Occupy Albany, clergy try to force NY to hike minimum wage

ALBANY, N.Y. — A push to raise the minimum wage despite a political stalemate brought the Occupy Albany movement to New York’s Capitol on Tuesday while dozens of clergy statewide pressured the Senate’s Republican majority and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“A living wage is possible, this movement is unstoppable!” chanted 40 demonstrators from the Capitol’s ornate Million Dollar Staircase. “It’s shameful and outrageous!”
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“We feel it is repugnant morally and reprehensible for persons who work every day to have to raise a family in poverty,” said the Rev. Kevin Agee, pastor of the Hopps Memorial CME Church in Syracuse, a congregation of Christians, Methodists and Episcopalians.”

Six Occupy Albany demonstrators were charged with misdemeanor trespassing in New York’s Capitol on Thursday in a demonstration aimed at raising the minimum wage.

The demonstrators left a letter for Skelos, who didn’t appear from his office.

“Listen, we get that you are an Albany insider and are in bed with big corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent,” the letter stated. “You should realize that you are completely isolating yourself on this issue and that you and your party are going to have to go to the polls in November as the party that is so out of touch that they believe millionaires need a tax cut but people making $7.25 an hour don’t need a raise.”