Thursday is Living Wage Day
Work has a special place in Catholic social thought: work is more than just a job; it is a reflection of our human dignity, and a way to contribute to the common good. Most importantly, it is the ordinary way people meet their material needs and community obligations. In Catholic teaching, the principle of a living wage is integral to our understanding of human work. Wages must be adequate for workers to provide for themselves and their families in dignity. (http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/minimumwagebg05.htm)
What is a "living wage?" Is it different than the "minimum wage?"
A full-time minimum-wage worker makes $1,141 a month, or $13,692 a year, which is below the federal poverty line, leaving them dangerous choices between groceries and rent, between child care and utilities, and leaving health care out of the picture.
A "living wage" is the amount that a full-time wage worker would need to meet the basic human needs for themselves and their family.
The living wage campaign across the United States urges cities to adopt an ordinance to mandate a living wage for city employees and employees of companies with which the city contracts. 123 U.S. cities and several prominent universities have passed such ordinances.
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops recently issued a statement,
Faithful Citizenship, calling for “policies that increase the minimum wage so that it becomes a living wage.”
Pope John Paul II has followed in a long line of popes who have seen a living wage as a human right. In his 1991 encyclical letter, Centesimus Annus (“On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum”), he said such a family-supporting wage is part of the “preservation of life” -- citing the words of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical of a century earlier.
A decade earlier, in his letter Laborem Exercens (“On Human Work”), Pope John Paul wrote that, “in every case, a just wage is the concrete means of verifying the justice of the whole socio-economic system…” http://www.osv.com/periodicals/show-article.asp?pid=1012
"But I thought if the minimum wage was raised everybody loses out because businesses can't make as much money and are forced to close..."
The Myths: Raising the minimum wage
1) increases unemployment,
2) leads to inflation, and
3) reduces profits.
• On unemployment, increased wages mean workers have more to spend locally, creating more demand for goods and services, so local firms need more labor.
• On inflation, if 30 percent of companies in an area raise wages 20 percent and pass on the cost, which is half of their total costs, the region’s average
price increase is three percent. He cited Adam Smith, the father of free-market economics, who taught more than 200 years ago that firms always try to raise their prices, but competition deters them.
“Most people benefit by increases in minimum wages, which means fewer people around us live in poverty, welfare caseloads drop and with that the tax burden drops,” Doug Orr, professor of economics at Eastern Washington University explained in a recent forum on “Who’s Afraid of a Living Wage.”
• On reducing profits, Orr said most demand for goods and services increases as regional income rises, so profits increase. Usually small, locally owned firms
with few employees and small profit margins are exempted from living-wage ordinances, he said. (http://www.thefigtree.org/jan05images/livingwage.html)
"Wow. With the living wage having such a foundation on Catholic social teaching, Notre Dame must be leading the charge to fight for a living wage across America, since it is one of (if not the) premiere Catholic universities..."
Unfortunately, whether Notre Dame is fighting for a living wage in other places outside of South Bend, Indiana seems irrelevant faced with the fact that Notre Dame does not even have a policy in place to pay its own minimum-wage full-time workers a living wage.
Recently, it's been brought to my attention by Mr. Thomas Herman that a campaign has begun to rectify this situation. Tom forwarded me the following e-mail:
---------------------
This is a message for all alumni of Notre Dame.
Earlier this year we became aware of the efforts of a number of current Notre Dame students to prod the University on its lack of a living wage policy. 35
other colleges and universities, including Georgetown, have already acted to raise the wages of their non-professional staff to as much as $14 per hour.
The Notre Dame effort, called the Campus Labor Action Project, intends to bring together students, workers, faculty, alumni and community allies to work for
living wages at our alma mater. The students we have met with are thoughtful and passionate. And we think many alumni share their feeling that America's leading Catholic university should be in the forefront of this social justice issue.
So today we are asking that you take a moment to do a couple things to encourage Notre Dame to provide living wages to its employees.
1) Alumni are encouraged to call the office of Fr. Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, and encourage him to meet with CLAP. The phone number is 574-631-6525.
Fr. Jenkins' bio
2) Write Fr. Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, and urge him to meet with the Campus Labor Action Project leaders - and to support its aims. Fr. Jenkins' address is:
Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President, University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
FAX: 574-631-7428
3) Add your name to the list of Notre Dame Alumni who support the effort. We hope to gather the names of hundreds of Notre Dame grads who want the University to be a leader in what it pays its workers. You can send an e-mail to us at the addresses below, or sign the online petition. The heading of the list is "As University of Notre Dame alumni - and members of the Campus Labor Action Project - we urge President Jenkins and the Trustees to move speedily to adopt living wage policies that enable the non-professional staff and their families to live with dignity and security." With your e-mail address, we can also communicate the current status of the living wage efforts.
4) Please pass this letter and information on to your fellow Notre Dame alums and encourage their participation and support. Informal networks are often the best way to share information like this.
We welcome other ideas you may have of how Notre Dame alumni might be involved with CLAP. Feel free to contact us.
Thank you,
Paul Graham, '03
HCA '03-'04
paulfgraham@gmail.com
(617) 960-7465
Tom Lenz, '77
847-266-9803 (work)
847-475-5258 (home).
Jon Alvarez, '02
jonnyalvarez@yahoo.com
----------------------
I strongly encourage you to share the word about this exciting project. I would also recommend broading the scope of contacts at Notre Dame: Contact Campus Ministry, contact the Superior over at Moreau Seminary, contact your priest friends who are c.s.c., contact the Officers of the University, contact Bishop John Darcy's office (ND is under his pastoral care). A lot of information is available publicly on the ND directory website or on the ND News & Information site. The link I posted with Jenkins' bio has a link to all the other Officers' bios, as well.
The new Provost, Thomas Burish, is an alum, and he's Catholic. He should be a contact person as well. I think the point of this right now is to get CLAP (a truly unfortunate moniker) on the radar at the University, and to let the officers of the University know that alumni want a living wage for ND workers.
More information on living wage campaigns: http://www.livingwagecampaign.org/
What is a "living wage?" Is it different than the "minimum wage?"
A full-time minimum-wage worker makes $1,141 a month, or $13,692 a year, which is below the federal poverty line, leaving them dangerous choices between groceries and rent, between child care and utilities, and leaving health care out of the picture.
A "living wage" is the amount that a full-time wage worker would need to meet the basic human needs for themselves and their family.
The living wage campaign across the United States urges cities to adopt an ordinance to mandate a living wage for city employees and employees of companies with which the city contracts. 123 U.S. cities and several prominent universities have passed such ordinances.
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops recently issued a statement,
Faithful Citizenship, calling for “policies that increase the minimum wage so that it becomes a living wage.”
Pope John Paul II has followed in a long line of popes who have seen a living wage as a human right. In his 1991 encyclical letter, Centesimus Annus (“On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum”), he said such a family-supporting wage is part of the “preservation of life” -- citing the words of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical of a century earlier.
A decade earlier, in his letter Laborem Exercens (“On Human Work”), Pope John Paul wrote that, “in every case, a just wage is the concrete means of verifying the justice of the whole socio-economic system…” http://www.osv.com/periodicals/show-article.asp?pid=1012
"But I thought if the minimum wage was raised everybody loses out because businesses can't make as much money and are forced to close..."
The Myths: Raising the minimum wage
1) increases unemployment,
2) leads to inflation, and
3) reduces profits.
• On unemployment, increased wages mean workers have more to spend locally, creating more demand for goods and services, so local firms need more labor.
• On inflation, if 30 percent of companies in an area raise wages 20 percent and pass on the cost, which is half of their total costs, the region’s average
price increase is three percent. He cited Adam Smith, the father of free-market economics, who taught more than 200 years ago that firms always try to raise their prices, but competition deters them.
“Most people benefit by increases in minimum wages, which means fewer people around us live in poverty, welfare caseloads drop and with that the tax burden drops,” Doug Orr, professor of economics at Eastern Washington University explained in a recent forum on “Who’s Afraid of a Living Wage.”
• On reducing profits, Orr said most demand for goods and services increases as regional income rises, so profits increase. Usually small, locally owned firms
with few employees and small profit margins are exempted from living-wage ordinances, he said. (http://www.thefigtree.org/jan05images/livingwage.html)
"Wow. With the living wage having such a foundation on Catholic social teaching, Notre Dame must be leading the charge to fight for a living wage across America, since it is one of (if not the) premiere Catholic universities..."
Unfortunately, whether Notre Dame is fighting for a living wage in other places outside of South Bend, Indiana seems irrelevant faced with the fact that Notre Dame does not even have a policy in place to pay its own minimum-wage full-time workers a living wage.
Recently, it's been brought to my attention by Mr. Thomas Herman that a campaign has begun to rectify this situation. Tom forwarded me the following e-mail:
---------------------
This is a message for all alumni of Notre Dame.
Earlier this year we became aware of the efforts of a number of current Notre Dame students to prod the University on its lack of a living wage policy. 35
other colleges and universities, including Georgetown, have already acted to raise the wages of their non-professional staff to as much as $14 per hour.
The Notre Dame effort, called the Campus Labor Action Project, intends to bring together students, workers, faculty, alumni and community allies to work for
living wages at our alma mater. The students we have met with are thoughtful and passionate. And we think many alumni share their feeling that America's leading Catholic university should be in the forefront of this social justice issue.
So today we are asking that you take a moment to do a couple things to encourage Notre Dame to provide living wages to its employees.
1) Alumni are encouraged to call the office of Fr. Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, and encourage him to meet with CLAP. The phone number is 574-631-6525.
Fr. Jenkins' bio
2) Write Fr. Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, and urge him to meet with the Campus Labor Action Project leaders - and to support its aims. Fr. Jenkins' address is:
Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President, University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
FAX: 574-631-7428
3) Add your name to the list of Notre Dame Alumni who support the effort. We hope to gather the names of hundreds of Notre Dame grads who want the University to be a leader in what it pays its workers. You can send an e-mail to us at the addresses below, or sign the online petition. The heading of the list is "As University of Notre Dame alumni - and members of the Campus Labor Action Project - we urge President Jenkins and the Trustees to move speedily to adopt living wage policies that enable the non-professional staff and their families to live with dignity and security." With your e-mail address, we can also communicate the current status of the living wage efforts.
4) Please pass this letter and information on to your fellow Notre Dame alums and encourage their participation and support. Informal networks are often the best way to share information like this.
We welcome other ideas you may have of how Notre Dame alumni might be involved with CLAP. Feel free to contact us.
Thank you,
Paul Graham, '03
HCA '03-'04
paulfgraham@gmail.com
(617) 960-7465
Tom Lenz, '77
847-266-9803 (work)
847-475-5258 (home).
Jon Alvarez, '02
jonnyalvarez@yahoo.com
----------------------
I strongly encourage you to share the word about this exciting project. I would also recommend broading the scope of contacts at Notre Dame: Contact Campus Ministry, contact the Superior over at Moreau Seminary, contact your priest friends who are c.s.c., contact the Officers of the University, contact Bishop John Darcy's office (ND is under his pastoral care). A lot of information is available publicly on the ND directory website or on the ND News & Information site. The link I posted with Jenkins' bio has a link to all the other Officers' bios, as well.
The new Provost, Thomas Burish, is an alum, and he's Catholic. He should be a contact person as well. I think the point of this right now is to get CLAP (a truly unfortunate moniker) on the radar at the University, and to let the officers of the University know that alumni want a living wage for ND workers.
More information on living wage campaigns: http://www.livingwagecampaign.org/