BRIDGEPORT, CT—  As  the movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour continues to grow, the Connecticut Low Wage Employer Advisory Board will convene a hearing in Bridgeport on the impact of low wages and on raising the minimum wage. State residents will testify about how poverty wages hold back communities such as Bridgeport, a struggling urban center in a metro area ranked the most unequal in the United States.

This hearing will include testimony from Senator Marilyn Moore, Human Service chair, who recently applied and was hired at Target in an effort to gain a firsthand understanding on the impact of low wages on workers and their families, as well as by State Senator and Deputy Majority Leader Ed Gomes, a former steelworker who has lived in Bridgeport since 1944.  Additional testifiers will include underpaid workers across several industries, including Richard Grimes, a homeless Burger King worker from Hartford.

WHO: Fast-food, homecare, nursing, childcare, security, janitor, farm, restaurant and other underpaid workers
Elected leaders, including Senators Marilyn Moore and Ed Gomes
Community and clergy allies

WHEN: Wednesday, July 20, 2016
6:00PM – 8:00PM 

WHERE: Bridgeport City Council Chambers
45 Lyon Terrace
Bridgeport, CT

###

With more than 155,000 members in 11 states and Washington DC, including 4,000 members in Connecticut, 32BJ is the largest building service workers union in the country