A Union of Faith and Labor

Jose Casillas didn’t want much from his full-time job as a dishwasher at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica--just enough pay to keep him from having to ask for handouts to feed his family of eight.

But during protracted contract negotiations, he says, hotel management painted union leaders as fat cats profiting from his labor and union dues. Confused and shaken about whom to believe, Casillas turned to the one figure he trusted: his priest.

Father Tracy O’Sullivan of St. Raphael Church in Los Angeles assured Casillas that he had every right to support the union--and that Pope John Paul II himself had firmly backed labor organizations in a 1981 encyclical, “On Human Work.”

The priest’s words encouraged the worker to stay with the union. And, in March, a contract settlement gave him what he dreamed of: a pay boost, from $6.47 an hour to $8.91, that has freed him from dependence on food pantries and allowed him the pleasure of giving his children occasional treats.

This week, in sharing his story at a convocation on justice for workers held at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, Casillas added his voice to a chorus of calls for more members of the clergy to support campaigns for what unions term economic justice.

In the underbelly of Southern California’s booming economy, countless workers, largely anonymous and voiceless, struggle daily with long hours, low pay and dismal working conditions as they wash dishes, prepare food, clean rooms and fill other essential service jobs.

The interfaith convocation--featuring workers and clerics from Jewish, Methodist, Catholic, Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist and other traditions--focused on the region’s third-largest industry, tourism. According to the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, hotel room rates have increased by 45% since 1992, but workers’ wages in nonunion hotels have not risen comparably and average about $7 an hour.

With union members expanding their organizing efforts in the industry, they and their clerical compatriots gathered to encourage people of faith to embrace justice for workers as a religious mandate.

“Moses, the prophets and Jesus all insist that we must take responsibility for the poor, the marginalized, the hungry,” said the Rev. James Lawson of Holman United Methodist Church, president of the 250-member Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, which sponsored the convocation. “That theme runs from the beginning to the end of the Bible.”

Lawson said that more priests, ministers and rabbis seem to be taking up the cause. As reports persist of large numbers of working poor amid unprecedented economic prosperity, clerical groups have been formed in 40 cities across the nation to work on the issue, he said.

But Lawson said he has been “astonished” at how many fellow pastors appear “afraid to take the Scriptures seriously because of fear of harassment and/or condemnation.”

In the Catholic Church, which has affirmed the right to organize unions in documents since the Second Vatican Council of 1965, too many priests still fail to “make the connection between their pastoral ministry and the life realities of people struggling for equitable wages and fair working conditions,” O’Sullivan said.

Supporting workers is “absolutely central to our faith experience--not just to pray for sick people . . . but to help transform society so it is more equitable and just and celebrates the dignity of people,” he said.

St. Raphael Church--whose membership of 2,500 families is roughly 80% Latino and 20% African American--sponsors speakers on Labor Day, offers regular sermons on economic justice and participates in marches and letter-writing campaigns, O’Sullivan said.

Patricia Mosley, a concession-stand worker at Staples Center and Dodger Stadium, wept as she told the audience how religious leaders had stood with her as she was arrested for civil disobedience during contract negotiations earlier this year with Staples management.

“I was so scared, I was shaking like a leaf inside,” Mosley said. “But the religious leaders gave us the courage.”

With her recent contract settlement, Mosley now has health benefits and a boost in pay--from $8.76 an hour to $10.55. The added cash has allowed her to catch up on rent, pay off several old bills and even sock away $75 a month in savings for the first time. “We don’t have to choose between feeding our families and going to the doctor anymore,” she said.

The impact of clerical involvement appears to go both ways.

Two years ago, Father David O’Connell of St. Francis Cabrini Church was asked to help workers in a labor dispute at Catholic hospitals in Lynwood and Hawthorne. When he tried to visit them, he said, hospital security guards hustled him outside and jotted down the names of those who spoke to him. Later, he says, he was accused by hospital staff members of “infringing on patients’ rights.”

He wondered: “If this is what a Catholic hospital does to a Catholic priest, what are they doing to workers?”

The experience deepened his commitment to pursue economic justice and to “listen to people’s pain” as they share stories about their hardscrabble lives. Their courage and faith have inspired and nurtured him and deepened his own faith, he said.

“Many times, we think we bring God to people,” O’Connell said, “but actually they bring God to us.”