Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign Steering Committee Meeting to Strategize the "$10 in 2010" Campaign; February 21, 2008; Cleveland, Ohio
Unitarian Universalist Association Joins Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign to Endorse "$10 in 2010"
July 24, 2008
The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, a nonpartisan coalition of more than ninety faith and community organizations that includes the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA) and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), has launched the “$10 in 2010” campaign to raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour in 2010. The campaign is beginning on the day when the most recent minimum wage increase takes effect ($6.55/hour, effective July 24, 2008). The minimum wage is scheduled to rise again to $7.25 in 2009.
The “$10 in 2010” campaign asks
U.S. leaders of all faiths to endorse
a letter that will be delivered to the new Congress in January to demonstrate a
groundswell of support for a minimum wage that lifts people out of poverty and
strengthens families and the economy. In combination with the faith leaders’
letter, Let Justice Roll is inviting congregations and organizations to join in
organizing a variety of “Living Wage Day” services and community events across
the nation on January 10 and 11, 2009.
The letter being signed by faith
leaders states, “An adequate minimum wage is a bedrock moral value for our
nation… For too long, the minimum wage has not provided even a minimally
adequate standard of living. We experience the results in our communities.
Across the United States, a growing number of hardworking men and women are
turning to our food banks, soup kitchens and homeless shelters to feed and house
themselves and their children because their wages are too low… A job should keep
you out of poverty, not keep you in it.”
UUA President William G. Sinkford has signed the letter and has asked that all UU ministers, religious professionals, and congregational leaders who believe that “Rewarding an honest day's labor with a just living wage is the right thing to do and advocating for fair compensation is our religious duty,” join him by signing the letter. It is hoped that other congregational leaders will take action to work with other faith groups and promote the January 2009 events in cities around the U.S.
In June 2008, the UUA General Assembly passed an Action of Immediate Witness to Raise the Federal Minimum Wage to $10 in 2010, calling on Unitarian Universalist congregational leaders to educate themselves about poverty and requirements for a minimum standard of living; to sign the Faith Leaders Letter to Congress, and to sponsor Living Wage Days. The Action states:
The current minimum wage is a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty wage, the 2007 minimum wage increase was from $5.15 to $5.85 and the minimum wage is still worth less than in 1997, when it was $6.95 in 2008 dollars…By the time the minimum wage reaches $7.25 in 2009, it will not be worth much more than it was in 1997 and could be worth less if inflation rises more rapidly than the Congressional Budget Office forecasts.
The UUA is a founding member of the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign and advocacy for living wages is a top UUA public witness priority. Let Justice Roll led the successful effort in ten years to raise the federal minimum wage in 2007. The coalition also coordinated successful efforts in six states during the 2006 elections to raise state minimum wages, which included significant Unitarian Universalist involvement. In addition, to the new federal campaign, Let Justice Roll is coordinating efforts to raise state minimum wages in Georgia, Kansas, and Tennessee and to expand the categories of low-wage workers that are covered by minimum wage laws. Unitarian Universalist congregations are playing an active role in those campaigns as well.
Rev. Gail Seavey, Senior Minister at the First UU Church of Nashville (FUUN), Tennessee, writes, “[Our congregation] became involved with the Community Coalition for a Living Wage at Vanderbilt University in February 2007. After successful labor negotiations that spring, the Coalition decided to form the Interfaith Committee of Middle Tennessee Jobs with Justice. Both I and our Director of Religious Education, Marguerite Mills, are on the organizing board which has formed a coalition with immigrant, African American student and homeless power groups. We announced a city-wide living wage campaign at an Interfaith Service in March 2008, with long range plans to organize a worker’s center. FUUN has been successful at offering administrative support and fundraising for this new coalition and is particularly grateful for a grant from the Unitarian Universalist Funding Program and assistance from the Let Justice Roll Program of the UUSC.”
The UU Congregation of Atlanta (UUCA), Georgia, sponsored the 2008 Action of Immediate Witness for raising the federal minimum wage to $10 in 2010. Barbara Burnham, Chair of UUCA’s Racial and Ethnic Concerns Committee, said, “We have tied our work for just wages to our anti-racism work because a disproportionate number of people of color are low-wage workers. It is one of the ways that institutional racism operates in our society.. It’s important for people to understand that low-wage workers support many of us who have unearned privilege and that we can do something about that by working for higher wages and closing the enormous gap that exists between low-wage workers and CEOs.”
UUCA is a member of the Georgia Living Wage Coalition and has been at the center of efforts to raise the state minimum wage in Georgia. They are also members of the national Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign which has partnered with state efforts. Rev. Jim Eller, Minister of All Souls UU Church, Kansas City, Missouri, along with members of the congregation’s ‘core team,’ worked on the successful Kansas City, Kansas, campaign to raise the city minimum wage to the federal level, in coordination with MORE2, an interfaith congregation-based community organization that works for racial and economic justice in the bi-state metropolitan Kansas City region. Rev. Lisa Schwartz, minister of the UU Fellowship of Topeka, Kansas, along with others, are working with Raise the Wage, an ordinance to raise wages in Topeka similar to one being promoted in Georgia.
Let Justice Roll campaigns are also underway in New Jersey, Ohio, and Oklahoma. For more information on the federal and state campaign campaigns write to Susan Leslie (congadvocacy @ uua.org), UUA Director for Congregational Advocacy & Witness.
Last updated on Thursday, July 24, 2008.
