Justice, political and labor leaders stood inside the New York Hilton Midtown and declared that the mission to end subminimum wage is the unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement.
“As we think about the partnership with One Fair Wage and the relationship with labor you know that NAACP and labor is married,” said Jamal R. Watkins, senior vice president of strategy and advancement at the NAACP, during a spirited press conference. “The movement of working people is the movement of Black people, the movement of Brown people, the movement of women, the movement of children, the movement of folks who had to make this country what it is.”
With Black History Month underway, and held during the NAACP National Leadership Convening and Black History Month, the gathering united NAACP President Derrick Johnson, National Urban League leadership, New York NAACP Chair L. Joy Williams, New York City Councilmember Yusef Salaam (D), One Fair Wage President and co-founder Saru Jayaraman, tipped restaurant workers, small business owners and labor advocates. Together, they called for passage of Living Wage for All, legislation newly introduced in New York City and New York State, and for similar congressional bills.
“Today we recognize Black History Month, and as we recognize Black History Month, we also recognize that the fight for economic justice is inseparable for the ongoing struggle of racial justice,” said Salaam. “This gathering honors the leadership, resilience, and contribution of Black workers who have always been at the forefront of movements for fairness, dignity and opportunity.”
The proposed measures would raise the minimum wage closer to the cost of living at least $30 an hour in New York and $25 an hour federally, and eliminate all subminimum wages — including the tipped minimum wage that remains at $2.13 an hour under federal law.
Leaders were able to tie the current campaign to the work done to organize restaurant workers after the September 11 attacks.
“This is the 25th anniversary of 9/11; on 9/11 there was the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center – a restaurant called Windows on the World,” said Jayaraman. “On that morning, 73 workers died and 13,000 workers lost their jobs. I was asked as a young organizer to start a relief center for restaurant workers in the aftermath of the tragedy, and what started as a relief center for restaurant workers grew into a national restaurant workers organization.”
Today, service industry employees remain frustrated, Jayaraman said.
“Everywhere we went, restaurant workers would always say it’s my wages, it’s my wages,” she continued. “There are 13.6 million workers in America, 700,000 here in New York, yet it is the absolute lowest paying employer and has been for generations, dating back to emancipation.”
‘Still Waiting for Equal Pay‘
At the center of the event was the release of a February 2026 report from One Fair Wage titled “Still Waiting for Equal Pay: How $2.13 Suppresses Tipped Workers’ Wages and Exacerbates Black Women’s Pay Gap.”
The report concludes that the federal tipped wage of $2.13 an hour depresses earnings and widens racial and gender wage gaps in the restaurant industry.
According to the report, Black women tipped workers earn just 63 cents for every dollar earned by white men in the same industry. The research also concluded that more than 70% of tipped restaurant workers nationwide earn under $25,372 annually and that 95% earn less than $57,000. In states where the tipped wage remains $2.13, tipped restaurant workers have a median individual income of $15,149 compared to a national median income of $42,220.
Pointing to a systemic issue, speakers said the subminimum wage traces directly to post Emancipation labor practices that forced Black workers into tip-dependent jobs without guaranteed pay.
They also warned against the federal Tipped Employee Protection Act, H.R. 2312, which, according to Congress.gov, would modify the definition of a tipped employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act to broaden who qualifies as a tipped employee. Advocates described the proposal as an expansion of subminimum wage loopholes that would weaken worker protections nationwide.
Salaam, a member of the Exonerated Five, framed the issue as a civil rights imperative.
“We must also confront a painful truth that some minimum wages are the direct legacy of Jim Crow policies designed to exclude Black workers from basic labor protections,” Salaam said. “That legacy has not disappeared. It continues today morphing into disproportionately harming workers of color who are overrepresented in low wage and tipped industries.”
Johnson, president of the NAACP, argued that wage policy sits at the heart of democratic power.
“Our job is to serve and create a better society for all. If you think about how workers are treated, particularly service workers. It is inhumane,” Johnson remarked. “It is inhumane for someone to work 9,10,12 hours to almost make their house payments. The history of the human rights movement in this country that we call the Civil Rights Movement is based on three basic pillars; our ability to exercise our vote; our ability to ensure the public policy that arise from our vote prepares our young people for a future, education and the abilities of our communities not to be exploited for free and cheap labor.”