By Malik Thompson, on January 23rd, 2019 
The current minimum wage for most hourly workers in the District of Columbia is $13.25, which is set to increase to $15 come 2020. Tipped workers, however, receive a fraction of that amount per hour. As of July 1, 2018, tipped workers (which can include servers, valets, and bartenders) receive $3.89 per hour, with an anticipated increase to $5.00 by 2020. The justification for this low hourly wage is the understanding that, in the case that an employee is unable to meet DC’s minimum wage with their tips, the employer will cover the difference. Therefore, a tipped worker who is unable to make $13.25 per hour in tips will have their wage supplemented by their employer under the Fair Shot Minimum Wage Amendment Act of 2016. However, restaurants in the DC area have been under fire for charges of wage theft, putting into question workers’ lived experience of this law.
Research done by the United States Department of Labor reveals that, nationally, the US food service industry has had higher rates of wage violation than any other low wage industry since 2008. In fiscal year 2018 alone, over 41,000 food service workers reported nearly $43 million in thefted wages. Research done in 2011 by the Washington, DC chapter of the Restaurant Opportunities Center (also known as ROC), a non-profit based in Manhattan whose stated mission is to “improve wages and working conditions for the nation’s restaurant workforce.”, gives us a local perspective on wage violations in the restaurant industry. Following a year’s worth of research, ROC’s DC chapter released a 76 page report on DC’s restaurant industry. Table 7 (which can be found on page 25) of the report reveals that 33.5% of restaurant workers in DC report having experienced overtime wage violations and 11.4% report having experienced minimum wage violations. As further detailed in ROC’s report:
11.4% of the workers spoken with reported earning less than $8.25 per hour, which violated DC’s 2011 minimum wage laws Only 18.5% of tipped workers were able to correctly recall the correct minimum wage and only 9.7% knew the amount of the tipped minimum wage, even though it is the employer’s responsibility to post bilingual signs in the workplace detailing this information
A briefer report published by the Economic Policy Institute further reveals that:
Tipped workers in DC are largely people of color (70% of the tipped workforce while only 55% of the general workforce) The median annual wage for servers and bartenders in DC is $22,763. 13.7% of tipped workers live below the poverty line
Of course, given the unsavory conditions tipped workers were experiencing in the restaurant industry, movement to make change was inevitable. In the spring of 2018, a campaign promoting Initiative 77 began. Initiative 77 was a ballot initiative (meaning that an adequate number of registered voters signed a petition to get a statute or amendment voted on publicly) that would rework DC’s minimum wage laws for tipped workers. Under Initiative 77, the tipped minimum wage would increase each year so that, by 2026, tipped workers would be making $15 an hour, the same as other workers in DC receiving an hourly wage. It seems that, in the frenzied coverage of the Initiative, many people assumed that tipped workers would begin receiving the minimum wage immediately, not understanding that employers would have 8 years to pay their employees the eventual $15 minimum wage.
The Washington, DC chapter of ROC became the primary driving force in support of Initiative 77 in DC. Faced with opposition from, both, restaurant owners and tipped workers themselves, Initiative 77 became one of the most discussed and controversial political topics in DC during the 2018 local election season. The proposal of Initiative 77 left the city cleaved into two camps; those in support of the initiative and those against it. A cursory glance through a DC area resident’s Facebook or Twitter feed from that period of time would very likely contain at least one charged debate over the initiative. Alongside the business owners and tipped workers opposing Initiative 77, Mayor Muriel Bowser and various members of the DC Council publicly opposed the Initiative as well. It must be stated, however, that many of the politicians in opposition to Initiative 77 have, at various points, received money from restaurants for their campaigns. After being passed by voters by a more than 10% margin, Initiative 77 was repealed by eight members of the DC Council on Oct. 2nd, 2018.
I find myself clearly seeing . . . → Read More: Initiative 77 & The Crisis of The Tipped Minimum Wage
By Miheema Goodine, on January 9th, 2019 Racism is the result of historic actions, thoughts, and laws that still impact society. Racism is embedded in the traditions and institutions of the United States. It is especially tragic when racism shows up in spaces that were built to be havens against it. Barry Farm has a rich history in which these instances occur.
Barry Farm, also known as Hillsdale, began as a settlement established after the Civil War in 1867 for free blacks and formerly enslaved African Americans. Abolition created labor problems, loss of productivity, and efforts to restore the plantation system. In many plantation societies, governments sought to force former slaves back to work with strict vagrancy laws, coercive labor contracts and regressive taxes. Ultimately, the abolishment of slavery did not produce many changes. Former slaves continued to do their former slave work of tobacco farming, breeding and whatever was asked of them. Because the 14th amendment was not properly enforced, Reconstruction brought about Black Codes and the Ku Klux Klan. It was difficult for the formerly enslaved blacks to adjust to being free around whites and for whites to adjust to being around free blacks.
The Origins Of Barry Farms
The Freedmen’s Bureau was created by Congress in order to help former slaves adjust to society after the abolishment of slavery. The Bureau enlisted Oliver O. Howard as the commissioner whose job was to ensure the well-being of blacks, both free-born and formerly enslaved. Hillsdale was built by Oliver O. Howard whose mission was to advance the rights of blacks. The name originated from the landowner James Barry who was an incorporator of the Washington Canal Company. After the property was purchased, African Americans squatted on it until arrangements could be made for them to build homes for themselves. Free black people were offered $215 – $300 to buy an acre of land to build a house and $76 for lumber to construct a house from the Freedman Bureau. Slaves wages varied but they received from $100 a year for unskilled work and up to $500 for skilled work. Freedman and refugees of the war worked every day for plantations in and around the District of Columbia and came home in the evenings to build their modest 14 ft x 24ft two-room houses, using the light of bonfires or lanterns candlelight.
The neighborhood was home to activists such as Frederick Douglass Patterson, Garnet C. Wilkinson, and Dr. Georgiana R. Simpson. Many historical accounts do not acknowledge the relationship the Douglass’s have with the resident and often “whitewash” the history. Charles Douglass, the son of Frederick Douglass was a teacher in the community and advocated for the District of Columbia Emancipation Act. If the Douglass family’s connection to Barry Farm were better known, it’s possible that the future of the community would not now be in jeopardy.
The Deterioration of the Site
By 1900 Barry Farm’s original landscape began to be separated for construction. The Alexandria Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad separated the community from Popular Point. Half of its original land was turned into military bases after WW2, which displaced a few of the descendants of the first tenants. The 20th century required a better means of transportation and more modern renovations, which led to many of the original homes being razed. Railroad tracks that had been laid for the construction of the Suitland Parkway, isolated Barry Farm between two traffic arteries: Suitland Parkway and Interstate 295.
Today the District of Columbia government plans to demolish and redevelop the historic site. The District’s Council wants to turn housing, that was at one time affordable, into retail space and market-rate units. These new upscale designs attract new residents while displacing the former tenants. When you observe the urban and modern surroundings of the neighborhood, non-residents view Hillsdale as the eyesore of Ward 8. But the D.C. City Council redevelopment plan, which puts the desires of new residents ahead of the needs of natives and long-term residents, is flawed. The area has been under development for over a decade as part of the New Communities Initiative to renovate dilapidated public housing. The Housing Authority has already begun to demolish the site while leaving residents with the option to relocate until the development is finished or move using a Section 8 voucher.
The citizens have had their fair share of injustice since the construction of the neighborhood. Over the years, the citizens have watched their community decrease in size. Today many health codes are violated . . . → Read More: Barry Farm: The Destruction of a Historic Landmark
By Liane Scott, on January 3rd, 2019 
81.6 percent of police stops in the District of Columbia between 2010 and 2016 involved Black people. 89 percent of use-of-force incidents by police involved a Black individuals from Oct. 1, 2016 through Sept. 30, 2017. . . . → Read More: Is It Time to End Stop and Frisk?
By Guest Contributor, on November 19th, 2018 
Cross-Posted from Education DC Written by Valerie Jablow
At last week’s November 15 council hearing, on the plan to build a new Banneker high school at the site of the closed Shaw Junior High, dozens of public witnesses testified, advocating for either Banneker or a Shaw middle school of right on the site.
But after more than four hours of their testimony, it took less than 10 minutes for the two government witnesses to outline DC’s newest educational initiative–which would be doing whatever someone in power wants.
The opening 5-minute salvo came during acting DME Paul Kihn’s opening testimony, in which he presented a rationale for not putting a Shaw middle school of right in Shaw–as called for in multiple capital plans as well as the 2014 boundaries study.
Cautioning about “using data” to determine a need for a Shaw middle school, Kihn recited population forecasts from the office of planning as well as current and expected enrollments, the “average boundary participation rate” in DCPS (24%), and available capacity at Cardozo.
After blithely concluding that all that “data” show that there is no need at all for a Shaw middle school of right, Kihn amazingly floated the idea of a citywide middle school at the Shaw site because, uh, no boundaries!
It’s hard to imagine that Kihn really does not know that the lottery works for schools of right as well as for schools of choice.
As it is, boundary participation rates are not indicative of enrollment–as the staff in his own office know very well because by using their own data, I can see that DCPS’s Sousa middle school has a 68% in boundary participation rate–and is underenrolled. While Stuart-Hobson, fully enrolled for the last several decades, has a 25% in boundary participation rate.
Yeah.
The other seminal moment of testimony was this 2-minute clip of interim chancellor Amanda Alexander (who in that role is subordinate to the acting DME).
In it, Alexander responds to a question from education committee chair David Grosso, who asked her to explicate the meetings DCPS held with the Banneker and Shaw communities about the plan to locate Banneker at Shaw. While explaining (eventually) that the decision to locate Banneker at Shaw was made after the feasibility study was completed (August 15, 2018), the interim chancellor stated that the Shaw community was engaged on the subject starting in May 2018.
This sounds good until you realize that the idea of Banneker at Shaw had been raised months before, in February 2018 (see here for all the Banneker modernization plans), when the Banneker feasibility study was undertaken.
But the feasibility study strangely explored only two options: Banneker at its current building and Banneker at Shaw. As thorough as it is in its examination of those options, the study contains nothing about a Shaw middle school in Shaw nor any discussion about other sites for Banneker–or data to justify expanding it to almost twice its current size.
It appears that someone somewhere ruled all of that out well before February 2018–something no official at the hearing ever raised.
The sad truth behind all of this public obfuscation is that Banneker still needs a renovation and an appropriate facility.
More to the point, Banneker’s renovation has been deferred for so long that it falls in the same disturbing pattern of inequity that we have already seen in our city for school resourcing and modernizations. It was that pattern, in fact, that led the council to enact the PACE Act in the first place, to ensure political power was not the driver of modernized, adequate, and safe school spaces.
Yet, instead of focusing on that urgency and the fact that no one in his own office pursued a fulsome feasibility study examining all the “data” for Banneker around the city, the acting DME used his time at the hearing to admonish advocates for a Shaw middle school of right for not being “practical” and “fiscally responsible.”
This was pretty rich, given that later in the hearing the acting DME had no accurate cost estimate whatsoever to share with the council on the new Banneker at Shaw.
And it was also pretty rich given that Kihn spent time talking about how he thought some Shaw residents “feel excluded” from the planning and the importance of public officials not going into public meetings with a “predetermined outcome.”
Now, it is possible that hundreds of people complaining for weeks before the hearing–and testifying in droves during the hearing–about the lack of . . . → Read More: This Is What Democracy Doesn’t Look Like: Banneker/Shaw Edition
By Ajoke Williams, on October 29th, 2018 
On November 3rd, Social Conscience PBC will host a screening of Backburner Dreams, a documentary about three women of color pursuing their dreams. Two screenings are schedule beginning at 6:15 and 8:00 pm, Westminster Church, 400 I Street NW. A panel discussion will follow each film. . . . → Read More: Screening and Discussion of BackBurner Dreams
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