As I drove to drop the oh-so-spoiled poodle off for a haircut, I encountered a small group of teachers dressed in red, holding strike signs and forming an impromptu picket line. I honked and waved as I drove by, but those two seconds of support are not enough for a pastor who was raised on the knee of a labor union lawyer, and I want to share why, as a Christian pastor and a soon-to-be-dad, I support the Washington schoolteachers in their current labor strikes. I believe that teachers deserve that much from my public show of support.
This time three years ago, in 2015, schoolteachers across my adopted home state of Washington voted to strike. The McCleary decision from the state Supreme Court demanded that the legislature fund public education at an acceptable level, but after years of coping with a dysfunctional state legislature that failed at that very basic constitutional duty, the state Supreme Court
held it in contempt
and
continued to hold it in contempt
even after the legislature claimed to have solved the funding crisis. This dysfunction, in turn, overflowed into the individual school districts, which refused to give the schoolteachers the wages and resources they needed and asked for in order to do their vital jobs well. This included the teachers of the Kelso School District adjacent to my then-parish in Longview, whose teachers as members of the Kelso Education Association voted to strike.
Those strikes were half the impetus of my doctoral thesis that I completed just a few months ago, along with a nearly simultaneous strike by the workers of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers local 153 in Longview.
Now, three years later, we are back to statewide teachers' strikes as school districts once more refuse to address the deferred needs that the teachers unions have brought to their attention. These districts include Longview as well as Evergreen here in Vancouver.
As is the case in so many labor strikes, the workers (in this case, the teachers) are not asking for the moon, but rather to be paid and supported at a basic and widely accepted level. Such pay and support provides not only for physical necessities like food and shelter, but also the emotional and spiritual necessity of being told that the work you do values, matters, and is vitally important to the world in which you live.
When Christian social teaching talks about the sort of dignity that work confers, this is the dignity of which we speak. It is a violation of dignity to work for a sub-living wage, or a wage that confers insult rather than care. It is a violation of not only social teaching but Biblical teaching, as Scriptures from prophets like Jeremiah and Malachi as well as New Testament epistle writers like James speak of the importance of paying to workers fair and prompt wages. That, too, is a matter of basic human dignity, and when it is forcibly taken away, the dignity ofboth the worker and the manager are harmed.
But to stand up in public and say "Enough?" That is dignified. That is dignity. And we should treat it as such.
To honor another person's dignity is going to be one of the most important lessons I teach my child. I do not think that I can teach them that lesson and then ignore it when the others in their life who will be teaching them are asking for that same dignity and pride in being paid and treated fairly. If I am going to talk the talk as a dad, then, I have to walk the walk as a pastor.
To the Washington schoolteachers across the state, you have my prayers and support.
To the superintendents and managers of our school districts: you have my exhortation to listen to your employees, and to treat them as you would want to be treated (which, if the school districts in Kelso and Longview are any expectation, should include massive raises...).
To our state legislators: an election is coming. How will you answer for your votes and conduct toward our teachers?
And to the church: the treatment of laborers and workers is as much a Gospel issue as anything else that is taught from our pulpits and in our Sunday School classrooms (and in some cases, frankly, more of a Gospel issue). How are you responding to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who advocated for the poor and against wealth time after time in the New Testament?
Listen! Hear the cries of the wages of your field hands. These are the wages you stole from those who harvested your fields. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of heavenly forces. You have lived a self-satisfying life on this earth, a life of luxury. You have stuffed your hearts in preparation for the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who doesn’t oppose you. James 5:4-6 (CEB)Vancouver, Washington
August 30, 2018