I’ve long believed that everyone who’s willing to work hard should have the chance to move up in the world. But that’s not the reality for the 3 million men women across New York now struggling to provide for their families on $8 an hour. That’s why I’ve co-sponsored legislation to raise the state’s minimum wage, plus permission for municipalities to raise the wage higher still, in line with local living costs.
Now the time has come to make that vision real.
The Working Families Party has been the key voice in pushing the Democratic Party to be more responsive to the issues that matter to everyday low- and middle-income New Yorkers. Although I am a Democrat, my vote for the Working Families ballot line is for the people who need government to do everything in its power to improve the state for the most vulnerable.
That’s why I’m urging you to join me in voting the Working Families Party ballot line this Nov. 4. To give low-wage workers the raise they deserve. To pay the kinds of salaries that let the people who drive our economy feed their kids, take them to the doctor and set something aside for the future.
If anyone can do it, it’s the Working Families Party. They believe that New York should work for all of us, not just the wealthy and well connected. For the past 16 years, the Working Families Party has been a key ally to the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus in its fights for social and economic justice. It has had a hand in nearly every major progressive victory in New York, from raising the minimum wage to winning paid sick days to passing the Millionaire’s Tax.
The Working Families Party has also played an important role in racial justice work, from joining the struggle to reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws that filled New York’s prisons with nonviolent first-time offenders, to helping to end the abuse of stop-and-frisk in New York.
As far back as 1998, the Amsterdam News put it best: “Imagine a political party that unites Caribbean and Latino low-wage workers in Brooklyn with white pipe-and-steam fitters from Buffalo. Imagine that party proposing good jobs at living wages, affordable housing, access to child and health care—and meaning it.”
This November, voting on the Working Families ballot line means fighting for the real change that working families in New York need. All Working Families candidates, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have committed to an agenda that calls for a higher minimum wage and the end of big money politics; a full Women’s Equality Act that supports equal pay for equal work; a DREAM Act that will help a whole generation of Dreamers access tuition aid and go to college; and a reduction in the number of racially biased marijuana arrests, so we can stop the war on young men of color that is the “war on drugs.”
A vote on the Working Families ballot line not only sends progressive leaders and caucus members to Albany but also strengthens the party’s political power so it can hold candidates to their promises after Election Day. This party walks its talk. It works year round by knocking on doors and organizing meetings, press conferences and rallies to ensure that change really happens once the voting is done.
I urge you to join me and the thousands of other New Yorkers who want to see an end to our state’s inequality crisis. Vote the entire Working Families Party ballot line on Election Day. Let’s make it real.
Karim Camara, D-Brooklyn, is an assemblyman and chair of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus
