On Friday, we received word that the labor protest of the unjust closure of the Jordache plant in Tizimin, Yucatan, Mexico was successful. The workers' demonstration, coupled with UUSC program partner CEPRODEHL's outspoken support during the strike, brought the business owners to the table, where they were able to negotiate for their severance pay and back wages.

CEPRODEHL's staff continue to document rights abuses that have occurred at the two Jordache maquiladoras in the Yucatan. In this way, CEPRODEHL "will at least be able to denounce the ethical failures of this business," declared the organization's president, Socorro Chable.

The victory of these workers will enable them to feed their families as they look for employment elsewhere, and would not have been possible without the education and support provided by labor rights workers like Socorro Chable and her associate Isabel Canche. We congratulate them for this success -- it makes a world of difference to the workers that together we support and empower.

“Ustedes estan aqui para pelear por sus derechos humanos, y sus derechos laborales – ¡ANIMA!” You are here to fight for your human rights, your labor rights – have spirit! called Socorro Chable to the crush of workers crowded around her.

Their faces flickered in the firelight as they stood close to each other, huddled in the cool night air. She was addressing some 300 Yucatecos employed by a Jordache maquila in Tizimin, Mexico, who were gathered to block the gate of the factory in an attempt to claim what is legally theirs: back wages and severance pay.

The Jordache workers are victims of the global race to the bottom. The owners of their maquila are planning to close up shop and move to Nicaragua to find the cheapest labor in all of Central America, where people will work for much less than the $6/day these workers are earning. The workers have been given a three-day vacation and fear that they will return to work on Tuesday and find nothing there, which means no backpay, no severance pay, and no advance notice . . . which means no way to feed their families.

Socorro and her coworker Isabel Canche of UUSC program partner the Center for the Promotion and Defense of Human and Labor Rights (CEPRODEHL) believe that blocking the maquila gate is the only way the workers will be able to earn their liquidacion – by preventing the owners from taking the last items of value -- the machines -- from the factory and out of the country.

Said one worker leader, “Es nuestro derecho bajo la ley, y ellos tienen que pagar. Por eso estamos planteado aqui.” It is our right under the law, they have to pay us. That is why we are demonstrating here.

I wonder if the Gap and American Eagle executives (whose label goes onto the clothes produced in the Jordache maquiladora) and U.S. consumers who buy those clothes agree that workers have a right to be paid, a right to job security, and the right to organize to work for justice?

The most viewed opinion column in yesterday's Washington Post online was "A Nadir of U.S. Power," an op-ed by Sebastian Mallaby that offers a swift analysis of the decline of U.S. power and political efficacy nationally and internationally. While I am wont to agree with Mallaby's grim indictment, I must correct him on one vital point. He writes, "The left and right are pushing policies that are marginal to the country's problems . . . the left wants to raise the minimum wage, even though this can only help a minority of workers." Raising the minimum wage is not a left or right issue, Mr. Mallaby!

A recent Pew Research Center poll revealed that 83 percent of the general public approves of minimum wage hikes, including 72 percent of Republicans. In fact, the Republican governors of both California and Arkansas approved minimum wage increases in their states this year, thus affirming the wide appeal of living wages. Clearly, this issue cuts across divisive party lines because it addresses the reprehensible reality of poverty in America -- men and women who labor 40+ hours a week in minimum wage jobs, but still cannot afford to feed their families, much less pay for health care or adequate housing.

UUSC's Wage Justice initiative is mobilizing UUs across the country to promote raising the wage, in partnership with Let Justice Roll, a nationwide coalition of more than 80 faith, labor, and community organizations working for living wages. Raising the minimum wage is, ultimately, a question of values -- the basic belief that work should be rewarded fairly, and that "a job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it."

An estimated 14.9 million workers would benefit from raising the wage nationwide, or 11 percent of the workforce. While it will not directly affect everyone, raising the minimum wage will give our poorest citizens, those in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution, a handle to pull themselves and their families out of poverty. In the words of longtime minimum wage proponent Sen. Ted Kennedy, "Raising the minimum wage is a women's issue, a family issue, and a racial justice issue."

When Hurricane Katrina devastated my home state of Louisiana -- particularly the great city of New Orleans -- there was practically round-the-clock coverage of the disaster. The airwaves were dominated by stories of the madness and mayhem among the desperate survivors stuck in the Superdome, separated from loved ones, the same folks who were then forced to evacuate and leave everything behind.

Now, almost a year since the levees broke, what is the progress of reconstruction? Is the area recovering? Are her residents returning? Is the government striving to correct the massive wrongs caused by its incompetence and gross negligence when the storm hit? Are the rights of those workers who toil for subcontracted construction companies protected and upheld?

In a word -- NO!

In the report "And Injustice for All: Workers Lives in the Reconstruction of New Orleans" (compiled and written by UUSC program partners the Advancement Project, National Immigration Law Center, and the New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition), the stories of evacuees and immigrants laboring on the reconstruction of New Orleans are uplifted to reveal the deplorable situation of former residents and workers in the Crescent City.

The report draws the connection between evacuees and reconstruction workers because of the common "unprecedented level of exploitation." People are forced to "live and work amid substandard conditions, homelessness, poverty, toxicity, under the threat of police and immigration raids, and without any guarantee of a fair day's pay, if they are paid at all. They also face structural barriers that make it impossible to hold public or private institutions accountable for their mistreatment."

New Orleanians are wrestling with deep racial-cultural divides, entrenched poverty, structural discrimination and racism, frightening levels of violence that arise from dispair -- and all of this is compounded by little or no accountability for the institutions that should combat these problems. It is a deplorable, dire situation.

As a Louisianan, I am ashamed and outraged by my state's residents and elected officials who have not fulfilled their responsibility to those who are suffering in the reconstruction effort. My outrage is dwarfed only by the magnitude of the problems of structural and interpersonal racism that plague my entire state, that the devastation wrought by Katrina exposed and the current plight of the evacuees (even those in my hometown) continues to confirm.

As a seminarian, I am righteously indignant about the blatant disregard for human life in the wake of Katrina by persons of faith who, by their actions or even in their complacency, seem to have forgotten biblical imperatives to build just economic community, to uplift the downtrodden, to practice radical egalitarianism, and to strive for social justice in the face of exploitation, hate, and empire.

As an intern at UUSC, I am hopeful thanks to knowledge of our Economic Justice Program partners in New Orleans. The New Orleans Worker Center is striving to be a place where workers are educated about their rights and get legal support in the fight against exploitation, wage theft, and unsafe conditions -- a place where laborers are empowered to organize with their allies and to become leaders in their own communities and workplaces.

Now, what can I do to contribute to their efforts?

Cat Dodson is an intern in the UUSC Economic Justice Program.

A majority of my time in the past weeks was spent facilitating partnerships with organizations that support and promote workers’ rights, unionization, and living wages around the world. It has been fascinating to learn of the work our partners are doing, and enlightening to see how UUSC supports their efforts. I see UUSC striving to be not simply a funder, but also an “eye-to-eye partner” with a rights-based approach to programmatic human rights work.

One example is the partnership with the Northwest Arkansas Worker Center (NWAWC) in Fayetteville, Ark. UUSC supports NWAWC to doing workers’ rights education, workshops, and organizing. As the partnership moves into its second year, NWAWC has entered a time of transition -- next month, the executive director (and sole full-time staff member) is moving on, so the board of directors is searching for another devoted, passionate, community-based person to fill the role. UUSC is helping NWAWC vision the opportunity presented by a new director, as well as the future of the center, to work with them through the transition and ensure that the vital work of rights education, legal accompaniment, racial unification, and organizing continues with renewed strength and vigor.

Instead of taking the back seat as a complacent funder, UUSC walks with its partners, through times of both success and challenges, through struggles and transitions. It is a model that values human relationships and promotes justice. I’ve learned that this partnership collaboration, with different ideas coming from various voices, can often lead to better, more creative solutions to problems, and stronger organizations overall.

And the work of NWAWC is important!

Theologically, the relationship between a vulnerable worker in the poultry-processing industry, forced by circumstance to labor long hours in unsafe conditions for little pay (not to mention the brutal, inhumane situation for the chickens!), and the sacredness of all life is clear to me. Indeed, it is no accident that the Economic Justice Program has partnered to support and accompany this worker center, for its work furthers the UUSC vision of "a world free from oppression and injustice, where all can realize their full human rights."

What does a seminarian do for the summer? Try to gain experience in the field of ministry that will be a part of her vocational path!

At least, that is what I am doing. I am a student in the Master of Divinity program at Boston University School of Theology, and I am working as an intern in the Economic Justice Program of UUSC. Since I can envision my future ministry as ecumenical/interfaith human rights and development work, the UUSC Programs Department has been an exciting and challenging place for me to serve and grow this summer.

The Programs Department has been quiet today, as the entire JustWorks crew -- Kim, Nguyen, Shayla, and their two interns, Sean and Sam -- left this morning for the Civil Rights Journey, a weeklong journey through the heart of the South to trace the movement for racial equality and justice in the 1950s and 1960s.

My life was affected by a similar trip (The Majic Bus Civil Rights History Tour) when I was a Louisiana high school student back in 1998, and I hope the participants in UUSC’s camp have the same kind of awakening that I did. I remember being absolutely floored when I realized how little time had passed since the firehoses and guard dogs were turned on students demonstrating in Birmingham, that it had been only thirty years since Martin Luther King, Jr., fell on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

It happened when my parents were my age! It made me wonder what injustices continue at the turn of the 21st century -- how far have we really come? These questions have fueled my own struggle for justice ever since.

It is heartening to work for an organization that seeks to uphold human rights in so many different ways -- through direct experience and transformation, as with the JustWorks camps, by partnering with organizations worldwide that strive for economic and environmental justice, civil rights, and disaster response, by educating the general public and UUSC’s constituency through publications, and by advocating for justice on many different levels.

I am becoming ever more convinced that such a comprehensive approach is necessary, albeit challenging to envision and manage.

Just this morning, I spoke with two of our program partners in Mexico who are working to unionize laborers in the maquiladora industry and to educate workers about their rights as employees. From a cubicle in Cambridge, I’ve been able to touch base with passionate people in the Yucatan and Puebla, folks working side by side with and for the exploited campesinos, peasants, and laborers of Mexico. It is clear that this internship will be a further awakening for me -- how well-intentioned faith groups in the Global North support and constructively partner with those people and organizations working for change and upholding human rights worldwide.