Current Volunteer Luke Sullivan returns for a second year
ministering with ARISE Chicago.
A worker
came recently to Arise Chicago because she was being paid sub-minimum wages and
not being paid overtime. When she confronted her boss, who was a rich
businessman, about this, he told her that he understood that he was paying her
under what she was legally owed, he just didn't think she deserved anything
more.
This
story stays with me because I see it as a symbol of just how screwed up our
world has become. He didn't believe that she deserved a below poverty-level
wage, and through his actions, he stole from her the inherent dignity within
all of us. In the race for profits, we have lost a fundamental reality; that
all of us are connected, that all of our fates are tied together. Mother
Theresa said it so well when she said, "If we have no peace, it is because
we have forgotten that we belong to each other." We must never forget that
we belong to each other.
Arise
Chicago is an interfaith worker center that builds partnerships between faith
communities and workers to fight workplace injustice through education,
organizing and advocating for public policy changes. For the past two years I
have been the religious organizer, so my ministry specifically is to connect
religious congregations, and bring in their support, with our campaigns. It has
been an incredibly enlightening experience for me to learn about the realities
that are happening in Chicago, in Illinois, and around the world. We all
remember the horrific fire in the Bangladesh factory, which killed more than
1,000 people, but the abuse of the rights of all workers is rampant throughout
our world, and within our own society.
In a
recent study done by the University of Illinois at Chicago, in Cook County
alone, which encompasses the vast majority of Chicago, more than one million
dollars is stolen from low-wage workers EVERY day. In the car-wash industry in
Chicago, the average wage of a worker is $6.59/hour; well below the minimum
wage, and more than 63% of carwash workers do not have access to free drinking
water. We at Arise are attempting to organize car-wash workers in Chicago to
change the culture into one where everyone is paid a fair, living wage with
safe working conditions. Arise partners with the National Domestic Workers
Alliance to bring justice to domestic workers. Because though domestic workers
are professionals who do real work, they are excluded from many of the basic
protections guaranteed by the Fair Labor Standards Act – things like minimum
wage, overtime, sick and vacation days. We are also proud supporters of the
Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OUR Walmart, to stop the worker
abuse and low-wages that have become a part of the Walmart model. They and many
other corporations use temp-labor agencies to cripple workers attempts at
organizing, which have helped create sweatshop-like conditions for workers
within our own communities. To aid in the protection of workers rights in
Chicago, we worked with local Aldermen to pass an anti-wage theft ordinance,
where businesses can have their licenses revoked if they are caught committing
wage theft.
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Recently,
Arise has supported and marched with workers who are part of a nationwide
campaign for fast-food and retail workers to be paid $15/hour with the right to
join a union without retaliation. This may sound absurd, but the average age of
a fast-food worker in the country is 28 years old. And to see how unbelievably
low the federal minimum wage is: in 1963, the minimum wage was $1.25/hour,
which would equate to approximately $9.25 in 2013 dollars. The original idea of
the minimum wage was to make sure that if someone worked full time, they would
not live in poverty. However, there are currently over 10 million "working
poor" in this country, and approximately half of all jobs pay under
$27,000. No working person should be forced to live in poverty, but that is
what is currently happening.
Though
what we do at Arise and what we stand for might be considered
controversial, there are values that must guide every decision we make. Our
rights do not end when we enter the workplace, nor should they end for anyone. Money
is not inherently evil by any means, but we must always ask ourselves how we
are making this money. Perhaps we need to think of, “How much would I want
to receive if I did that job?” For though people may work for a business,
we all belong to God. A basic tenant of Catholic Social Teaching is that,
“The economy must serve people, not the other way around. If the dignity
of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be
respected.” (these and other tenants of Catholic Social Teaching can be found
on the Website for USCCB) We
must together break down the barriers of injustice that still exist in our
society. As the Pope John Paul II states in his encyclical Laborem Exercens, “Yet the workers' rights
cannot be doomed to be the mere result of economic systems aimed at maximum
profits. The thing that must shape the whole economy is respect for the
workers’ rights. These must be our guiding principles.” In every decision we
make, we must remember that no life matters less than any other, because we are
one.
Our role
in this world is to create a community where all people are able to become the
person they were born to be. I believe that is what Arise Chicago is all about,
and why I have fallen in love with the mission. God did not create humanity so
that we could subjugate each other, but so that we could live with each
other, as one human family. Our society has created an "us" vs.
"them" mentality, but that is not Jesus' message. Instead of worrying
about the bottom line, we must first concern ourselves, and stand with those,
who line the bottom. We must stand firm in our resolve that we all belong to
each other. Our work must continue to be directed toward others, because that
is the only way we can bring about peace. And though we know that the wheels of
justice turn slowly, we also know they do indeed turn. True justice can only be
fully realized when we commit our lives to create a world that looks wholly
different than it currently does: a world that would be fully recognizable to
God: a world where the love of God reigns. We know that peace and righteousness
will prevail over hatred and greed; we do not know when, but we know that they
will. And when this happens, as St. Catherine of Sienna said, "We will set
the world on fire."
You can see more of Luke and the Fight for Fifteen
protests here.
To continue your study you can
read more snippets what the Catholic Church says about work and
continue conversation among your community members!
