An interfaith initiative directed to elected officials in the city of Los Angeles is calling for a fundamental reordering of the city's economic development priorities toward benefiting the working poor. Titled "To Fulfill the Dream: An End to Poverty for Workers," the Declaration of Conscience, as it is called, proposes six policy recommendations to be required of developers when they come to the city seeking financial subsidies.
Such exhortations by the religious community are, of course, not uncommon; but they are frequently treated as well-intended, but ineffective, religious pronouncements. But the context of the L.A. Declaration, and a concerted moral and political strategy to put the policy principles into effect, make the Declaration worth watching closely here.
Like most large urban centers in the U.S., Los Angeles is a city of stark contrasts in wealth and poverty. But, for various reasons, including L.A.'s fast-growing and vulnerable immigrant population, the rich-poor gap here is extreme. A comprehensive study last August by the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy found that the number of working poor in L.A. County increased over the last decade by 34 percent (in roughly the same period, Los Angeles added about 2,100 new millionaires).
Nonetheless, several very hopeful developments have been occuring in L.A. over the last five years. First, a reinvigorated labor movement has been successfully organizing low-wage workers (overwhelmingly minorities and women). A strike last year by about 8,000 janitors tied up the city for three weeks. Receiving widespread religious and public support, the janitors won their strike overwhelmingly.
Secondly, organized labor, community groups and the religious community, having first worked together back in 1997 to pass a landmark living-wage ordinance, now freqently strategize together.
Third, the originator of the Declaration of Conscience, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), has become a prominent player in the push for dignity, respect and a living wage for low-wage workers. Formed back in 1996, CLUE, a group with strong Episcopal Church participation from the outset, cut its teeth in working for the l997 ordinance. In early April of this year, CLUE turned out over 200 clergy and laity to march in support of hotel workers in Santa Monica.
Six recommendations
Each year the city gives hundreds of millions of dollars in public monies as incentives to corporations and developers to do business in Los Angeles. There are about 18 such large development projects pending over the next two to three years. When CLUE made the Declaration public in March, each of the city's mayoral candidates and those running for L.A. city council seats were asked to endorse it. Its six policy recommendations:
In response to this letter to the politicians, the two runoff candidates for mayor of Los Angeles, plus 21 candidates for city council seats in the June municipal election endorsed the Declaration. In the coming months and beyond, when the developers come before the new mayor and city council to promise jobs and prosperity for Los Angeles -- and ask for huge subsidies and contracts -- we will be able to remind our elected officials that they signed the Declaration and that large numbers of religious leaders in Los Angeles and members of their congregations will, if necessary, come to City Hall to help these officials keep their promise. Over 180 religious leaders, including all three of Los Angeles' diocesan bishops and about 30 Episcopal clergy plus other Christian, Jewish and Muslim representatives, have thus far signed the document.
Dick Gillett is Minister for Social Justice in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and a member of CLUE's board of directors.