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Pastors Push Living Wage as Election Issue
by Abid Aslam
The Let Justice Roll
campaign, a congregation of some 80 religious and community organizations
including the National Council of Churches USA, said in a statement it plans to
hold hundreds of rallies, workshops, religious services, and prayer breakfasts
across the country to urge state and federal officials and candidates to boost
working families' fortunes.
So-called Living Wage Days
events this month will seek to pass minimum wage ballot measures in
"A job should keep you
out of poverty, not keep you in it," said Rev. Paul Sherry, anti-poverty
program coordinator at the National Council of Churches and former president of
the United Church of Christ.
The issue appears to be
gaining political traction. October's events come on the heels of state minimum
wage increases in
Campaign members cited a
recent poll that they said showed nine out of 10 Americans support a higher
minimum wage. They added that they would lead efforts next year to pass state
wage hikes in
Congressional Democrats
also are seeking to capitalize on the minimum wage among a raft of
bread-and-butter issues they say the Republican-controlled legislature has
neglected.
''We haven't had time to
increase the minimum wage, to cut the cost of student loans for America's
college students, to lower prescription drug prices, to roll back tax breaks
for big oil," Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, was quoted as
saying Friday before legislators broke for an intense period of campaigning
ahead of the Nov. 7 midterm election.
To be sure, members of Let
Justice Roll have voiced outrage at the meager earnings of millions of
Americans at the bottom end of the labor market. But their campaign also seeks
to present faith-based voters with an alternative to the Religious Right
agenda.
''We've long seen
scorecards from the Christian Coalition and others show how members of Congress
vote on so-called social issues but not on help for the poor, which the Bible
mandates hundreds of times,'' said Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the
National Council of Churches.
''Millions of values voters
care about fair wages for the people who do some of the hardest, most important
jobs in our society--from childcare teachers we entrust with our children to
healthcare aides we entrust with our parents,'' Edgar said.
The federal minimum wage
rose to $5.15 per hour in 1997 but has lost more than one fifth of its value
since then, campaigners said. Today's minimum pay buys less than it did in 1950,
they added.
At the federal level, the
campaign wants Congress to raise the minimum wage to at least $7.25 per hour
and to oppose measures that would weaken existing eligibility, tipped worker
coverage, overtime and other labor protections, or link the minimum wage to tax
cuts for the wealthy.
''Congressional leaders are
holding the minimum wage hostage to a tax cut for wealthy heirs,'' said Johanna
Chao Rittenburg, economic
justice program manager at the Unitarian Universalist
Service Committee.
An estimated 14.9 million
workers--11 percent of the work force--would benefit were the minimum hourly
wage raised from $5.15 to $7.25 by 2008, according to the Economic Policy
Institute (EPI), a Washington, DC-based think tank funded by business and labor
philanthropies.
Of those workers, 6.6
million now earn less than $7.25 and would be directly affected by an increase.
The additional 8.3 million workers earning slightly above the minimum also
would benefit. That is because even though a raise is not legally mandated for
workers earning a few more dollars than the proposed new minimum wage, many
employers raise their pay anyway to preserve internal wage structures. This
makes raising the minimum wage an important part of a broader strategy to end
poverty, EPI researchers said.
Employers' groups and
economists critical of proposed wage hikes have countered that such measures
can condemn small businesses to insolvency but EPI researchers said there was
no evidence that the 1997 wage gain had led to job losses.
State and municipal
officials have commissioned their own studies even as they have enacted living
wage measures.
In September, University of
New Mexico researchers told members of the Santa Fe City Council that the
municipality's two-year-old experiment with pay hikes had neither hit
businesses with higher costs nor hurt low-skilled workers, contrary to
employers' fears that higher wages would force businesses to cut jobs or
relocate away from the city.
Council members
commissioned the study after adopting a measure two years ago that required
employers with more than 25 workers to pay $8.50 per hour, above the state and
federal minimum of $5.15.
Whether the moves have
provided significant succor to workers or the city's economy remained to be
seen, the daily Santa Fe New Mexican quoted the researchers as saying.
Copyright © 2006 OneWorld.net.