"For to steal is nothing
else than to get possession of another's property wrongfully, which
briefly comprehends all kinds of advantage in all sorts of trade to
the disadvantage of our neighbor. To steal is to signify not only
to empty our neighbor's coffer and pockets, but to be grasping in
the market…, wherever there is trading or taking and giving
of money for merchandise or labor." Martin
Luther
[1] On January 27th, 2004, 200 clergy, lay leaders and workers
participated in a 450 mile pilgrimage to the home of Steve Burd,
the CEO of Safeway corporation, with the goal of appealing to him
as a Christian to settle a strike and lock-out affecting 70,000
Southern California grocery store workers. The pilgrimage, which
ultimately played a definitive and catalytic role in settling the
strike, was organized by Clergy and Laity United for Economic
Justice (CLUE). CLUE engages over 600 clergy and lay leaders from a
wide variety of religious traditions throughout Los Angeles and
adjacent counties in working together to support low-wage workers
in their struggle for a living wage, health benefits and a voice in
the decisions that impact them.
[2] CLUE was formed in 1996 as a response to the steadily
worsening crisis of working poverty. In Los Angeles County,
according to a recent study, over 30% of families are working
poor.1 An adult
in the family is working full-time, but that income is insufficient
to pay for the basics. Working for $7 per hour brings in
approximately $960 per month. The average rent for a two-bedroom
apartment in the city of L.A. in 2005 was $1,350 per month. The
human impact of these statistics is clear in the plaintive words of
Maria Ramirez, a single mother who works as a hotel housekeeper.
"My rent used to be $650 per month. Now it is $1,250 per month. I
bring home just under $1,500 per month. I tell my children that
they have to eat less but they are having trouble obeying."
[3] When workers are employed by a Mom-and-Pop business, this is
a housing crisis. However, in Los Angeles, a significant percentage
of the working poor are employed by corporations or large chains.
In these cases, the reason why so many workers are in this
situation is connected to a spiritual crisis among CEOs. In the
year 1970, the average CEO earned 30 times more than his lowest
paid workers. In the year 2000, it was over 300 times. In the year
2005, statistics range from 430 times to 561 times. In Japan, by
comparison, CEOs earn 10 times more than their workers. When
workers at these companies must obtain food stamps in order to feed
their families, financially-strapped governments are using taxpayer
dollars to ensure that the workers are physically able to work,
effectively subsidizing their employers. These CEOs' apparent
indifference to the impact of their actions on workers and
communities alike is evidence of a spiritual crisis. CLUE responds
to the economic crisis of the workers and the spiritual crisis of
these CEOs by working to promote economically just business
practices, worker-friendly public policies and economic development
processes that are accountable to the needs of communities.
[4] Since 2002, I have been the Executive Director of CLUE. I am
an ELCA Pastor with a Synod Council Call to lead this ministry.
Newcomers to CLUE often express surprise that I am Lutheran.
Economic justice was not one of Martin Luther's primary passions,
nor has the Lutheran church been consistently at the forefront of
the fight for economic justice. However, I believe that our core
theology clearly supports the struggle for fair wages and benefits
in the workplace.
[5] At the heart of Lutheran theology is the call to faith in a
God whose love is unimaginably great, broad, deep and full. God's
love embraces all aspects of our physical and emotional lives. God
intends that we have "everything required to satisfy our bodily
needs, such as food and clothing, house and home, fields and
flocks, money and property." Martin Luther saw the process of
obtaining what we need, our labor, as a holy act when performed in
faith and gratitude; "picking up a piece of straw" could be equal
in God's eyes to formal prayer and study (Treatise on Good
Works).
[6] While Luther emphasized the internal stance of the
individual and the individual's existential relationship with God
as primary concerns, he unquestionably expected faith in God's
grace to result in righteous action. In his small and large
catechisms, he painted a passionate picture of the kinds of
behavior that would arise from faith - including the arena of labor
relations. Luther's exegesis of the seventh commandment (Thou shalt
not steal) includes the following passage:
For to steal is nothing else
than to get possession of another's property wrongfully, which
briefly comprehends all kinds of advantage in all sorts of trade to
the disadvantage of our neighbor. To steal is to signify not only
to empty our neighbor's coffer and pockets, but to be grasping in
the market…, wherever there is trading or taking and giving
of money for merchandise or labor…Therefore they are also
called swivel-chair robbers, land- and highway-robbers, not
pick-locks and sneak-thieves who snatch away the ready cash, but
who sit on the chair [at home] and are styled great noblemen, and
honorable, pious citizens, and yet rob and steal under a good
pretext….No more shall all the rest prosper who change the
open free market into a carrion-pit of extortion and a den of
robbery, where the poor are daily overcharged, new burdens and high
prices are imposed, and every one uses the market according to his
caprice, and is even defiant and brags as though it were his fair
privilege and right to sell his goods for as high a price as he
please, and no one had a right to say a word against
it.
Luther clearly sees from the perspective of an independent
producer, a small businessman, whose experience of being robbed by
the powerful is primarily connected to price-gouging. However, the
heart of his accusations would apply equally to the modern
multinational corporations which seeks profit at the expense of
people not primarily by raising prices but rather by lowering
wages. The core violation of "using the market according to his
caprice as though it were his fair privilege and right" is as
characteristic of Wal-Mart as it was of the noblemen of Luther's
time.
[7] Luther also believed that it was clearly the job of
political decision-makers to protect the rights of their
constituency. His doctrine of "two kingdoms" recognized that even
human beings who have faith do not always live in accordance with
their faith and that most people do not automatically treat one
another with the love and respect called for by the Gospel. We all
live in two worlds, the emerging world in which the law is written
on the heart and people treat each other well out of love, and the
old order in which it is necessary to intentionally ensure respect
for human rights through civil authority. As Luther continues in
the commentary on the seventh commandment: "…to check such
open wantonness there is need of the princes and government, who
themselves would have eyes and the courage to establish and
maintain order in all manner of trade and commerce, lest the poor
be burdened and oppressed nor they themselves be loaded with other
men's sins."
[8] While Luther could not have envisioned a world in which
every citizen had the right and duty to participate actively in
political decision-making, we can see that in a modern democracy,
we all have power and authority in the political realm and we all
need the "eyes and the courage to establish and maintain" correct
order in the economic sphere. When we campaign for living wage
legislation or conditions on Big Box retail development, we seek to
ensure an economic order which does not allow the poor to be
burdened and oppressed. Unions are another modern structure through
which workers can exercise legitimate power and authority in the
public sphere to ensure that their rights are protected.
[9] These modern structures and the responsibilities that
accompany them are recognized in a Resolution of the ELCA
Churchwide Assembly in 1991 that reads, "The ELCA commit itself to
public policy advocacy and advocacy with corporations, businesses,
congregations, this church, and church-related institutions to
protect the rights of workers, support the collective-bargaining
process, and protect the right to strike." (Assembly Action
CA91.06.35)
[10] However, while Luther would have supported those with
legitimate authority acting in the public realm to protect workers'
rights, he would have seen clergy as having a different role.
Luther saw the work of clergy as belonging to the second realm, the
kingdom of God. The heart of that work, for Luther, was
proclamation - the speaking of the truth that transforms.
[11] CLUE sees our work as a form of engaging religious leaders
in proclaiming the truth that transforms. This occurs on two very
different levels:
Moral Authority
[12] CLUE builds on the ancient biblical tradition of prophets' use
of public symbolic acts to communicate the truth. We regularly
organize public press events which incorporate ancient symbols and
traditions in powerful ways that directly impact business leaders
of faith and move the larger community to get past their confusion
and participate in a workers' struggle, adding the power of the
customer to the power of the workers. For example, two hotel owners
in Beverly Hills were delaying contract negotiations with their
workers in order to weaken a union effort. A third owner was
simultaneously negotiating in good faith with his workers. CLUE
organized over 100 religious leaders to join in a procession down
Rodeo Drive. just before Holy Week and Passover. The procession
visited the just hotel owner and brought him the gift of milk and
honey, publicly acknowledging his ethical practices. The procession
then continued on to the two other owners, bringing them bitter
herbs. One of these owners was a man of faith. When he received the
herbs, he saw his actions in a new light and he changed. Within a
week, he was negotiating in good faith with his workers.
Inspiration and Encouragement
[13] When workers are frightened because of company threats that
they will be penalized for fighting for union representation or
contracts, they need a special kind of support that can sustain
their strength. As religious leaders proclaim the comforting and
challenging word of God, workers are strengthened in measurable and
immeasurable ways. They remember what matters most to them, what it
means to live out of faith and not out of fear, and that those who
walk with God can experience amazing victories on the other side of
intense suffering.
[14] Economic justice, on this side of the cross, is not a
completely attainable goal. However, every time that CLUE is able
to ensure that a worker like Maria Ramirez is able to feed her
family and pay her rent because her employer has begun to act
justly, I believe that Luther would say that the angels
rejoice.
©
January 2006
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 6, Issue 1
1 "The Other Los Angeles: The Working Poor in the City of the
21st Century" by the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, August
2000 (Researchers from LAANE, USC, UCLA and Cal. State Univ.
Northridge.) available from the LAANE website at:
http://www.laane.org/docs/research/TheOtherLosAngeles_es.pdf.