With Blessings

A subset of the labor-faith coalition is the Jewish-Latino alliance, which strengthens as Jews reconnect with certain activist traditions and Latinos make up more and more of the city‘s exploited, working-class poor. Three years ago, the Los Angeles Jewish Sweatshop Commission, chaired by Leonard Beerman, formed in response to sweatshop conditions in L.A., including those at the Guess? clothing company. Several rabbis confounded the owners of the swank Summit Rodeo Hotel in Beverly Hills last year when they participated in protests against the owner’s refusal to sign a union contract with its largely Latino work force. One of the city‘s chief clerical agitators is Aaron Kriegel, a San Fernando Valley rabbi of a Conservative temple -- a bit of a break from a Jewish activist tradition that tends to be more secular than religious. But Rick Chertoff, former head of the local chapter of the Jewish Labor Committee and currently a consultant for HERE’s Local 11, believes that the importance of an inflamed conscience, from the story of Moses on down, is central to the Jewish ethos, and “therefore alliances with oppressed groups are inevitable. That‘s how you integrate God with the community.” Altagracia Perez agrees, noting that in the process of integrating faith with action, members of various clergy are also integrating themselves. “This is really an opportunity to work ecumenically with people of other beliefs,” she says. “It’s radically different from just having breakfasts and talking with each other.”

Another labor battle that looks to have heavy clerical involvement -- and which reeks with the greatest irony -- is the ongoing unionization effort of health-care workers at three local Catholic-run hospitals, managed by a group of nine nuns‘ orders called Catholic Healthcare West. The SEIU has been fighting vigorously on the workers’ behalf for two years, but nothing terribly significant happened until Cardinal Roger Mahony brokered a meeting this summer between representatives of workers and management. SEIU spokeswoman Lisa Hubbard says the union is hopeful that the meeting will persuade Catholic Healthcare West to drop its union-busting tactics and allow workers to hold union elections freely. The situation puts the church at odds with its own activist past and its own teachings, both of which are clearly pro-labor -- the farm workers‘ cause comes to mind -- though it also puts it at odds with its considerable wealth and corporate interests. Hubbard and others are betting that the David, rather than the Goliath, tendencies will win out here. “We got to Mahony through a program called ’Labor in the Pulpit,‘ where hospital employees just stood up in church and told their stories,” says Hubbard. “It upped the ante. It’s one thing to say you believe in worker rights and dignity, but practice is another thing.”

Food-service worker Juan Marquez knows the power of that practice. So does the Rev. James Lawson, who also knows the corrupting power of words that never make it into practice -- faith without works, which to him is no faith at all. But he‘s seen all the scenarios and consequently doesn’t worry about any. “There‘s a myth that the church was very involved in social justice back in the ’60s,” he says. “It wasn‘t. But we all know that it doesn’t take a majority to make new history.”