Queens Workers Demand a Living WageIn December, Make the Road New York members joined with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, community groups and elected officials to call for improved wages at the Queens Center Mall and
released a report exposing the mall as a publicly-subsidized poverty wage center.
Despite the fact that the mall's owner, the Macerich Company, has already received more than $48 million in tax breaks and will receive more than $50 million over the next few years, most of the 3,100 jobs at the Mall are low-wage, no-benefit jobs. Despite massive public subsidies, the Mall's workforce is so poorly paid that they have to rely on government subsidized health insurance and other government aid.
