WOMEN RESTAURANT WORKERS & ALLIES PROTEST GOV. CUOMO’S EXCLUSION OF RESTAURANTS FROM TIPPED WORKER EXECUTIVE ACTION BY ENGAGING IN MASS PUBLIC SELF-DEFENSE TRAINING
‘Women Workers Rising’ Action By One Fair Wage and One Billion Rising Will Feature Women Celebrities and Performances Standing in Solidarity For One Fair Wage & Safe & Dignified Workplaces
In response to Governor Cuomo’s New Year’s Eve announcement that he would enact One Fair Wage – a full minimum wage with tips on top – for all tipped workers except restaurant workers, women restaurant workers and their allies will stage a mass public self-defense training in front of the Governor’s office. Playwright/Founder of V-Day/One Billion Rising Eve Ensler, One Billion Rising, actress Carmen LoBue, social justice artist/musician Taína Asili, and the Resistance Revival Chorus will be joining One Fair Wage members and allies in demanding One Fair Wage and safe and dignified workplaces for all.
Given that New York State’s subminimum wage for tipped workers results in a 70% female workforce having to tolerate the highest rates of sexual harassment of any industry in order to feed their families in tips, women in the restaurant industry are demanding to be included in the One Fair Wage executive action. As long as they have a subminimum wage, they must learn to defend themselves from sexual violence in the workplace in order earn a living in tips.
One Fair Wage President Saru Jayaraman states, “Even though he announced that he would review the subminimum wage in 2017 specifically in order to address sexual harassment in the restaurant industry, Governor Cuomo instead gave One Fair Wage to other tipped workers and excluded restaurant workers – thus leaving them vulnerable to the highest rates of sexual harassment of any industry because of their reliance on tips. At a time that Pres. Trump is taking tipped workers’ federal rights a way, instead of rolling over to the power of the National Restaurant Association, Gov. Cuomo should follow through and enact One Fair Wage for all.”
Eve Ensler of One Billion Rising says, “I am rising on February 3 to honor and protect restaurant workers, to demand that they receive one fair wage which they so richly deserve and which will help protect them from sexual abuse on the job. This Women Workers Rising action joins the thousands of One Billion Rising creative resistance actions taking place throughout the US and the world, where women are rising up on the stage, in the streets, and in front of government offices, to demand changes in the policies and culture that sustain violence and inequality. We will rise until the violence stops.”
WHAT: Mass Public Self-Defense Training by Restaurant Workers & Allies WHEN: Monday, 3 February 2020, 12:00PM WHERE: Governor Cuomo’s New York City Office – 633 3rd Avenue, New York, NY, USA
Across the globe, V-Day, One Billion Rising and City of Joy activists are rising up, through artistic and political resistance actions to end rape, battery, incest, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery and trafficking, child marriage, femicide, sexual, gender and reproductive oppression, violence towards LGBTQIA+ communities; Raising the vibration through art, action, and solidarity.
Want to Get Involved?RISE 2020: Raise the Vibration, plan a RISING, a V-DAY benefit production, or a CITY OF JOY screening or house party in your college or community.
Meet Taína Asili, the Latina Musician Behind One Billion Rising’s Viral New Music Video
“We Are Rising,” Women’s Liberation Anthem Released Ahead of V-Day In Collaboration With One Billion Rising, Has Already Been Viewed More Than Half A Million Times
Renowned Puerto Rican singer and social justice musician Taína Asili has just released the song “We Are Rising” in a collaboration with One Billion Rising, the global activist campaign to end rape and sexual violence against all women, founded by playwright/activist Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues, The Apology). Directed, written and performed by Asili, the song is the centerpiece of One Billion Rising’s 2020 campaign, promoting collective energy, creative resistance, and solidarity to rise against the tides of violence against all women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities), climate crisis, racism and corporate greed. Ensler, together with V-Day/One Billion Rising’s Susan Celia Swan and Monique Wilson, also serves as executive producer for the video which has already been viewed more than half a million times across online platforms. Taína will perform the song for the first time live at the Women Workers Rising Action on February 3.
One Billion Rising is active in over 200 countries and the video features activist footage from Manila to Whanganui, New Zealand to Narok, Kenya and many more locations – along with studio footage from the recording session. It is a call to action, to dance, to RISE.
“Music has always been the heartbeat of our movements for liberation. With “We Are Rising” I offer women around the world a new anthem to help us tap into the energy, strength, courage and wisdom needed to usher in a new era of justice and healing,” said Taína Asili about the new song and video.
On February 3 in NYC, Taína will perform “We Are Rising” for the first time live at a Women Workers Rising Self Defense action taking place in front of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office to demand One Fair Wage for tipped restaurant workers. (February 3, Noon, 633 3rd Ave.)
Taína Asili is a Puerto Rican singer, bandleader and activist carrying on the tradition of her ancestors, fusing past and present struggles into one soulful and defiant voice. Taína creatively weaves her artwork into the fabric of movements for social change. In 2017, she performed at the historic Women’s March on Washington, and later released her music video “No Es Mi Presidente,” which premiered in Rolling Stone and received national acclaim. The Huffington Post named her in a list of in a list of “12 Freedom Fighting Bands To Get You Through the Trump Years”, and Billboard Magazine featured her in a list of “11 Songs of Protest & Resistance by Latino Artists.” Over her 20-year career, Taína has performed around the globe, sharing the stage with renowned artists and activists such as Alicia Keys, Janelle Monae, Talib Kweli, Toshi Reagon, Angela Davis, Cornel West, and Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine.
One Billion Rising is the biggest mass action to end violence against women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence) in human history. The campaign, which launched on Valentine’s Day 2012, began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS.
Twenty one years ago, Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues gave birth to V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender based violence).
Since 1998, The Vagina Monologues and other works have been performed across the world by local V-Day activists, raising over $120 million dollars for grassroots anti-violence groups, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, and safe houses in places like Kenya and Afghanistan. V-Day supports and launched the City of Joy, a revolutionary center for women survivors of gender violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has graduated over 1300 women leaders.
In 2013, V-Day gave birth to One Billion Rising – the largest mass action to demand an end to violence against women in history. V-Day and One Billion Rising are a crucial part of the global fight to stop gender-based violence through attacking the silence — public and private — that allows violence against women to continue.
With ingenuity and determination, V-Day activists around the world are tirelessly working to end harassment, rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sex slavery.
