An update from our friends at CLUE-LA (Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice).  Founded in 1996, CLUE-LA is one of the oldest interfaith worker justice organizations in the country.

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Living Wages for Hotel Workers!!  Onward to all Los Angeles Workers!

By now you have heard of the momentous victory in bringing workers out of poverty in the City of Los Angeles. Just this week, Mayor Garcetti signed a minimum wage increase for hotel workers, the biggest of its kind at $15.37/hour for anyone working in a hotel for properties of 150 room occupancy or greater. It also provides sick days to ensure that workers can stay healthy.  City Council approved this policy 12-3, with dissenting votes from Mitch Englander, Bernard Parks, and Paul Krekorian (contact them to ask why?).  Your calls to Councilmember Bob Blumenfeld, your early delegations to Mitch O’Farrell and Jose Huizar, and your ongoing support has made history!

Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream (Amos 5:24).

The call for justice rolls on: With 21.2% of Los Angeles residents still living in poverty CLUE-LA supports the efforts of Mayor Garcetti to urge City Council to continue its full-court press on the injustice of poverty wages, and we join Gil Cedillo and Giant of Justice Paul Koretz in pushing for enforcement of the laws to prevent wage theft in this city.  Mayor Garcetti has introduced through Councilmembers Mike Bonin and others a gradual increase in the minimum wage to $13.25 by 2017. Yesterday, Garcetti introduced a parallel motion calling for enforcement of wage and hour laws to accompany any minimum wage increase.  This is exciting and gives all advocates for economic justice a sense of great hope!
(Community activists gather at Holman United Methodist Church to discuss a new Los Angeles City minimum wage policy.  Three demands: $15/hr, five sick days, and enforcement of the law!)

People of Faith will need to let Los Angeles City Council members know how important this is to them; those in one of the other 87 cities within Los Angeles County will also need to put pressure on their local councils to ride this wave of justice; our friends in CLUE-Pasadena have already been in conversation about passing a parallel policy, and we are here to help others do the same.

We especially need extra help reaching out to valley council members with people that live in their districts. If you are willing to do a district visit to Bernard Parks of the 8th district , Mitch O’Farrell of the 13th district, Mitchell Englander of the 12th district, and/or Paul Krekorian of the 2nd district, please send a message that includes your name and your district to jklein@cluela.org.

Thank you,

Rabbi Jonathan Klein, CLUE-LA

P.S.  Thank you to all those who turned out and spread the word, including Rev. Dr. Timothy Murphy (Progressive Christians Uniting), Rector Ed Bacon (All Saints Church), Rev. Tera Little (Throop Unitarian Universalist Church), and of course Dr. Peter Dreier (Occidental College) this past Monday in Pasadena, where City Council resoundingly defeated an effort to publicly oppose Proposition 47, the Safe Schools and Neighborhoods Act of 2014.  Don’t forget to vote in November for Prop 47!