{"id":194,"date":"2010-02-18T12:41:57","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T17:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/?p=194"},"modified":"2011-11-07T15:20:22","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T20:20:22","slug":"case-study-a-living-wage-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/2010\/02\/18\/case-study-a-living-wage-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Study: A Living Wage Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s\u00a0a case study that accompanys Randy Stoecker’s “Community Organizing and Social Change” in Contexts<\/em>, Winter 2009.\u00a0 It could be used before or after reading the article.\u00a0 Click here<\/a> for the pdf.<\/p>\n

Laura Delgado faces a dilemma.\u00a0 As a community organizer for a progressive advocacy group called the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) in San Diego, California, Laura has spent the last two years leading a campaign to win a living wage ordinance for the city of San Diego.\u00a0\u00a0 It has been a tough fight, but Laura believes that victory may be within sight.\u00a0 A pivotal city council meeting is taking place next week.\u00a0 Hundreds of living wage activists will pack the city council\u2019s chambers, and community leaders, clergy members, and students will speak to encourage council members to vote for the ordinance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laura is convinced that a low-wage worker who would benefit from a living wage must speak as well; living wage advocates need to put a human face on the issue in order to win.\u00a0 Luckily, in the past few months, Laura has gotten to know Sarah Brown, an attendant for a city public restroom downtown.\u00a0 Sarah has a compelling story, and Laura knows that she would do a great job speaking in front of the city council.\u00a0 But for Sarah to take such a public position may entail some risk; Sarah\u2019s employer could be upset, or even fire Sarah, if he finds out that she is lobbying for a living wage ordinance.\u00a0 Should Laura encourage Sarah to speak?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sarah Brown is an attendant at a street-level public restroom just around the corner from the city council building.\u00a0 Sarah \u2013 a grandmother with a shy smile and a gracious manner – spends almost forty hours a week there, cleaning toilets, mopping floors, restocking toilet paper, and buzzing people in and out from a tiny stall squeezed in between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s rooms.\u00a0 Because she doesn\u2019t make enough from her full time job to support her family, she works an additional 25 hours a week at a McDonald\u2019s.\u00a0 Both jobs pay minimum wage and provide no benefits.\u00a0 Even with two jobs, it is a constant struggle for Sarah to make ends meet.\u00a0 \u201cEach month,\u201d Sarah told Laura, \u201cI worry that I will not be able to pay my rent or feed my grandson.\u00a0 Sometimes he cries because there is not enough to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Laura knows that, in order for CPI to win a living wage ordinance and improve the lives of thousands of city workers, including Sarah, a worker who would benefit from a living wage must speak at the city council meeting.\u00a0 Half-measures, like video-taping a worker but obscuring her identity, just won\u2019t do.\u00a0 But for a worker to speak in public will entail some risk.\u00a0 Laura knows that in union organizing campaigns, one out of four worker activists is fired, illegally, because they are trying to form a union.\u00a0 The stakes are equally high in this case.\u00a0 What should Laura do?<\/p>\n

Questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Should Laura ask Sarah to speak at the city council meeting?\u00a0 Whether you answer yes or no, how do you arrive at your conclusion?<\/li>\n
  2. Imagine that Laura asks Sarah to speak.\u00a0 Sarah responds that she wants to do so because she believes in the importance of a living wage.\u00a0 But she tells Laura that she is afraid of losing her job if her employer finds out that she spoke at the meeting.\u00a0 What should Laura tell her?<\/li>\n
  3. Imagine that Laura also needs to recruit a pastor from an affluent congregation in the suburbs to speak at the meeting.\u00a0 The pastor wants to do so, but is concerned that his conservative congregation will be upset about his activism; perhaps he could even lose his job.\u00a0 How would your answers to questions 1 and 2 change, if at all, in this case?\u00a0<\/li>\n
  4. Imagine that the worker Sarah needs to ask to speak happens to be undocumented.\u00a0 In this case, the worker could potentially not only lose his or her job, but also be deported.\u00a0 How would your answers to questions 1 and 2 change, if at all, in this case?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Here’s\u00a0a case study that accompanys Randy Stoecker’s “Community Organizing and Social Change” in Contexts, Winter 2009.\u00a0 It could be used before or after reading the article.\u00a0 Click here for the pdf. Laura Delgado faces a dilemma.\u00a0 As a community organizer for a progressive advocacy group called the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) in San Diego, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[13,45],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","tag-inequality","tag-social-movements"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}