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Tell Memphis Government: Stop Acting in Bad Faith with your Workers
  1. Signatures
    1,941 out of 2,500
    Petitioning
    1. City Council Member (+ 12 others)
      Petitioning
      close
      • City Council Member (Councilman Reid Hedgepeth)
      • City Council Member (Councilwoman Janis Fullilove)
      • City Council Member (Councilman Myron Lowery)
      • City Council Member (Councilman Kemp Conrad)
      • Memphis Mayor (Mayor AC Wharton)
      • City Council Member (Councilwoman Wanda Halbert)
      • City Council Member (Councilman Bill Boyd)
      • City Council Member (Councilman Jim Strickland)
      • City Council Member (Councilman Edmund Ford Jr.)
      • City Council Member (Councilman Shea Flinn)
      • City Council Member (Councilman Bill Morrison)
      • City Council Member (Councilman Harold Collins)
      • City Council Member (Councilman Joe Brown)
  2. Created By
    Workers Interfaith Network
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

The City of Memphis is acting in bad faith toward its workers. This spring, the hard-working people who keep our City running agreed during union negotiations to go a third straight year without any pay raises. They also agreed to pay increased health care costs themselves of up to 20 percent. Mayor AC Wharton’s administration made no mention of pay cuts during these negotiations.

Then in June, the Memphis City Council passed a budget that included a 4.6 percent pay cut for all workers who are not in management positions. These cuts affect even the lowest paid workers, who already struggle to survive on their wages. More than 100 workers were laid off, and many other workers were offered forced early retirement.

By instituting these pay cuts without negotiating with workers’ unions, Mayor Wharton and the City Council are violating a City ordinance which lays out a clear process for negotiation. City officials claim they are in a fiscal emergency, yet they have refused to follow the local ordinance that requires them to reveal their books to workers’ unions to show whether a true emergency exists. Because of this violation of the law, a dozen unions representing City workers have filed suit against the City.

The citizens of Memphis must call on our elected officials to act in good faith toward its workers and abide by the agreements they negotiated with workers this spring.

Why People Are Signing
Recent Signatures

Stop Acting in Bad Faith with your Workers

Greetings,

I urge the City of Memphis to act in good faith toward its workers and rescind the 4.6 pay cuts that were made in July. These cuts are in violation of the agreements that the City already negotiated with workers this spring.

Workers have already sacrificed by agreeing to pay freezes for three straight years and absorbing the most recent increase in health care premiums. No mention of pay cuts was made in the City’s negotiations with them this spring.

Furthermore, I’m concerned that the City may be violating its promise to pay all of its workers a living wage of at least $10 an hour for workers who receive benefits, and $12 an hour for workers who do not receive benefits.

More than 40 years since the historic City of Memphis sanitation strike, it seems our City government is still not willing to bargain in good faith with its workers. I call on you to take action to immediately rescind these pay cuts and to abide by the agreements you have already made with workers.
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Sincerely,

[Your name]

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