ohacornci ro at acorn.org or 513-221-1737.

            Tampa Wins Neighborhood Cleanup Demands

            ACORN members in Tampa's Orient Park neighborhood have won 
clea n up of a large four-lot property owned by the Hillsborough County 
Water De partment that has sat abandoned and contaminated in the middle 
of the Orien t Park subdivision for nearly a decade. In recent years, 
the property had b ecome home to drug dealers and vandals who would 
break into abandoned build ings on the site. On November 8, fed up with 
the crime and blight in their neighborhood, Orient Park ACORN members 
held a protest at the County Water Department demanding that the site be 
cleaned, the buildings demolished, an d that community members be given 
a say in future uses of the property. ACO RN members presented their 
demands to the head of the Water Department, and
 in response the county has already begun demolishing abandoned 
buildings o n the site, committed to cleaning the entire property within 
one year, and agreed to have ACORN members sit on a council that will 
decide the property 's future. For more information, contact Roxane 
Kolar at flacorntaro at acorn. org or 813-241-6333.  

            Las Cruces, NM, ACORN Opens

            ACORN has opened a second office in New Mexico, in the city 
of Las Cruces. Las Cruces is located about an hour from the U.S.-Mexico 
border
 and has a large Latino and immigrant population. ACORN is currently 
organi zing citywide around issues including schools, housing, wages and 
public sa fety. For more information contact Rosa Soto at 
nmacorn at acorn.org.

           
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            ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform 
No w, is the nation's largest community organization of low- and 
moderate-inco me families, with over 150,000 member families organized 
into 700 neighborh ood chapters in 75 cities across the country. Since 
1970 ACORN has taken ac tion and won victories on issues of concern to 
our members. Our priorities include: better housing for first time 
homebuyers and tenants, living wages
 for low-wage workers, more investment in our communities from banks and 
go vernments, and better public schools. We achieve these goals by 
building co mmunity organizations that have the power to win changes -- 
through direct action, negotiation, legislation, and voter participation.

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            Camellia Phillips

            ACORN - Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

            88 3rd Ave, Floor 3
            Brooklyn, NY 11217

            phone: 718-246-7900 x227
            fax: 718-246-7939
            acornnews at acorn.org

            http://www.acorn.org