Overcoming the American Undercaste

I caught up with the rather ragged band of walkers in front of a McDonalds in the Chicago suburb of Homewood. I learned that the stop was unplanned—the planned rest stop was at a Walmart a mile further south—but kids stopped to use the public bathroom anyway. It was starting to get chilly, so I was glad that I had brought my fleece jacket. Sunset was less than 2 hours away, and it was going to get colder before I left.

One of the marchers receives treatment for
 foot blisters.

The procession had started the previous day, March 30, in the Little Village neighborhood on the southwest side of Chicago. They had garnered some media attention at a press conference where they decried current immigration enforcement practices and demanded that the construction of a new detention center in Crete, Illinois halt. Their procession wouldn’t stop until April 1 at the gates of the construction site, about 30 miles away. I walked with them for only a few hours on Saturday, so I didn’t have the bleeding blisters that I saw on some of the walkers.

It is a difficult but perhaps also a hopeful time for immigrants and their allies. The Obama administration has deported more undocumented immigrants than any other American executive, but opponents still claim that current federal law is soft on illegal immigration. The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments for and against Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, called SB1070, and we should know their decision in June. A little ironically, we have also learned that a majority of babies born in the United States today are non-white, with Latinos coming in second after the white plurality.

I feel that we as a country are coming to a tipping point. With Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, more and more people are becoming aware of enforcement policies that are harming people of color. Public outcry is growing against the privatization of prisons and detention centers, like the one that may still be built in Crete, IL. Awareness of economic disparities is at a generational high due to the continued effects of the Great Recession and the Occupy movement.

Picture drawn by child of a deported immigrant, exhibited at
"Locked Out" conference at University of Illinois-Chicago
on April 5.

In my work with the Interfaith Worker Justice Worker CenterNetwork, worker advocates constantly find that one of workers’ greatest fears is that if they report abuses on the job, they will be fired, deported, and separated from their families. Many employers intentionally hire undocumented workers for the reason that they will not complain when they are paid well below minimum wage, not receive overtime pay, or report injuries that would require workers’ compensation. It is often a business decision that helps the company’s bottom line but keeps workers in a distinct undercaste.

This undercaste is growing in the United States. Not only does it include undocumented immigrants, but African Americans who are targeted by unnecessary drug laws and enforcement are perpetually funneled there as well. Like undocumented immigrants, convicted felons also must endure all sorts of abuses at work because of legal discriminatory employment practices. That is to say, convicted felons will take and keep jobs where they are regularly underpaid and abused because they still have to pay their bills.

How can people who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, who weekly and sometimes daily confess their dependence on divine grace, support this 21^st century caste system? Is there such a profound disconnect between our pews and the prisons where societal debtors are kept out of view? Are we so deluded in our visions of the American Dream that we fall into the trap of the goats of Matthew 25?

Sisters and brother, we must open our eyes. Look around and you’ll see groups like the walkers who held mass at the gates of the Crete detention center. That group included students, Teamsters, an Episcopal priest, a few anarchists, and members of local congregations. What keeps us from walking with them?

In the words of the prophet Isaiah and as Jesus of Nazareth repeated, this is the year of the Lord’s favor. Let us proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free (Luke 4:18). In the Spirit of the Easter resurrection and the upcoming Pentecost, let us move our deadened feet and open our dumb mouths.

Walkers going south on Halsted Street.

A Carwashero Takes the People's Mic

The power of the Occupy movements all over the country and across the world is that the microphone is taken away from the 1% plutocrats and then given to the folks who have such little means to tell their story. The beauty of the “people’s microphone”, the method of sound amplification via dozens of people repeating what the speakers is saying, is that the crowd recognizes everyone’s right to their voice. That power and that beauty is humbling yet empowering.

Now let’s give the people’s mic to a carwashero.

On Tuesday afternoon car wash workers in the Chicago Southwest Side neighborhood of Little Village took that people’s mic and told their story. They worked for 12-hour days in all sorts of Chicago weather with little or no safety equipment, receiving abuse after indignity from their boss.

And then they didn’t even receive actual wages for their work. Their employer distributed only the tips that the workers received for their labor, resulting in some days of only $40 for a 12-hour day. That, dear friends, is the story of wage theft.

This story isn’t only true because it happened to these car wash workers. It’s true because it happens every day all over the United States, in urban landscapes and rural communities alike. In a landmark study of wage theft in America’s three largest cities, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, researchers showed that workers lost more than $56.4 million per week.[i] This money is taken from the most vulnerable workers in our country, where the difference between making rent, putting food on the table, and providing medicine for one’s children is a matter of hours of pay.

Worker advocates call wage theft the crime epidemic that no one talks about, and that falls right into the Occupy narrative. The rich, powerful, and connected in our society try very hard to make sure that the vast majority of people not only accept these abuses but are thankful that folks have degrading, subsistence-level jobs. However, low-wage workers are finding a way to tell their side of the story.

Workers’ centers and their union allies act as a sort of people’s mic for low-wage and immigrant workers to make sure people hear about they experience every day. While the 1% tries to divide and demonize the lower strata of workers, workers’ centers unite and affirm the humanity carwarsheros and other low-wage workers.

I personally had the privilege of acting as a person’s mic at the protest on Tuesday, translating for a worker named Martín. Just like other workers I’ve met while serving as a missionary with the national group Interfaith Worker Justice, Martín understood how powerful his voice can be when other workers and advocates stand with him and amplify his voice for the world to hear.

So, on a day when Occupy movements affirm their power to speak with a prophet’s voice, let’s give that people’s mic to a carwashero and occupy together.

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[i] Berhardt, A., Milkman, R., Theodor, N., et al. 2010. Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations in Employment and Labor Law in America’s Cities. Chicago: Center for Urban Economic Development, Uinveristy of Illinois at Chicago, New York: National Employment Law Project, Los Angeles: UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.

He's Just a Boss: Ministry With Low-wage Workers

It was a chilly day in Chicago—nothing that would compare to true Windy City winter, but still. The group of 30-40 people was a mixed bunch. We were union members, clergy, community organizers, journalists, and most importantly, low wage workers. We made a picket line outside the carwash on Broadway and made our presence felt. Luckily, the owner got word pretty quickly, and he invited us—all of us—into the waiting room, out of the November chill.

We stayed there for about an hour and a half, waiting for the owner to negotiate some sort of settlement with a Methodist minister, the Arise Chicago workers’ center director, and, most importantly, the carwash worker who was owed several thousand dollars in back wages. Finally, the trio came out of the office, announced that they had reached an agreement, and we filed out of the waiting room.

The carwash worker left with a $1,000 check in his hand. And a warning to never come back. The worker stood with us outside the carwash and thanked the group for accompanying him. He told us proudly that as long as we stay together, there is no reason to be afraid of unethical employers. “Es solamente un patrón.” He’s just a boss.

We work in a culture these days where we have good reason to be afraid of our bosses. 10% unemployment is reality all across the United States. Wages aren’t even worth what they were back in the 1970’s. And for folks who work for the lowest wages, missing work for a week means not eating. Or not making rent. Or not buying medication for your children. But workers’ centers are fighting the fear.

Workers’ centers make up a movement of low wage-earning, mostly immigrant, often undocumented workers who stand up out of the shadows imposed by irrational laws and unscrupulous bosses and demand respect. They often work in industries that are intentionally excluded from labor laws—domestic workers, farmworkers, restaurant workers, day laborers—and far too often ignored by labor unions. They endure abuses that make your stomach turn, your eyes water, your fists clench.

But members of workers’ centers are far from powerless. They have made national networks that wield growing influence (NDLON, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, ROC United, and Interfaith Worker Justice) in local, state and even federal policy. Workers’ centers are on the front lines in the struggle for comprehensive immigration reform, fighting against the scourge of wage theft, and supporting their sisters and brothers in formal labor unions. These often invisible workers leave the margins that dominant culture has left for them and then take center stage.

I am very blessed to work with the workers centers in the national network of Interfaith Worker Justice. The organizers and the worker-members of the workers’ centers continually inspire me with their creativity, courage, and perseverance.

 One of my favorite verses in the entire Bible comes from the first epistle of John, "There is no fear in love, because perfect love drives out all fear..." (1 John 4:18). Surely it is love - love of their families, love of their friends, love of their neighbors - that drives low-wage workers to support one another in their struggles for a life of respect and dignity. After all, I saw no fear in the "carwashero" on that chilly November day.

I pray that we all minister with no fear as we minister with our all of our neighbors.

Workers' centers and labor unions

I was sitting in the top floor “Governor’s Lounge” of a hotel just a block away from the Capitol, sipping coffee in between furiously writing notes from the meeting with other SEIU organizers. The view was spectacular, and breakfast and hors d’oeuvres were complementary. That is, if you can find time to get up there in the heat of battle.

I was sitting in a classroom at the School of Public Health in the Near West Side with 30 Spanish-speaking construction workers, mostly day laborers (or jornaleros) who had gathered to learn about how to avoid injury at work and what rights they have with OSHA. We worked in small groups answering questions about specific cases and then gave demonstrations of proper safety equipment. Lunch was typical Mexican fare: rice, beans, salsa.

These are two recent experiences, taken vastly out of context, to explain two branches of the 21^st century labor movement. The first took place almost daily in Madison, Wisconsin as my coworkers from IWJ and I worked to organize faith communities around the worker rights struggle there. Because of some connections my one coworker has, we worked primarily with SEIU, or the Service Employee International Union, which is one of the most powerful and strategic labor unions in North America. The international organizers that I worked with were incredibly smart, diligent, and constantly plugged in. For the first time I came to see why a smart phone is useful in the real world. I cannot imagine the amount of money SEIU has spent to support workers in Wisconsin.

The second was a 10-hour OSHA training held at UIC that was sponsored by two Chicago workers’ centers, the Latino Union and Arise Chicago. Latinos disproportionately get injured and die on the job in the United States, usually because they are not properly trained for the job they do, are not given adequate tools and safety equipment, and won’t complain if injured or robbed of wages. The facilitators, who were members of Arise Chicago and were jornaleros themselves, stressed that they were not going to teach the men and women but that they would all teach each other. We wrote answers on pieces of butcher paper and then taped them up on the walls. It was modeled off of the popular education model of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, and the funding came from a NIOSH grant.

Now this is not to say that SEIU does not ever use pop ed to educate workers; I know from experience that in trainings for trainers the pop ed model provides the methodology. However, there are marked differences between a workers’ center and a traditional union. First, workers’ centers exist because certain sectors of low-wage earning workers, like day laborers, restaurant workers, domestic workers, and many others, do not have unions. Workers’ centers help to fill that void. Second, workers’ centers usually are not financially self-sufficient like unions, which are allowed to deduct dues directly from workers’ wages (well, at least in some states). Third, workers’ centers neither have the protection nor the regulation of the NLRA, or the National Labor Relations Act.

However the most interesting difference in my experience is that of culture. Workers’ centers often try to espouse leadership by the rank-and-file. I know of a few workers’ centers that have “flat structures” in which members make the important strategic decisions by consensus. While some processes require technical expertise, such as navigating the legal system to claim back wages, workers’ centers often emphasize direct action because it so often is more effective and creates leadership along the way. It is rare that a traditional rank-and-file worker would think of herself as a “foot soldier”—she is a leader working with other leaders to confront unjust systems of power.

As the Workers’ Center Network Assistant at IWJ I primarily interact with workers’ centers and much less labor unions, but it is vitally important that we maintain both models. When members of a workers’ center understand what a union does, they desperately want to be part of one. They would sacrifice like our ancestors did in the last century to gain that sort of power. But we also desperately need workers’ centers to reach into immigrant communities that are so often ruled by fear of the patron and la migra.

I was filled with pride was I looked out over the crowds in Madison, knowing that I had a role in that show of power. And I was filled with pride again when I saw how I had a role in creating that space where oft-despised day laborers could learn and teach each other. Both ways I felt like I was part of a much larger whole, working for justice in a highly oppressive culture.

Maybe it’s what the cornerstone of the Sears’ Tower feels like.