Titlanice Means "We Will Win!"
After an Inspiring Campaign Launch, New Capitol Restaurant Workers Win Structural Changes
On April 23rd, 2016, the Titlanice Campaign workers rallied with LWC and community members to demand workplace justice at New Capitol Restaurant, a staple neighborhood diner in the north Bronx. Inside the restaurant, incognito activists prepared to have a birthday celebration, inviting the owner to join them in a birthday song. (Disclaimer: They weren't really celebrating a birthday…)
"The way you treat your workers has gone on for too long
The threats and the abuses and no safety on the job
And the wages of your workers that the owners have robbed.
It stops here and it stops now, is what we’re here to sing
because ’Titlanice’ means that the workers will win.”
With banners and signs, balloons, people power, and the rousing Rude Mechanical Orchestra, the workers delivered to management their demands to end wage theft, verbal/physical abuse, and dangerous working conditions.
The next week, the bosses of New Capitol Restaurant agreed to sit down with the workers, LWC, and Senator Gustavo Rivera as mediator to begin settlement talks. By the following Friday, Oscar Ramirez reported he and his coworkers had just been paid minimum wage plus overtime.
We are excited to announce that New Capitol ownership has complied with worker demands and labor law by:
- Reducing worker hours from an average of 77 hours a week to 56 hours
- Paying minimum wage and overtime
- Treating workers respectfully and without intimidation
- Providing all workers with daily uniforms, waterproof aprons, protective gloves, and shoe covers
- Repairing the damaged ceiling to fix leaks and prevent workers from inhaling dangerous dusts
- Installing rubber mats at dishwasher stations, a handrail for the steep basement stairs, and refinishing the steps to keep workers from slipping
- Promising to install a punch machine with recorded pay stubs by 5/18/2016.