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WORD COUNT
622
JANUARY 21, 2009
HOPE AND
CHANGE FOR LOW-WAGE WORKERS – by Rev. William G. Sinkford
On March
18, 1968, two weeks before his murder, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,told
striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., “It is criminal to have
people working on a full-time basis getting part-time income.” He said,
“A living wage should be the right of all working Americans.”
What would Dr. King have thought of a $6.55 federal minimum wage in
2009, when the 1968 minimum wage is worth about $10 in today¹s dollars?
What would he have made of a minimum wage that is less adequate for the
basic necessities of life than it was 40 years ago?
This is a moment exultant with hope. Watching the inauguration of the
first African American president, we ask each other, “Have not our weary
feet come to the place for which our fathers sighed?” But our hope is
tempered with anxiety about our current economic crisis and concern
about the millions of people in our country who are still working for
poverty wages
Paychecks have stagnated for many years, and more and more jobs come
with no benefits, not even sick days. Today the minimum wage is set so
low that millions of men and women working full time are constantly
choosing which necessities to go without. Health workers go without
health care; childcare workers struggle to care for their own children;
food service workers seek help at food banks.
Low-wage
workers waited 10 long years for the minimum wage increase that finally
arrived in 2007, from $5.15 to $6.65 an hour, the longest wait in
history. All of us are now paying for that delay, as falling worker
buying power helped fuel the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression. The minimum wage is the floor of the economy, and when it
sinks, we all sink.
With the election of Mr. Barack Obama, we are seeing a new coalition
preparing to govern. We are hopeful that we have an opportunity
now to
bring the voice of low-wage workers and their families to the White
House and to Congress. Let Justice Roll, a nonpartisan coalition of more
than 90 faith, community, labor and business organizations --- which
played a leading role in winning the last increase --- is calling for
$10 an hour in 2010. We are asking people to join with more than 15
leaders of denominations and national faith organizations and Americans
from all 50 states, and endorse our call for $10 in 2010 at
www.letjusticeroll.org.
A federal
minimum wage of $10 in 2010 will move us closer to the day when all
workers earn a living wage.
President Obama’s choice of Rep. Hilda Solis for Secretary of Labor
evoked the accomplishments of Frances Perkins, the architect of the
minimum
wage, who served as the first female Secretary of Labor from 1933 to
1945. The time has come to reclaim Perkins’ legacy and build on it. The
daughter of two immigrant workers and union members, Rep. Solis has
promised to "improve the opportunities for hardworking families.”
To keep
this promise, we encourage her to advocate for $10 in 2010.
In June
1966, I heard Dr. King speak to the Unitarian Universalist General
Assembly. He decried poverty and militarism as well as racism, and he
reminded us, “When the church is true to its nature, it stands as a
moral guardian of the community and of society.” He called on each of us
to create our own “stone of hope.”
I call upon all of us to honor Dr. King’s memory by renewing our
commitment to a just economy. I hew my stone of hope with these words:
“The arc of the universe is long,” said Dr. King, quoting 19th Century
Unitarian abolitionist Theodore Parker, “but it bends toward justice.”
--
Rev.
William G. Sinkford is the president of the Unitarian Universalist
Association. This article is based on his sermon at the Nashua UU Church
for Let Justice Roll’s “Living Wage Sunday” campaign (www.letjusticeroll.org)
.
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