School safety agent Kangela Moore makes less than $40,000 a year after 22 years on the job — and she wants pay parity with men who average $7,000 a year more.
With an extra $7,000, “I’d be able to pay for college, put more food on the table, actually pay my bills,” Moore, 45, a married mom of two, said Friday at a City Hall rally pushing Mayor de Blasio to keep his promise to settle a pay-discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of the female safety agents.
Feminist icon Lilly Ledbetter and public officials including Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito urged de Blasio to get moving on the settlement.
“A year ago, Bill de Blasio said if he were elected he would settle this case,” said Sonia Ossorio, president of the National Organization for Women. “He said he would do it immediately. He said it was a no-brainer.”
In the 2010 federal class-action lawsuit against the city, 5,000 school safety agents — 70% of whom are women — charged they earn $7,000 less annually than the mainly male workforce doing almost identical security duties at other public facilities, such as hospitals.
Those male workers earn about $42,000 a year, while the safety agents earn $35,000, advocates said.
All of the agents are considered “peace officers” under the NYPD and are represented by the same union, Teamsters Local 237. Before their jobs moved to the NYPD in the late 1990s, they were laid off every summer when school let out.
In a 2001 deposition, the city of New York called the jobs “comparable,” according to union president Gregory Floyd. “If they were comparable then, they’ve got to be comparable now,” he said.
Ledbetter, the namesake of the federal 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, said: “I’ve lived what they’re walking now. I’ve lived that. I know what it’s like.”
At the rally, Ossorio brought out a birthday cake for de Blasio with the number 7,000 displayed in candles to remind him of his promise. De Blasio celebrated his 53rd birthday Thursday.
“The feminization of poverty is very real and there’s poverty in these pink-collar industries, which for the most part are dominated by women,” said Public Advocate Letitia James.
Mark-Viverito said she supported the cause but cut the mayor more slack.
“I obviously want this settled,” she said. “We are talking about four months in office.”
Earlier this week de Blasio promised he would settle the case but said: “Every legal case involves potential precedent-setting dynamics.”
