Like thousands of activists around the country who are protesting the ever-mounting gap between the extremely rich and those of us who are the 99 percent, UUSC's economic-justice partner based in Springdale, Ark., is supporting the Occupy Northwest Arkansas movement. Meanwhile, rooted in its core mission to organize and advocate for workers to obtain a safe workplace and a fair wage, worker members of the Northwest Arkansas Workers' Justice Center (NWAWJC) continue to deal with day-to-day, firsthand experiences of wage theft, otherwise known as "the crime wave no one talks about."

NWAWJC has been a leader in bringing public attention to the enormity of the nationwide wage-theft issue, and I was especially pleased to see that their latest public activism caught the attention of radio and television outlets in Fayetteville, Ark.

The media coverage included a major feature story on KUAF-FM, the National Public Radio station in Fayetteville. You can listen to the nine-minute segment, "Restaurant Involved in Wage Theft Picketed," which aired as the lead in the daily Ozarks at Large program on Friday, November 18, 2011.

Click play button to listen or download the MP3 file.

The forum and rally also was featured in a two-minute video segment on KNWA-TV, a Fox Network affiliate, also based in Fayetteville.   

The news stories focused on events organized by the workers' justice center in Fayetteville. The forum spotlighted and urged support for an anti-wage theft bill pending in the Arkansas state legislature. The forum was followed by picketing in front of Celi's Restaurant on Center Street in Fayetteville for allegedly withholding wages from a former employee.  

"Wage theft takes a toll in our communities as wages are stolen from millions of workers in the United States every year," said Fernando Garcia, the center's campaign director. "Wage theft too often forces workers to make tough decisions between feeding their families and providing them shelter. Workers should not have to go through these difficult times because some greedy employer decides to not pay wages."

Ana Aguayo, the center's communications director, pointed out that unscrupulous employers often use threats and other pressures to dissuade workers, many of whom are recent immigrants and do not speak English, from reporting wage-theft abuses.

"Wage theft includes violations of minimum-wage laws, not paying time-and-a-half overtime pay, forcing workers to work off the clock, workers not receiving their final paychecks, and stealing tips," said Aguayo. "Even the Economic Policy Foundation, a business-funded think tank, estimated that companies annually steal 19 billion dollars in unpaid overtime. The scope of these abuses is staggering."

Last year, at the urging of NWAWJC, the mayor of Fayetteville issued a proclamation condemning wage theft as an illegal practice that causes irreparable harm to low-income workers and ethical businesses. Fayetteville was the first city in the United States to issue such a public pronouncement and to promise strong action to combat wage theft.

Legislative advocacy is one of the most important tools in the struggle for human rights and social justice. At UUSC, we rely on our members to speak up for the values that we want our government policies to reflect and against repressive policies. At General Assembly this year, members of our Volunteer Network helped us get the word out about legislative actions that need our attention. Right now we are working on the following actions:

Promoting the human right to water
UUSC is proud to be partnering with the UU Legislative Ministry of California (UULMCA) to support the California human-right-to-water bill package! If you live in California, visit the UULMCA website to learn more about how you can get involved.

If you don't live in California, you can support the Water for the Poor Act in Congress and make sure that the most needy communities have equitable access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

Exposing the truth about U.S.-sponsored torture
UUSC has joined with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) to call upon President Barack Obama to appoint an independent Commission of Inquiry to investigate the history of U.S.-sponsored torture.

Asking Congress to support fair wages and working families
It is time to make sure all of the nation's largest workforce — tipped workers — are paid fair wages for their hard work. Although the last raise in the federal minimum wage was in 2009, the minimum wage for tipped workers has remained the same for the last 20 years! We are asking members of Congress to cosponsor the Working for Adequate Gains for Employment in Services (WAGES) Act.

Urging the Senate to support women's rights throughout the world
We are working to urge the U.S. Senate to bring the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to a vote. The United States is one of only seven countries — including Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and three Pacific island nations — that have not ratified the convention. It's time to ratify CEDAW now!

As you may have heard by now, a new Census report was released announcing that 3.8 million more people officially live in poverty now in America than in 2008, an increase that brings the total number up to 43.6 million — or 1 in 7 people.

A 14.3 percent poverty rate wasn't the only distressing part of the report, though. Besides a record number of people without health insurance and stalled median household incomes, what's worrying is what the statistics aren't telling us.

The U.S. government considers an annual income of $21,756 to be the poverty line — for a family of four! A wage that puts you just over the poverty line is not a real living wage. There are thousands of people living above the poverty line who are struggling just to make ends barely meet — and they are nowhere to be found in these statistics.

That's why advancing the living-wage movement is one of UUSC's priorities. The minimum wage should cover a family's basic needs — something that the current rate of $7.25 per hour doesn't come close to achieving. By partnering with Let Justice Roll — especially on efforts to raise the federal minimum wage to $10 and to raise the wages of tipped workers, in addition to other local and state campaigns — UUSC is supporting people organizing for a more just minimum wage across the United States.

As Let Justice Roll puts it, "A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it." And that goes for what many consider to be poverty — not just what the government statistics tell us poverty is.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy passed away this morning. As a nation, we cannot thank him enough for his public service.

While the titan himself called ensuring affordable health care for all Americans "the cause of his life," we at UUSC remember him most vividly for his tireless work to raise the minimum wage.

Perhaps more than any other public figure since Martin Luther King, Jr., Kennedy understood that the battle to raise the minimum wage is "not just an economic issue. It's a fairness issue, and it's a moral issue."

In 2006, we had the honor, along with the UUA and our partner Let Justice Roll, to host Kennedy as the keynote speaker at a Living Wage Day event that honored the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and promoted a living wage for all workers.

In his address, he said:

^{I want to give fair notice to all of those who voted against the minimum wage increase this last year... I give you good news, because those people will get another chance to vote, time and time again. This is a bipartisan issue... it's been nine years since we had an increase in minimum wage... [and] during that time, the Congress voted themselves seven pay increases... you talk about morality. You talk about people speaking about family values: we have a moral issue, a fairness issue, and we are not going to back down.}

Over his long tenure in the Senate, Kennedy proposed innumerable bills that failed to raise the federal minimum wage. But his persistence eventually paid off. In 2007, his efforts, along with those of the grassroots living wage movement, culminated in the first increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade. About 13 million U.S. workers, including the parents of more than 6 million children, benefited from the raise, which increased the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour.

Where do we stand now, without this pillar of strength and determination?

Over the coming weeks, or perhaps years, we'll see whether or not Congress will choose to honor Kennedy's legacy by making affordable access to health care a right for all Americans. But what about us, the common citizens? How do we honor his legacy? The answer is simple — we carry it forward with hope.

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die. — Edward M. Kennedy

The living wage movement gained momentum and even greater legitimacy on November 30 when the New Mexico Court of Appeals unanimously upheld Santa Fe's 2003 living wage ordinance ($8.50 per hour for workers in businesses of more than 25 people).

The Santa Fe Living Wage Network, a UUSC partner, is celebrating.

Living wage opponents have been banking on overturning local living wage ordinances in state courts, claiming there is no authority to make these laws at the local level.

In one of the first cases of its kind, the Court of Appeals ruled otherwise.

The city of Santa Fe is a "home rule municipality," meaning it is free to legislate on local matters so long as the state has not expressly ruled to the contrary.

The Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and other plaintiffs argued that New Mexico's general Minimum Wage Act ($5.15 an hour) forbids creating any higher wage laws. But the court ruled that the state act simply creates a floor. Nor was it intended to be the final word on minimum wages. For one thing, it was passed at a time when other cities in New Mexico already had higher minimum wages, yet it did not nullify those laws.

This court victory sets a positive precendent for other innovative living wage movements currently underway, including Let Justice Roll, the nation's only coalition of interfaith activists and community groups (including UUSC) working specifically on living and minimum wage work.

Living wage initiatives and ordinances are achieving victories and resisting attacks through sustained efforts by faith-labor-community coalitions. "La Marcha," a film about the Santa Fe living wage campaign, highlights this strategy, and will be available from UUSC in early spring.