Rev.
Ann C. Fox
(508) 992-7081
RevAnnFox@aol.com
Unitarian Universalist
Society of Fairhaven
Worth and Dignity in Human Labor
a sermon on Labor Day Weekend
a sermon by Rev. Ann C. Fox
September 2, 2007
Note: A reading is attached, which you might like to read first.
Our Unitarian Universalist first principle reads that we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. I believe that this principle is a good guide to use when we evaluate how well we, as a society, are doing when it comes to how adequately we are helping low-wage workers? Do you agree?
Today is Labor Day Sunday. I am conscious of the fact that brave men and women in history put their lives on the line to bring us forward as a nation regarding fair and just labor laws and adequate pay for honest labor. I sometimes see a bumper sticker that says, “The Labor Movement: The Folks Who Brought You the Weekend.” They did you know. I remember when I had to work 5-1/2 days a week (in England) and I wasn’t in a union!
I was disturbed and angry last week when a man in New Orleans said that he works full time and has to live on the street (in a tent outside City Hall) because he cannot afford an apartment. Although I know New Orleans has its own unique problems in the light of the billions of dollars poured into it after the devastating Hurricane Katrina one year ago! Nevertheless many people across our nation do not earn enough to cover food and shelter and so they may have to apply for what we call “Section 8” housing! In spite of the fact that Congress passed an increased minimum wage, only employers with annual sales over $500,000 are required to pay the minimum wage. If you log onto the website called www.letjusticeroll.org, you will see someone holding a sign that says “$2.65 an hour is peanuts!” This sign probably means that workers somewhere are getting $2.65.
I have always had a healthy respect for the working man and woman, especially those who do hard physical labor. Where I grew up, on a clear day I could hear the coal mine siren heralding the end of a shift. I knew our neighbor, a burly Scotsman, would soon come home from the coal mine. I liked to see his blackened face with white circles around his eyes where his goggles had been. I recalled a line from the Bible: “The laborer is worthy of his wages.” (Luke: 10:7) It was a hard life but well paid.
The people in our neighborhood were involved in one industry or another, mostly in the fine china industry. Some of us were in support positions in the offices. My own father said that if it was the last thing he did in life, he wouldn’t have his girls work in a factory. He was concerned that we would develop health problems from the working environment. He need not have worried for none of us were up to the hard physical labor Mum and Dad had endured. However, we were paid far, far less than our factory worker counterparts. I used to think it was because they had union representation and we did not. In truth, I now think they were paid more also because they were closer to supporting the “bottom line”—the profit margin—than the rest of us, even though many of us had gone to technical school for a few years to learn what we did. However, belonging to a union did help them have better wages and I did not begrudge them this, even when they drove by me in a car that I could never hope to own in those days. And, they worked five days a week whereas I worked five and a half days—45 hours. I worked for an attorney—which was high status, low pay!
I may have told you before that my father was a union Shop Steward. He was convinced that if the workers had no union, “they” would pay them as little as they could get away with. “They” were the factory owners. I am not certain that this was true but I am certain that times have changed for the better and labor laws and public policy governing basic human needs were already firmly in place. Unions in history blazed a trail for these rights we now enjoy. Unions were the early harbingers of human rights in the workplace. They have earned their place in history.
In Britain, everyone was guaranteed food, shelter, education, healthcare, and special aid for families with children, from the “cradle to the grave.” Imagine my surprise when I came to America and did not have any healthcare for 6 years until I became a teacher. (Now, many states require colleges to offer basic health care.) When I was ill, I went to a New York City hospital Emergency Room and waited hours with the poor folk. It was quite an eye-opener. I did so wish that poor Americans had the kind of support I had left back home. I’m glad to live in Massachusetts, which is much farther ahead than most states in its support for the poor.
It is time for a Labor Day joke: The railways are always looking for ways to cut labor costs. Years ago there used to be five crew members on a train. Then they went to four, then three, and now many freight train crews are made up of two people, the engineman and the brakeman.
They finally figured out a way to eliminate one more crewmen, and many were surprised to find out that they were eliminating the engineman. They replaced him with a baboon who had been sent to school for just one day. Most engineers study for years before they can qualify for the job.
On the first trip the brakeman was a bit leery, but thought he'd give it a try. They outfitted the cab of the engine with two color monitors, one in front of the baboon, and one in front of the brakeman.
While in the yard, the brakeman heard the carman on the radio call for the brakes to be setup for the brake test. The screen in front of the baboon flashed the message "SETUP BRAKES" and the baboon did.
Next, the carman called for the release of the brakes. The monitor in front of the baboon flashed "RELEASE BRAKES" and the baboon did. Then the monitor in front of the baboon flashed "CLEAR TO PROCEED" and the train departed.
For the next four hours the screen would flash various messages and the baboon would do exactly what the screen instructed. The brakeman became worried. Here was the baboon driving the train and getting all the instructions. He started to wonder why the railway had kept him in his position.
Then, the screen in front of the brakeman beeped, began to make a horrible sound and started flashing: "FEED THE BABOON! FEED THE BABOON!
You probably know that recently, the Federal government increased the minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.85. In 2008 it will be $6.55, and in 2009 $7.25. However, Massachusetts has increased our state minimum wage to $7.50 and it will be $8 in 2008. If you look online at the list of minimum wages for all the states, about 20% of them compare favorably with Massachusetts and California. Some have an extra $1.25 an hour tacked on if no health insurance is offered. However, another 20% of states have no minimum wage at all, mostly in the south. Louisiana has no minimum wage.
An important thing to understand is that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not cover businesses that have under $500,000 in sales. So, small businesses would not be subject to minimum wage laws. Small businesses that pay less than minimum wages are essentially subsidized by the rest of us because their employees would have to apply for subsidized housing and other support programs.
As long as people can find cheap enough housing, they might get by. I did a little math. If a person on a Massachusetts minimum wage of $7.50 per hour worked full time, he or she would earn $1,200 a month ($14,400 a year), with about $1,000 take home pay. A cheap apartment would be about $400, leaving $600 for travel, food, and other essentials. He or she would have to live at home or with others. I strongly suspect that we would still have to provide Section 8 subsidized housing. Minimum wage workers will still be the working poor, which is surely a strange thing in our day and age.
A movement called the Living Wage Movement began more than a decade ago, spurred by religious and labor coalitions. Many enlightened cities have passed “Living Wage” ordinances, like Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Baltimore, San Antonio, Boston Chicago, and Milwaukee. The www.letjusticeroll.com website is dedicated to this effort. But the living wage laws passed by cities cover only city workers and those workers who work for city subcontractors. In 2006, Santa Barbara’s living wage law called for $12 per hour, $14 if there is no health insurance. A few cities have mandated the living wage for all workers in their cities.
You might have read in the UU World magazine that Senator Edward Kennedy spoke at our UU church in Quincy last year in favor of adopting a living wage law in the nation. His appearance was part of the national interfaith Let Justice Roll living wage campaign. The Unitarian Universalist Association is part of this coalition. They have asked us all to support this effort. So please look out for any local efforts that support living wage laws. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if our local towns passed such a law!
I have done much reading for this sermon, including the book from which I took this morning’s reading. That particular book (How Can the Poor Be Helped?) is especially good because it gives both sides of the many arguments for minimum wage laws, conservative and liberal. I find myself embracing both sides. Like these writers, I believe that the answer to many of our employment ills is the lack of skills! One social scientist says that the answer is “skills, skills, skills.”
We already have a fine community college system. I suggest that we do everything in our power to expand that system to include many job certificate programs, including skills in financial literacy and how to behave professionally at work. We have to teach and nurture people, including adults, how to have a sense of worth and dignity within themselves just in case they missed this growing up, which many did. And we must be willing to pay for psychological support for those who need it. We have a long way to go to achieve these goals.
Governor Patrick has wisely suggested that we make our community colleges free or low cost. I say we must greatly expand our community college system. But will we be willing to pay for this with higher taxes? I WILL! Will you? Higher skills and higher education and lots of support with good child care and early childhood education for the children of students are essential. We must raise up our people to be the magnificent human beings they are. Their sense and worth and dignity will surely follow. If we are able to help this raising up the people I hope we will all participate in this in some way, thus honoring our first principle: to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. What will follow is that justice will flow down like water and peace like an everlasting stream. May we do all in our power to enact living wage laws for all people that the laborer may feel worthy of his (or her) wages. (Luke: 10:7)
Reading: “Government Programs Will Help America’s Poor”
an article by Benjamin I. Page and James R. Simmons
from How Can the Poor Be Helped? by At Issue, Geoff Griffin, Editor
Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2006
Persistent poverty and a high level of income inequality in the United States cast a dark shadow over our otherwise great achievements. When…about one-fifth of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line, when the top fifth of families received about half of all the income in the country but the bottom fifth get less than 4 percent of it, something is seriously wrong. No doubt a substantial degree of inequality would be tolerable, so long as the lot of those on the bottom was satisfactory and steadily improving. But that has not been the case.
Inequality has increased sharply over the past three decades, with big gains for the wealthy, while most people’s incomes stagnated or declined. We are troubled by the extraordinary extent of disparities in income and wealth, by the persistence of absolute poverty, and by the fact that many millions of working people have to struggle desperately in order to make ends meet.
Such extensive poverty and inequality waste lives and cause unnecessary suffering. They limit freedom. They prevent full individual development, impair a sense of community, upset social stability, make a mockery of the idea of equal opportunity, and unnecessarily reduce human happiness.
[We ask] what, if anything, government can do about poverty and inequality. Our answer is clear: government can do a great deal. The government should assist people in acquiring work skills, …try to ensure that well-paying jobs are available…, provide health insurance and unemployment insurance for everyone…., [and]….guarantee a minimum amount of food, shelter, and medical care to each American.
© The Rev. Ann C. Fox