With economic justice for low-wage workers on their minds, about 60 Episcopalians marched up the hill from the Cathedral Church of St. Paul to the State House on April 9 to ask their legislators to vote for an increase in the minimum wage and earned sick time for all workers.
Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE led the w
Ellen Stuart
Participants led by Bishop Shaw and Ruy Costa cross Tremont St. on their way to the State House.
ay and gave a blessing in the capitol’s Gardner Auditorium before the marchers dispersed to become lobbyists for a day.
The effort was part of Episcopal City Mission’s annual Lobby Day, this year in support of Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition of community, labor and religious groups working together to get minimum wage and sick-time initiatives on the 2014 ballot.
“We are making an economic argument that is informed by a vision of a just world,” Dr. Ruy Costa, Executive Director of Episcopal City Mission, told the gathering during a pre-march briefing session.
During the briefing, Lobby Day-goers learned about the Senate and House minimum wage bills that are now being negotiated in conference committee. The Raise Up campaign advocates a bill that would increase the minimum wage from $8 to at least $10.50 an hour, with the increase indexed to annual inflation. It also advocates raising the wage for workers who rely on tips, from $2.63 to $6.30 (60 percent of minimum wage). The Senate bill comes closest to those objectives, proposing a raise to $11 an hour over three years, indexed to inflation, and tipped wages raised to 50 percent of minimum wage.
The earned sick time measure is not getting any traction in the State Legislature, the group was told, and so Raise Up will continue collecting signatures for the November ballot initiatives.
Ellen Stuart
ECM Executive Director Ruy Costa
“We are winning,” Alexandra Pineros-Shields, Episcopal City Mission’s board secretary, said. “Both the Senate and House have passed bills to the country’s highest levels, not because they wanted to but because we forced them to,” she said, referring to the Raise Up campaign’s signature-gathering efforts over the past year.
Pineros-Shields described how members of her parish, St. Andrew’s Church in Marblehead, worked to collect nearly 2,500 signatures at supermarkets and train stations in Marblehead, Salem and Lynn. “We believe Jesus calls us to make sure people can feed and shelter their families through their work,” she said.
During a lunch break, participants had a chance to prepare for their legislator visits and share information.
The Rev. David Fredrickson of Christ Church in Plymouth came to Lobby Day with his son, a high school sophomore, both to share with him an experience of political action, he said, and “because I think [the Senate bill] is a great bill that can elevate people from poverty into something better.”
A team from the Church of the Good Shepherd in Watertown said they were motivated to participate because of a confluence of experiences over the past year, ranging from a diocesan study of the book The Rich and the Rest of Us to their church’s participation in community gardening and food pantry work.
“We were learning about economic issues, and many threads came together,” Stephen Steadman, a former warden at Good Shepherd, said.
“Our connection with the food pantry in Watertown, and some of the cuts that have affected the food pantry, made it apparent that even people with jobs are not making enough to feed their families,” added Kate Gyllensvard, Good Shepherd’s Episcopal City Mission delegate.
Ellen Stuart
Participants gathered in the Gardner Auditorium of the State House for a brief prayer before lobbying their legislators.
Because this Lobby Day was Bishop Shaw’s last before his retirement later this year, it took on a poignant aspect. A video and several speeches during the morning program honored his activism over the years on a range of issues, including homelessness, immigration reform and marriage equality.
Prayer has been the impetus, Shaw told the gathering. “Prayer is critical to the kind of change we’re going to make in the world, and it’s through prayer that we come to understand the power we have in Jesus Christ,” he said.
“We might think of ourselves as not very important, as too young or too old, as having nothing to offer to the transformation of the world, except maybe some complaining,” he said. “But without people like us, ordinary people, going up to the State House, or demonstrating or commenting to our neighbors about what we believe justice is, there won’t be change. Even when it looks like nothing has changed, it has. The seeds have been sown, the work has been acknowledged by God and power released.”
Shaw credited Episcopal City Mission and those gathered “for moving into the future in a creative way that has so formed my ministry and whatever effectiveness there’s been.”
“You’ve not only done hard work but taught me a lot about how God’s work can happen. I have nothing but gratitude for that,” Shaw said.
Lobby Day was the kick-off event for the diocese’s “Season of Service and Celebration,” during which congregations are taking on community service projects in Bishop Shaw’s honor. The season culminates with a diocesan community picnic and celebration on June 21.
--Tracy J. Sukraw