SUNY Workers To Get Minimum Wage Boost, Newspaper Reports

Officials said Monday they would unilaterally raise the minimum wage for State University of NY employees, extending a policy Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced for other state workers in November.

Ultimately, the panel backed a $15 minimum wage, with different phase in periods for New York City-based workers and employees elsewhere in the state.

Last year, he made headlines by bypassing the state legislature to put in place a $15 minimum wage for fast food workers at large chains.

Cuomo held the rally Monday in Manhattan at the headquarters of Local 1199 SEIU, the powerful health care workers union. About 28,000 SUNY workers now make less than $15 per hour.

Cuomo’s goal now is to get lawmakers in Albany to sign on to a statewide minimum of $15.

The raise, when fully implemented, will cost the college system $28 million a year.

Cuomo is pushing for a statewide minimum wage of $15 for all businesses, which would be the highest in the nation, but he would need state legislative approval. “Yet the truth is that today’s minimum wage still leaves far too many people behind – unacceptably condemning them to a life of poverty even while they work full-time”, the Democrat said in a statement.

A Glens Falls brewpub said it has banned tips for its staff and will instead install an 18 percent surcharge on customers’ bills because of a 50 percent increase in the tipped wage in NY.

Cuomo framed the opposition to the wage hike among fast-food companies and other business interests as the private sector essentially supporting public subsidies for their workers. Cuomo wants to gradually raise the hourly wage to $15 for all workers, which would be the highest state wage in the nation. A press released touting the SUNY wage increase – which will not impact CUNY or community college employees – called the wage proposal the “1st proposal” for the governor’s 2016 agenda.

The full, $15 per hour level will not be reached until July 1, 2021. The Republican-led Senate has generally opposed raising the minimum wage, though it agreed to in 2013 as part of a package that also included business-tax cuts. The entire Legislature is up for re-election this year, and Senate Republicans are, once again, trying to hang onto their narrow control of the chamber.