Our parish cancelled a contract with a cleaning company after giving the company over thirty days notice. What 815 did is ugly business practice. I've said it before, the Church(es) love to blather on about justice, but when it comes to non-clerical employment, they are the worst.

This is the problem with preaching and teaching the law. Nobody can fulfill it. Matthew 23:3-5

Alex Large

It appears that Ms. Fox and Ms. Watt didn't get a copy of 2006-D047.
Susan Hedges

Sometimes institutions have to make difficult decisions for budget reasons. But for the church to have done it here in such a cavalier manner, and then to make such callous comments about workers' concerns, is inexcusable.

I agree our church is not leading an integrated life. It has compartmentalized business decisions it makes from the values it expresses, at least as it expresses them through General Convention public policy statements. It advocates for unions, but dismisses a unionized company when it costs more than the nonunion competition. Saying that things are a "business decision" is not a defense - but is the church owns the decision, not those who its financial or PR officials.

By the way, the headlines suggest these were 815 employees. They were not; they were employees of Paris Maintenance. And, further, that Paris Maintenance in all likelihood knew that it had lost the contract. It is Paris Maintenance that had the responsibility to give the workers notice. And were the church to offer severance it could used to say that it was the employer. Which begs another question: why do churches - perhaps even your parish - outsource to begin with? To avoid treating workers as church employees with all the benefits that entails according to General Convention and/or your diocese.

So I believe the church was ethically dubious supporting unions generally, but terminating a contract with a unionized company. However, I personally think the church has made the wrong call on unions. Consider:

1. We have not asked how the savings will be redeployed. What would be cut if these savings were not obtained?

2. We have not considered that Benjamin Enterprises is employing more workers. What about the improvement in the lives of those workers?

3. We have not considered that the union workers are presenting a false choice: at the union wage they lost their jobs. What would have happened at a lower wage?

4. We have not considered that as unionization expands unemployment rises.

5. We have not considered that if society were to mandate higher wages and better benefits firms would hire fewer workers, and that those workers are most likely to be those in most need. Making it easier to unionize is just another way to achieve that undesirable result.

I am reminded about what Paul Krugman says in a piece titled "Hearts and Heads."

http://www.pkarchive.org/column/42201.html

"Third-world countries desperately need their export industries — they cannot retreat to an imaginary rural Arcadia. They can't have those export industries unless they are allowed to sell goods produced under conditions that Westerners find appalling, by workers who receive very low wages. And that's a fact the anti- globalization activists refuse to accept. So who are the bad guys? The activists are getting the images they wanted from Quebec City: leaders sitting inside their fortified enclosure, with thousands of police protecting them from the outraged masses outside. But images can deceive. Many of the people inside that chain-link fence are sincerely trying to help the world's poor. And the people outside the fence, whatever their intentions, are doing their best to make the poor even poorer."

I am mostly in agreement with John Chilton above. After the reading the original posting, there were a number of unanswered questions about what actually happened at 915.
- Whose responsibility was it to inform the workers of their dismissal. The outside employer or the church center.
- What is the benefits package of the new firm. Just because it is nonunion does not mean that they are not competitive.
- One of the terminated employees commented that "a church is not a business". This is true; however all non-profit organizations need to operate using "business practices"; which is different from the programs/services/ministry that it provides.

None of this is not to say that the church has a prophetic witness in advocating for the rights of the all workers for the church.

My final comment is that first this demonstrates how easy it is for GC to pass resolutions that it then finds hard to enforce within our own family. Second the resolution primarily addresses issues with regard to the planning of conferences and meetings outside of the direct contracting of church services; not contracts entered into by church entities. It is a case of mixing oranges with apples.

It is certainly helpful to bring this issue to the attention of the Church; however I think it needs to be addressed in its proper perspective.

So, Mr. Chilton, are you arguing against unionization and, in effect, that the results of collective bargaining are negative for workers? Interesting read, if so. I would add to your "considerations" the following questions:

1. If unions had not formed would we still have 6 or 7 day workweeks and 12-14 hour workdays?

2. If unions had not formed would we still have child labor?

3. If unions had not formed would workers be exploited, underpaid, and made to work in unsafe conditions in the service of greater profits?

4. Why had the anti-union argument that has successfully produced "right to work" laws in many states and active lawbreaking to prevent collective bargaining resulted in stagnant wages for the past 30+ years?

5. Would workers receive any benefits whatsoever without unionization and what would be the cost to society of having no access to health insurance or other benefits of collective bargaining?

6. Why has the promised increase in wages and improvement in working conditions of non-union shops failed to materialize even though US productivity is at an historic high along with profit-taking and shareholder returns?

You can certainly argue against unions if you like but please be a little more balanced and fair about the arguments you choose to support your position.

I grew up in WV where people laid down their lives in order to collectively bargain and to stop the companies from exploiting the natural resources, robbing the workers through company stores, and refusing to "share" the wealth with the poor under their thumbs.

Your arguments hold little water unless one can believe that profit-driven corporations actually care about their workers and the poor. There is a long, rich, and bloody history that easily proves otherwise.

815 needs to apologize publicly and right this wrong.

Our hypocrisy is almost beyond belief...

Priscilla,

Much of what you ask are counterfactuals. My view is that the gains that workers have made over the years have to do with a dynamic growing market economy (yes, with a government to regulate it sufficiently).

Much of the "benefits" that exist actually are the result of the income tax code -- benefits are untaxed, and mandates. Health insurance as we know it today is a result of the code, and wage freezes during WWII. Economic theory tells us that with the tax distortions wages would be higher and workers better off. Workers would buy the benefits themselves if they found them that valuable.

You'll need to point to specific evidence on right to work and productivity. The bulk of the evidence is to the contrary. And then there are cross country comparisons.

Unions are in decline everywhere except the public sector. That is a shot yourself in the foot phenomenon.

The last several times certain senior Church Center managers were not held to account for poor decisions and unacceptable behavior, there was major damage and the cost to the Church in many respects was never recovered. Must we have "déjà vu all over again"?

There's also Resolution 2000-D015 (http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/acts/acts_resolution.pl?resolution=2000-D015)

These people are not the only ones at 815 who lost their jobs following the adoption of General Convention's budget. To my mind, the loss of each one is tragic. We saved dollars, lost loyal contributors to the work of the church, and earned one more public black eye. Shame.
If we can't afford to live in arguably the most expensive city in America, maybe it's time to move our headquarters. Lose the building and keep the people; we have a mission and don't need a mansion.

Thanks John for holding me to a higher standard than you hold yourself. My arguments are counterfactual and yours are what, factual? Where are your cites? We obviously disagree on this. That's fine.

I stand with the fired workers in solidarity. I heard their painful voices. Economic theories mean nothing when you can't feed your family. This was just plain wrong whether it is legal, justifiable, kosher, or however you want to rationalize it.

What would Jesus do? Fire loyal, longtime workers who have families with no notice to save a few dollars and then try to blame others or defend yourself? You really believe that? Interesting indeed.

Priscilla, these folks did not work for TEC. Their employer was the cleaning company who had the contract to clean TEC's office building. If there is someone that you should be upset with it is the cleaning company. They are the ones who handled this badly. There are any number of things that Paris Maintenance could have done to handle this differently.

And the newspaper report is very disingenuous. The headline should rightfully be Crew of 9 abruptly fired by Paris Maintenance. As reported in the article, the Colombian woman quoted had worked 18 years for Paris Maintenance, but was stationed at 815 for only the last two.

I work in human resources. One very sad aspect of my job is that in this economic crisis I fire folks for any number of my clients on a weekly basis. But we do things very differently than Paris Maintenance apparently does. We have never let folks go with a one day notice. We alert them in group sessions about the termination with a minimum 30 days notice, provide counseling, job resource assistance, and finally a severance package. The day that a client of mine treats folks the way Paris Maintenance has, they would cease to be my client.

It is rather unfair for GC to hand 815 an axed budget and then have individual TEC members paint the folks at 815 as heartless ogres when they have to carry out real world steps to live within that budget. And when you are replacing one maintenance company with another to live within your budget, you are hardly in a position to dictate how that company fairly or unfairly handles the situation with its employees, especially employees with a union contract!

As heart wrenching as this is, many of you are directing your anger in the wrong direction. You have been duped by the yellow journalism. The information was that a local employer let folks go. The journalist milked your emotions with a red herring by falsely directing the story at 815.

This is a tough time to lose a job. It's also a tough to get a job. I believe both sets of workers should be considered.

Different standards? A counterfactual empirical question is one that cannot be answered because it asks that we compare what happened to what happened if unions never existed. They are not unfactual. You had a lot of counterfactual questions and I gave my best in-theory answer.

As to notice, we don't know whether the workers were given notice by their employer, Paris Maintenance.

A co-author and I have a theory paper on mandated advance notice.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2535318

Perhaps it's not surprising we find that a mandate can be harmful to all parties, not just the employer.

And however misunderstood economists may be, most of us got into the field and remain in the field because we care about people, particular those with less, not because we care about business. We spend a lot of time looking for unintended consequences of good intentions.

The effects of unionization is one of the most studied areas of empirical economics. I do not claim to be any kind expert in that field. I do know that the findings are mixed, but lean towards adverse effects. Like any field where the stakes are - climate change comes to mind - it is hard not to believe that results are independent of who did the study. The same can be said of mere theorists like me.

Just saw your comment, David. Bravo.

I do have one doubt from your comment that I wanted to throw out there: do we know that Paris Maintenance did not give notice?

You are right John, we do not have factual information that these folks were not given notice by Paris Maintenance. But the story gives that impression by implying that the employees were surprised to arrive at work 30 DEC expecting to work and go home early for the holiday but were told they were no longer employed.

Seems HQ is trying to pit liberal, left-wing support for unions against our support for minority-owned companies. Could it not find a unionized, minority-owned janitorial service?

David, you have lectured me before on how I am wrong in my understandings.

I disagree with you that 815 is innocent in this matter. I agree that the management company bears the majority of the blame in this situation but I also know that it is hardly Christian to have people who work for you for "just" 2 years and not bother to speak with them, ask them if they will be alright, if they know why their company's contract was not renewed. I have always made it a point to get to know the contracted cleaning crews of any building I work in and I find it amazing that this happened in a church building.

Peace

Thanks David - the main point holds - 815 dropped a unionized company to go with a non-union company to save a few dollars from the lowest paid employees.

After all is said and done (and posted), there's really only one word:

Hypocrisy.

It is still unclear to me if Paris Maintenance was given a goodly and decent amount of notification that the contract would not be renewed, so that they could inform their employees in advance. Again, given how churches tend to fumble these sort of administrative matters and do not consider the ethics of how to do this fairly, I have to wonder if 815 actually notified Paris Maintenance in a goodly amount of time.

As I note, my parish did not renew a contract with a cleaning firm, and we discussed in advance informing them in a goodly amount of time so that their employees would be alerted. That is an ethical, care-for-neighbor way to proceed.

I have helped in the unionization of one department store I worked for, where the grocery folks had good benefits and we had none in the merchandise side. Most of the employees were single women with children. Given what I have seen of a real failure of corporate and business loyalty to employees, unions are a vital part of retaining worker rights and benefits.

For those who have not worked in a setting of low wages, long hours, and no benefits, I recommend it heartily before jumping to theories.

This is last year's rearranging of the deck chairs. Based on the last handful of years, I'm sure we just have to wait a bit for this year's rearrangement.

When deck chairs are rearranged ad infinitum it is very easy for those causing the rearrangement to forget the humanity of those who actually do the rearranging whether they be long-time professional employees or unionized laborers.

Over time I'd expect the store will be hiring merchandise employees that are more like the grocery employees. And then there's grocery stores switching to self serve checkout.

And isn't this interesting:
http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2010/02/youth-rates-revisited.html
New Zealand abolished the youth minimum wage. Youth unemployment jumped.

I recommend reading Nickled and Dimed for an education about how low wage employees are treated.

Priscilla, how is my comment more of lecturing than your comments to John? I disagree with your assessment of the situation and explained why. I do not believe that is lecturing. And I certainly did not resort to the cold use of Ms Cardinale to address you, as you have with John. Is there a reason you appear to be taking this conversation so personally that folks cannot disagree with you and present another view? I think that there are some broad assumptions that you make when you judge the behavior of 815 personnel, because the information presented in one slanted article and the 815 press release is not sufficient, in my opinion, to leap to your conclusions.

Ann, yes a union shop is out and a non-union shop is in. Some of us are perhaps more sold on unions than others. But I think that you speak to facts not in evidence, at least not in this post or its links, when you say 815 "dropped a unionized company to go with a non-union company to save a few dollars from the lowest paid employees." Are you privy to the contract? Are you privy to the wages and benefits of the new company compared to Paris Maintenance. If so, for us all to make a fair assessment and perhaps even agree with you, that information should be in the post.

Chris, you make concern troll claims also based on facts not in evidence. If it is unclear to you, then you do not have the information necessary to make judgements against an organization or its personnel. You cannot make comparisons of how a parish or two with which you are familiar badly handled things and then fairly paint the folks at 815 with the broad strokes of your former experience.

First David, my name is Christopher, not Chris.

Second, I made no "concern troll claim," I asked a question because it is unclear if the contract company was given a fair amount of time in terms of notification. The article doesn't state, and the claims that it's all on them by both you and John, without that information is as much a claim rather than fact as any you think Priscilla, I, or Ann make. Where is your evidence that an ethical amount of time was given in notifying Paris Maintenance?

Third, churches have a tendency not to handle business matters well. Being in the thick of church matters all the time, I see this first hand.

All of this reveals that still lurking class issue we Episcopalians do not want to face.

Having actually worked in low pay, long hours, no benefits positions, I recommend them to all Episcopalians who know theory but not persons.

Some of the comments here show no sense on the ground level of how things work with regard to "bottom rung" employees and the sorts of policies that are often in place.

For example, in the store I mentioned, merchandise employees (who were without benefits) were not allowed to transfer to grocery where benefits were available. Unionizing the merchandise employees made possible for us to receive health benefits, a big deal for many.

And yes, self-serve checkout will try to replace all of them, hence, why I refuse to use self-serve checkout. It's almost as bad as the automated telephone services when what you need is a real person, a "hello," and see you next time. Customer service is neither valued, nor understood by some folks. I tend to shop where they are both valued and understood.

I can appreciate the various theories of how market economies work, however, as a Christian, I am called to care for the neighbor in front of me and not dismiss their suffering as "too bad, so sad". As churches, we have to give more concern to how to do right by persons when we are faced with money problems. As our latest meltdown shows market values, especially greed, rather than common good too often drive things, including how markets behave. The mythos of the objective, invisible hand is that, a mythos. It is very driven by emotions.

Let's remember the stirring words of Bonnie Anderson on the feast of Vida Scudder:

"Unless it is to literally stand beside the oppressed and injured where we can touch each other and put our arms around and comfort each other, to stand firm in proclaiming the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ does NOT mean standing still."

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/newsline_115422_ENG_HTM.htm

Time to put these words into action.

What would Vida do? What would Jesus do?

I don't have enough information to cast any blame or make any big statements about the action itself, and I don't really think you all have that much information either. Sometimes people have to be let go. I imagine a lot of us have had to make that decision in our own professional lives. We do the best we can with it.

Here's the thing: It appears that 815 wasn't very smart, or even very Christian in the way they executed. They could have made demands on the cleaning company to provide notice and severance, even future employment. It surly would have cost something, but they could have done it. And, for all I know, they did.

There are too many unanswered questions to cast blame in this situation. It does, however, present an opportunity for the church to step up and help people, not because they were wrongly fired, but simply because they need help. Now, THAT would be the Gospel in action.

Whoever had the responsibility to notify the workers, it seems rather obvious to me that the folks at 815 could have shown more care and concern for those who lost their jobs by reaching out with a human touch.

As Tom Downs said, perhaps it's time to rethink whether the expensive Manhattan property truly serves the purpose of the Episcopal Church. People are more important than property.

From Nathaniel Pierce ---

... imagine a different scenario.
[The Church Center] puts out a public statement in early January. It says something like this:

-- describes the RFP process
-- speaks candidly about the business issues involved
-- acknowledges D-047 passed by ... GC and its relevance to this situation
-- identifies the various issues which were weighed by TEC staff, especially union vs. non-union
-- announces decision; notes that new firm is minority owned, has a strong record of treating employees fairly
-- shares how the Church Center said good-bye to those who had served there, some for many years

Now then, what would have been accomplished by such a scenario?

1) TEC puts the story out there -- we are ahead of the curve (this is PR 101). This avoids being put in the position of reacting to a bombshell story.
2) TEC demonstrates its sensitivity to the issues involved, thereby avoiding the appearance of being deaf to the social justice ramifications
3) A feeling of openness and transparency is communicated to traditionally skeptical folks like me.
4) What is left to criticize? Decent folks clearly struggled with all the issues and then made a decision. I might disagree with the outcome, but would feel comforted by the fact that all the important issues were considered.

Hindsight is always 20/20 vision Nathaniel, especially a month after the fact.

I still find it reprehensible that the contract was awarded to non-union workers. No amount of PR can take that fact away. The Church needs to stand with labor.

David- yes about hindsight but this is a recurring pattern at the Church Center. The treatment of employees - lay and clergy - at every position is a scandal to the church

How lovely that Anglicanism interferes neither with one's religion nor with one's politics! One can be pro or anti-union, as evidenced by this exchange. The Episcopal Church is once again seen as irrelevant by many people. Couldn't the PB clean her own office rather than take on a nonunion company? New York is a union town, so this move is not only unethical but stupid politics. The Roman Church in New York is a much stronger advocate of organized labor, for example. In any case, New York is Democratic and pro-union while church headquarters seems Republican and anti-union.

Add to that the stupid press release, which seems to hide more than it reveals. Is this is the Via Media?

Ideally, a church should have no money so it can stand with the poor.

Gary Paul Gilbert

David, I don't wish to argue with you. I think of you as a friend and a brother in Christ. I got heated and I apologize. Perhaps it is just a different way we argue.

I don't like being told that I've been "duped"; I am capable of critical thinking and you really don't know what I do or don't know outside of the article linked to this story, do you? Peace, brother.

I end with a prayer for the now unemployed cleaning staff of 815. Life in NYC is hard enough at a low-wage job, even if it is a union job. My prayer is that they may find other work quickly and that they are able to continue to house and feed their families and provide needed medical care. May God have mercy on them and bless them.

I think the heart of the problem is that unionized workers were fired so that non-unionized, cheaper ones could be hired.

Of course, Paris Maintenance was also wrong for not notifying their workers that they had been fired, but one cannot forget that the Episcopal Church has approved guidelines (based on the baptismal covenant) that recommended higher standards than purely business practices.

And now, this mantra will be manipulated by those who keep repeating the same mantra that the Episcopal Church is more interested in spending money in lawsuits than anything else. What a great case to surface right now!

But I have to say that it makes me really sad, on top of all that, that John Chilton suggests it's acceptable to relinquish years and years of labor rights conquests so people "don't lose their jobs". The wrong side of this story is that non-unionized jobs still exist, and more and more employees keep working without benefits because it's their only opportunity to have a job. If we, as the Church, can't do anything to change that, then maybe it's time to rethink our purpose in this world.

But more than that, his tacit endorsement of Krugman's quote just touches many of my hot buttons. I'm sorry if I sound rude, but one can't just say that without truly having been there, in Third World countries, to see the poor conditions under which so many people work. After having worked for three years in the Brazilian Amazon and seeing with my own eyes cases of illegal work conditions, and even de facto slavery in charcoal processing and mining - most of it cheap exports so rich Westerners can enjoy their nice cars and appliances. The Ministry of Labor would find out about it, and close their businesses, but new ones would appear as soon as inspectors left.

My own grandparents worked 12 to 14 hous a day at a textile factory in a poor suburb of Rio de Janeiro, in the thirties and forties, earning a stipend that didn't allow them even to expand their house, so they had to share the same room with their children. My grandfather got tuberculosis and died of it years later as a consequence of lack of healthcare and tough work conditions. My grandmother is alive, and turning 91, and was able to see after years of protests a universal healthcare system and a consolidation of labor laws that made unions the standard - and not an exception. Three years after those law changes, she was already able to live in an improved house and with enough money to buy clothes for her daughters. They were poor, but they had decency.

Of course "third world" countries need to export products to rich ones. However, do they need to be that unethically produced? Can buyers bother to complain and protest and make sure products they find in department stores and supermarket shelves were produced by people who actually have basic rights so they can improve their lives? I think so. Can't we just stop buying this ridiculous amount of cheap, non-durable, low quality imports that clutter the average American house and pay a little bit more for products that are ethically produced (whetever they were)? Maybe in the current economic model it isn't possible, but why can't it be replaced? And if we, as a church, can only wave our heads and say "yeah, it's bad, but that's the way it is", then it's time to seriously rethink our baptismal covenant, because dignity of "every human being" is dignity of every human being. Period.

It seems really weird that the PB should flout a resolution from General Convention 2009 affirming the right of workers to organize. This is also a fundamental human right recognized by the United Nations in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I am pasting in the Article 23 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the full text of Resolution D039 from General Convention 2009.

Gary Paul Gilbert

http://www..un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Article 23.

* (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
* (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
* (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
* (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=1006&type=final

FINAL VERSION - Concurred
Resolution: D039
Title: Fix Our Broken Labor Laws
Topic: Labor
Committee: 09 - National and International Concerns
House of Initial Action: Deputies
Proposer: The Rev. William E. Exner

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church urge the Congress of the United States to pass, and the President to sign into law, labor law reform legislation designed to better protect employees seeking to engage in collective bargaining, to simplify and streamline the procedures by which employees may choose to organize, and to assist employers and employees in reaching agreement. Said legislation should contain the following elements:

1. Provide workers the choice of seeking union recognition either through an election, or through a majority sign-up on cards which are then verified by the National Labor Relations Board.

2. Adopt more effective remedies for violations of employees' rights, comparable to the remedies for discrimination provided by existing civil rights laws.

3. Where the employers and unions are unable to reach agreement on their first collective bargaining agreement within a reasonable period of time, resolve the dispute by submitting it to mediation and if mediation is unsuccessful, then to binding arbitration; and be it further

Resolved, That church members and the Office of Government Relations communicate the position of the Episcopal Church on this issue to the President and Members of Congress, and advocate passage of federal legislation consistent with this Resolution.

EXPLANATION

The Episcopal Church supports the right of workers to organize unions and to bargain collectively for better wages, hours and working conditions. The Executive Council in 1991 expressed alarm at reprisals taken against workers who seek to organize union, issuing the following statement:

"The Executive Council deplores reprisals taken against workers who exercise their rights to initiate collective bargaining as protected by federal and state statutes; calls upon corporate and business leaders to respect the letter and the spirit of the National Labor Relations Act; supports all working Americans, whether organized into unions or not, in the struggle to restore fairness in the workplace; and calls upon our congregation and local communities to reach out to working people who have been denied their jobs, their respect and their livelihoods, joining with them in their struggle for justice and fair compensation."

Some 60 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could, based on research conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in December 2006. But when workers try to gain a voice on the job by forming a union, employers routinely respond with intimidation, harassment and retaliation. According to a survey of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election campaigns in 1998 and 1999 by Cornell University scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner, private-sector employers illegally fire employees for union activity in at least 25 percent of all efforts to join a union.
Employees not fired fear losing their jobs if they support union representation. According to the Bronfenbrenner survey, management forces employees to attend group anti-union presentations in 92 percent of all union campaigns. Another study revealed that 79 percent of workers believe that workers are "very" or "somewhat" likely to be fired for trying to form a union.

If employers do break the law, current penalties are so ineffective that companies often treat them as a cost of doing business. For example, the penalty for threatening the jobs of union organizers is to post a notice promising not to do it again. And if an employer illegally fires, demotes, or suspends a worker for trying to unionize - the penalty is to reinstate her to her previous post and pay back wages, minus any she earned in the interim. And it often takes years of legal wrangling to resolve these cases, which means workers often move on to new jobs because they can't afford to wait for reinstatement. If the penalties were similar to those of federal civil rights laws, workers could be awarded cash damages and violators could be fined, which would strengthen enforcement efforts.

The Employee Free Choice Act would reform the nation's basic labor laws by requiring employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers sign cards authorizing union representation. It also would provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes and establish stronger penalties for violation of the rights of workers seeking to form unions or negotiate first contracts.

* Note: The final language, as well as the final status of each resolution, is being reviewed by the General Convention office. The Journal of the 76th General Convention and the Constitution and Canons will be published once the review process has been completed.

Maybe in the current economic model it isn't possible, but why can't it be replaced? And if we, as a church, can only wave our heads and say "yeah, it's bad, but that's the way it is", then it's time to seriously rethink our baptismal covenant, because dignity of "every human being" is dignity of every human being. Period.

We ought to tattoo Luiz's comments on our foreheads.

The church should be leading the way on criticizing and reforming an economic system that runs roughshod over "the least of these"---not assenting to it because change is difficult and will require sacrifice.

And by "the church," I don't just mean 815. I mean THE CHURCH, which means you and me and every person who claims the mantle of Christianity. I think it's fine to call Linda Watt to order---I think what she has done at Church House in the last year or so is slimy and does nothing to honor Christ. But the truth is that we are ALL complicit in this. As Luiz notes, our comfortable North American life is completely underwritten by the unpaid or underpaid labor of the poor (and, I will add, women).

The economists can talk all they want about numbers and theories--but, as Christians, our job ought to be to usher in the Kingdom of God for the poor and the vulnerable. Passing resolutions at GC is all well and good, but each of us ought to be asking ourselves every day: "What am *I,* as an individual and as a member of the body of Christ, doing to ensure a more just and equitable world?"

It is the question I most fear that Jesus will ask me in the Resurrection.

Paige Baker

Hmmm