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October 2019
The Moral Response: Just and
Sacred
Dear Friends,
As we welcome fall in Southern
California and begin the busy holiday season, CLUE remains steadfast
in its dedication to stand with and uplift workers, their families,
and communities. I echo Rabbi Aryeh's message below in joining
our Jewish cousins in hoping for a sweeter and more just new year for
immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and all those who struggle for
good jobs, dignity, and justice.
Over the last month, I have had the
opportunity to meet many more of you and connect about why CLUE’s work
is so close to your heart. In the coming weeks, I will continue to
attend committee meetings and events in Los Angeles County and Orange
County.
On Friday, September 20th, I had
the privilege to hear testimony from asylum seekers in Orange County
at CLUE’s event, Asylum-Seeker Assistance Forum. One brave woman from
El Salvador shared her heartbreaking story of violence that she fled
in her home country and the violence she survived during her arduous
journey through Central America and Mexico to the United States. When
she began to tell her story, she was overcome with emotion and
explained that “sometimes it’s hard for me to relive what I’ve been
through.”
Less than a week later, we learned
that President Trump again lowered the cap of refugee
admissions to only 18,000
resettlements -- the lowest number in the program’s nearly 40 year
history. Under President Obama in 2016, that number was
85,000.
For our work together, may the
juxtaposition of these two stories continue to motivate us to stay
united in our mission during these dark times. As we continue to be
devastated at the action, and inaction, of this administration, we
must remember that together, we can create transformation. And that to
do nothing is, in itself, an action. In times of crisis, CLUE believes
it is also an opportunity to welcome people with compassion, kindness,
and love.
CLUE has also been busy this month
advocating for grocery workers, protesting immigrant detention
facilities, and working towards community space in Santa Ana. I invite
you to read more below about upcoming actions and events that will
contribute to our shared mission.
Your support enables this vital
work to continue. Please give generously and get involved!
In faith and solidarity,
Michelle M. Seyler
Executive Director
A Reflection on Faith & Social
Justice
Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, CLUE Board Member
On the Jewish New
Year holiday, called Rosh Hashanah in Hebrew, one of the central
ritual acts is the blowing of the shofar, a ram’s horn. In the middle
of the solemn service, after reading from the Torah scroll, a
designated person sounds the shofar, blowing one hundred blasts. This
is a ritual that is grounded in Torah and is recorded as happening in
the Temple in Jerusalem two thousand years ago and more. At a certain
point there are no more words to say, and the simple plaintive blast
of the shofar is sounded. One of the explanations for this ritual is
that it is supposed to be something of an alarm. The 13th Century
Spanish Jewish scholar Maimonides explains the ritual in this way:
“Notwithstanding that the blowing of the ram's horn
trumpet on Rosh ha-Shanah is a Scriptural statute, its blast is
symbolic, as if saying: "You that sleep, awaken from your sleep, and
you that slumber, emerge from your slumber, examine your conduct, turn
in repentance, and remember your Creator!”"
We are now, in the
“fierce urgency of now,” in the midst of a five alarm fire.
An administration that has no respect for the rule of law, for the
lives of people seeking freedom from violence and poverty, for working
people trying to put food on their table, is a danger to us all. We
must go beyond the words, and take our anger, our righteous rage and
our prophetic witness into the streets and bang on the doors of the
detention centers and storm the offices of our elected officials and
demand justice. In this in between moment, between Rosh Hashanah and
the Day of Atonement fast / Yom Kippur next week, we must strive to
respond to Isaiah’s demand: “This is the fast I desire: To
unlock fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke. To let
the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke. It is to share your
bread with the hungry, And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him.”
For then, only then,
after establishing justice in the world will “God guide you
always; slake your thirst in parched places and give strength to your
bones. You shall be like a watered garden, Like a spring whose waters
do not fail.”
Blessings and hopes
for a year of sweet, determined, hopeful, successful, communal
struggle for justice.
In this
issue
Economic Justice
- Grocery Workers win historic
contract!
- Honest Anaheim Townhall
- Save the Date:
Heschel/King Forum: Confronting White
Supremacy
- Hospitality Workers and the CLUE
community press on in fight against well-funded opposition to protect
women workers in Rancho Palos Verdes
- Our People, Our Ports
Justice for
Immigrants
- Support for Asylum Seekers among
Congregations and Communities
- Angelinxs stage die-in outside
headquarters of for-profit immigrant detention center giant,
GEO
- Detained in America: Children Speak
at the Japanese American National Museum
- ACTION ALERT: THU OCT
3rd: We Remember: Southern California Jews ask Reps Roybal-Allard
& Hill to Defund Hate
- ACTION ALERT: SAT OCT
12th: Close the Camps! Stop the Raids! No More Deportations! End All
Sheriff complicity with ICE and CPB!
Faith-Rooted Education and
Outreach
- THRIVE Santa Ana community gather to
debrief and celebrate moving one step closer in the fight for
community lands in community hands
- CLUE's Good Shepherd Energy
Stewardship Program News
- Recent Legislative Wins
Economic Justice
Grocery Workers win historic contract!
Our CLUE community rejoices in the
fantastic news that our grocery worker siblings throughout California
have successfully averted a strike, and in so doing achieved major
gains, including the most significant wage and benefit
increase in over 30 years! In
the face of major resistance from Big Grocery executives,
who actually proposed
cutting pay and health benefits, grocery workers persevered because they organized store by
store to demand that One Job Should Be Enough. Their personal stories
and their will to succeed inspired the faith community and customers
to turn out in droves to demonstrate to executives that these workers
deserve fair and just treatment that recognizes their everyday
sacrifice and service in helping feed our community.
Find out more about what grocery
workers won in their historic collective bargaining agreement here:
https://ufcw770.org/what-we-won/
And next time you’re shopping
for groceries at Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions, or Albertsons, please
congratulate the workers on standing together, heart-to-heart, to
achieve this historic win. And thank their managers for respecting
their workers, and continually bringing the community’s concerns and
demands to executives.
Honest Anaheim Townhall
Top two photos courtesy of Gaston
Castellanos.
Anaheim Residents, workers, faith
community, school board members, and City Councilors met at the
Islamic Institute of Orange County on Sept 19th to discuss the
impending Angel Stadium development negotiations, and what the
resulting community benefits agreement should look like. Negotiations
are currently underway behind closed doors to extend the lease for the
stadium and to develop the surrounding public land into a commercial
and residential complex. Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu is the only member
of the City Council on the negotiating team dealing with billionaire
Angels owner, Arte Moreno.
At the Honest Anaheim Townhall,
concerned community members agreed they would accept nothing less than
a stadium development deal that includes a transparent negotiation
process, adding “Anaheim” back to the team’s name, maximizing
community benefits to include things like affordable housing, and
giving the public a 30-day sunshine period to review the deal before
it goes to a final vote.
ACTION
ITEMS:
You can support Anaheim
residents’ attempts to hold their city accountable during negotiations
by doing the following:
For more information on how
the CLUE faith community can support these efforts, please reach out
to faith-rooted organizer Adam Overton at [email protected].
Please consider dedicating your next
birthday on Facebook to CLUE! Did you know that you can
support CLUE's work by creating a simple birthday fundraiser on
Facebook? It's easy to do, just visit https://www.facebook.com/fund/CLUEJustice/.
Thanks!
Save the Date: Heschel/King Forum: Confronting White
Supremacy
CLUE's
Black Jewish Justice Alliance presents the Heschel/King Forum:
Confronting White Supremacy, featuring speakers Rabbi Sharon
Brous & Reverend James Lawson.
When: Sunday,
November 3, 3-6pm
Where: Holman UMC, 3320 W. Adams
Blvd, Los Angeles 90018
RSVP: https://heschel_king.eventbrite.com
Hospitality Workers and the CLUE community press on in
fight against well-funded opposition to protect women workers in
Rancho Palos Verdes
CLUE is working hard to pass
Measure B in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes. Palos Verdes committee
members have been educating their congregations on the details of the
measure and are recruiting volunteers to canvass and make phone calls
on behalf of Measure B. Like Measure WW in Long Beach, and the
Hospitality Working Conditions Ordinance in Santa Monica,
Measure B would protect women housecleaners from sexual
assault and crushing workloads. St. Luke's Presbyterian Church hosted worker-organizer, Maria
Meza, for Labor Day services, and CLUE residents of Rancho Palos
Verdes have been instrumental in effectively responding to the
well-funded attacks levied in an onslaught of opposition mailers.
ACTION-ITEM: If you supported
women housecleaners in Long Beach and Santa Monica, or if you’re new
to this issue and want to get involved, we need your help. To find out
more about the Measure B campaign and how to help, reach out to
faith-rooted organizer Jeremy Arnold at [email protected].
Our People, Our Ports
CLUE mobilized clergy from the San Pedro/Wilmington area to
support striking Cal Cartage Express/National Freight Industries (NFI)
workers.
Our fight at the Port of Los
Angeles continues. Since Cal Cartage Express/National Freight
Industries (NFI) chose to abandon its publicly owned facility rather
than treat its workers with dignity and respect, CLUE has been
mobilizing to bring the concerns of the community to the companies who
have the ability to save local workers’ jobs. Despite public scrutiny
and legal judgements, Rio Tinto, a London-based company that operates
a mine in the Mojave Desert and exports the minerals through the Port
of Los Angeles, maintains its business relationship with
NFI.
In response, last month Rev.
Jonathan Mitchell of the Garden Church in San Pedro, joined a
delegation representing striking truck drivers and their many allies
to Rio Tinto's mining facility in Boron, CA. In addition, Pastor
Nelson Castorillo of First United Methodist Church of Wilmington flew
to Salt Lake City, Utah, with Teamsters Port Division drivers and
leaders to take part in a delegation to speak with executives at Rio
Tinto's U.S. headquarters. Also joining the Salt Lake City delegation
was Pastor Tom Goldsmith of First Unitarian Church Congregation in Salt Lake
City. Faith leaders joined these delegations to
bring the concerns of port-adjacent communities to Rio Tinto’s largest
footprints in the western United States and ask them to save the
former NFI warehouse workers’ jobs by keeping the 2401 E PCH warehouse
in its supply chain.
For more background on the
ongoing Our People, Our Ports campaign, read this letter to Rio Tinto Group CEO, Jean-Sebastien
Jacques, from LAANE Executive Director, Roxana Tynan.
To get involved in supporting
the Our People, Our Ports campaign, reach out to faith-rooted
organizer Jeremy Arnold at [email protected].
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Justice for
Immigrants
Support for Asylum Seekers among Congregations and
Communities
On Friday, September 20th, the
faith community gathered for one of CLUE’s Asylum-Seeker Assistance
Forums, this time at Anaheim United Methodist Church. Participants
heard testimonies from two recent asylees, who spoke about their
journey to the US border, and their subsequent inhumane detention, and
in some cases life-threatening abuse, at the hands of Border Patrol
agents and detention staff.
Angelinxs stage die-in outside headquarters of for-profit
immigrant detention center giant, GEO
On Thursday, September 19th, the
CLUE community joined with members of the Coalition for Humane
Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), the Central American Resource Center
(CARECEN), Bend the Arc Jewish Action, and others, to protest GEO's
inhumane treatment of immigrants, and to perform a massive die-in
outside their West Los Angeles headquarters. ICE has paid GEO
$355 million to run their camps, and the community is demanding that “Not
One More Dollar” be spent on incarcerating and traumatizing innocent
immigrants.
Your donation makes a big
difference!
Become a CLUE sustainer with a monthly gift
today!
Detained in America: Children Speak
at the Japanese American National Museum
On Saturday, September 21st, CLUE,
in partnership with CHIRLA, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, and Immigrant
Families Together (IFT), participated in “Detained in America:
Children Speak” at the Japanese American National Museum. Conceived
and created by Amy Cohen and Claudia Sobral, the program featured
Japanese American children reading excerpts from archival letters by
those imprisoned in concentration camps during World War II. In a
chilling reflection of our history, other children also read powerful
present-day declarations written by unaccompanied minors while they
were incarcerated in detention facilities and immigration camps. These
testimonies described the trauma inflicted by American government
policies and officials on the young and innocent among us.
Currently, more than 10,000
unaccompanied minors are still detained in facilities throughout the
United States.
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For more information on how you
can get involved with CLUE's efforts to support and advocate for
asylum seekers, please email Guillermo Torres at [email protected].
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UPCOMING IMMIGRATION EVENTS
AND ACTIONS
THU OCT 3rd: We Remember:
Southern California Jews ask Reps Roybal-Allard & Hill to Defund
Hate
CLUE community is invited to join the Jewish community in SoCal to
come together for ritual and action to recommit ourselves to bold
action to end the cruelty of the detention system in the new
year.
This year, on the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,
American Jews are mourning and taking action to stop attacks on
immigrant families.
At the same time, the Trump administration is continuing to ask
Congress for billions more dollars to escalate its cruelty on
immigrant families and communities — including raids, cages, more
family separation. On the holiest days of the Jewish year, how can we
ask for forgiveness while our government commits crimes against
immigrants in our names?
This action is in coordination with thousands of Jews around the
country who are asking every Member of Congress to Defund Hate by
cutting funding to and holding accountable ICE and CBP, the agencies
that enforce Trump’s violent immigration policies.
During these Days of Awe our Jewish communities will say: “We
remember and we reject attacks on immigrants.”
WHAT: We Remember: Southern California Jews ask
Reps Roybal-Allard & Hill to Defund
Hate
WHEN: Thursday, October 03, 2019 at
12pm
TIME:
12:00pm
WHERE: Rep. Roybal-Allard's office at 500
Citadel Dr., Commerce, CA 90040
RSVP: https://www.bendthearc.us/weremember_la
SAT OCT 12th: Close the
Camps! Stop the Raids! No More Deportations! End All Sheriff
complicity with ICE and CPB!
Together we are called to stand up
against oppressive systems that enable corporations such as GEO to
profit off the pain and death of immigrants. Please join us at this
upcoming action.
WHAT: National Day
of Action to "Close the Camps"
WHEN: Saturday, October 12th,
2019
TIME:
11:00am-4:00pm
WHERE: Gathering at Grand Park, 215 N. Broadway
(Between 1st & Temple)
Assemble at 11am in downtown LA.
Then march to Downtown Sheriff Station (211 W.Temple) and Federal
Building/Metropolitan Immigration Detention Center (300 N. Los Angeles
St/535 N Alameda St).
For more details, please contact Guillermo Torres at [email protected].
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THRIVE Santa
Ana
THRIVE Santa Ana community gather to debrief and celebrate
moving one step closer in the fight for community lands in community
hands.
On Tuesday, September 17th, CLUE
joined THRIVE Santa Ana and community members to encourage the Santa
Ana City Council to approve an extension of the Exclusive Negotiation
Agreement with THRIVE for the Walnut and Daisy lot. In the end, they
were successful in achieving a six-month extension to finalize an
agreement.
Since May 2018, THRIVE has been in an Exclusive Negotiation
Agreement with the City of Santa Ana for its first piece of land – a
one-third acre vacant lot at the corner of Walnut and Daisy streets in
central Santa Ana. THRIVE is in the process of designing a community
micro-farm that would provide local, organic produce at a low cost,
and would benefit the neighborhood with opportunities for physical
activity, economic growth, and promoting healthy
lifestyles.
The fight to create this
community micro-farm in Santa Ana is not over. We still need your help
to make sure the community gets the healthy development they deserve.
Please get involved by contacting faith-rooted organizer, Lucero
Garcia, at [email protected].
Faith-Rooted Education and
Outreach
CLUE's Good Shepherd Energy Stewardship Program
News
CLUE, in partnership with Energy
Upgrade CA, was at Pena de Horeb Hispanic Church on Sunday, September
1st with Pastor Jose Moreno educating faith communities how to protect
our natural resources in California, specifically Energy Upgrade
California’s "Time of Use" program. For more information on how you,
your family, and congregation can keep California Golden, learn more
at www.energyupgradeca.org.
Recent Legislative
Wins
AB-5 was signed into law!
Beginning January 1, 2020
companies in California will be prevented from misclassifying workers
as independent contractors in their attempts to avoid giving workers a
slew of desperately needed benefits. This is a monumental victory for
hundreds of thousands of California workers!
Is the fight against misclassification of workers over?
Nope. According to the LA
Times article listed above, “three companies — Uber, Lyft and DoorDash
— upped the political pressure last month, opening a campaign
committee with a $90-million contribution toward
taking the issue to California voters in a 2020 ballot
measure.” There will be
more work to do in 2020 to maintain this major win for workers. Stay
tuned.
The California Tenant Protection Act of 2019, AB-1482, has
passed the state senate and legislature, and is currently awaiting the
Governor’s signature!
If signed into law, The California
Tenant Protection Act of 2019 will prevent landlords from gouging
tenants with extreme rent hikes by capping rent increases at five
percent per year. It also makes official that landlords cannot evict
renters without first proving “just cause.”
Read more on what this will mean for renters across
the state.
Read the bill
here.
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CLUE's Mission is to
educate, organize and mobilize the faith community to accompany
workers and their families in their struggle for good jobs, dignity,
and justice.
http://www.cluejustice.org/
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