Mitch Waks, owner of Cooperative Home Care, was elected St. Louis “Scrooge of the Year” at Missouri Jobs with Justice’s annual Holiday Party With Attitude last week.
Each year, St. Louis and Kansas City Jobs with Justice member organizations nominate candidates for “Scrooge of the Year.” This year’s party was hosted by Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 788 in St. Louis.
Organizations run spirited campaigns to educate the public about the forces harming working families. The greediest, cold-hearted CEO, politician, corporation or 1%er who truly exemplifies the Spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge wins!
MITCH WAKS – 2,827 VOTES
Waks led the fight to defeat the increase in the St Louis minimum wage. He was nominated by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Show Me 15.
In his testimony before the Board of Aldermen, Waks stated that many of his workers didn’t deserve to get paid more than $9 an hour, even though his company receives $17.78 in tax payer dollars for each hour of care provided! After the minimum wage increase passed, a group of business leaders sued the City of St. Louis to try to stop the increase. Cooperative Home Care, Inc. was the first plaintiff listed. He also lead the fight in Jefferson City to deprive the thousands of Missouri Homecare Union members from seeing their wages rise from $8.00 to $10.15.
DAVID HUMPHREYS – 2,488 VOTES
Nominated by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 655
David Humphreys, CEO of TAMKO Building Products in Joplin, MO, was nominated by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 655.
Humphreys was recognized for his persistent attacks on working people. Ever since Missouri changed its campaign finance laws in 2008, Humphreys has thrown around his money in an attempt to buy off our state government. Humphreys doesn’t care about the working families of Missouri, and wants to do away with collective bargaining rights. He dumped $500,000 into a pro-right-to-work (for less) committee this past veto session.
Humphreys represents everything that’s wrong today with Missouri politics: a system where wealthy individuals buy off elected officials to do their bidding at the expense of working people.
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY – 1,344 VOTES
Washington University came in as write-in candidate for its treatment of adjunct professors.
Non-tenured faculty at the university experience low wages, lack of benefits and unpredictable class scheduling. These issues have been brought to light in conversations among adjuncts around the country and, as a result, have earned adjuncts the nickname of the “working class” of the higher education system.
The more than 300 Washington University adjunct professors, who are currently bargaining their first contract, voted to join Service Employees International Union Local 1 on Jan. 5, 2015. They were joined in October by more than 500 adjunct professors at St. Louis Community College, who voted overwhelmingly to join SEIU Local 1.
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