Living Wage: A moral choice
10/14/2007
Eight years ago,
at its 65th General Assembly, the Union for Reform Judaism passed a resolution
supporting living wage campaigns. The resolution urged its member congregations
across North America to become involved in these campaigns so that workers
would be treated with justice. It did so by quoting Deuteronomy, a text held
sacred by all three Abrahamic religious traditions: "You shall not oppress
a hired laborer that is poor and needy, whether that laborer be of your people
or of the strangers that are in the land within your gates." (Deuteronomy
24:14). Certainly as a religious body the URJ has not been alone. Many churches
have been in the forefront of support for Living Wage Legislation as evidenced
by the resolution passed at the 1997 General Assembly of the Unitarian
Universalists of America and the resolution passed by the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of America in 1999. It has been the constant teaching of the Roman
Catholic Church since Pope Leo XIII that no one should work and live in
poverty.
Perhaps the most difficult part in the framing of the URJ resolution was
picking a single Biblical verse to quote. The Bible is replete with statements
calling us to rally in the cause of social justice. In what are called the
"Holiness Codes" of Leviticus 19, we are instructed to care for "the
needy and the stranger," and to maintain honest business practices. We are
also warned not to "stand idle while our neighbor bleeds." The
prophet Amos (2:7) speaks disparagingly of those who "trample on the heads
of the poor" and who "deny justice to the oppressed." These
citations do not even scratch the surface of Biblical exhortations to pursue
justice.
In the years following the URJ resolution, and those of the UUA and ELCA, the
need for legislation to provide a living wage to workers in our communities has
only increased. It seems only fair, and moral, that those who work within a
community should be able to live with dignity in that community. At the very
least, that is what we would want for our children, and the children of our
neighbors — the ability to live with dignity.
The City Council is about to take up the issue of Living Wage legislation
again, through amendments to the current law. This time though, the business
community and the labor community have come to an agreement about the proposed
changes. Changes that will serve us all well. The City Council will hold
hearings during October and vote on the proposed changes at a meeting on Nov.
14. The changes would expand the living wage, starting Jan. 1, 2008, to cover
all employees in Santa Fe, not just the current 60 percent. They would put into
place an automatic cost of living increase every year starting Jan. 1, 2009.
Finally, the baseline living wage will be set at the current $9.50 per hour.
We applaud the visionaries of the Santa Fe Living Wage Network, the Santa Fe
Chamber of Commerce, the New Mexico Council of Churches, the Lodgers
Association, the local immigrants rights group, the Restaurant Association, the
22 unions, and the Santa Fe Alliance who came together in support of the
amendments to the Santa Fe Living Wage legislation. Given its moral basis and
its broad based support from both labor and business, we urge the citizens of
Santa Fe to encourage the City Council to pass the proposal as submitted and
set a positive precedent for labor/management cooperation.
Rabbi Marvin Schwab of Temple Beth Shalom, the Rev. Richard W. Murphy of St.
Bede's Episcopal Church and three additional Santa Fe church leaders signed
this commentary.