> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Local clergy takes labor’s message to the pulpit
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/local-clergy-takes-labors-message-to-the-pulpit/
- Published: 2002-09-02T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:42:46.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: local, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Local clergy central to living wage movement*

Santa Monica clergy took their pro-labor message to the masses on Sunday.

Clergy from numerous religions visited each other’s congregations throughout the city preaching the dignity of hard work, the need for unions and better wages.

A Jewish rabbinical student visited a Lutheran congregation, a Roman Catholic Priest addressed a crowd of Unitarians and a female minister spoke at a Roman Catholic Spanish-speaking mass.

The event was part of a nationwide “labor in the pulpit” project, which every Labor Day brings community leaders and workers into various congregations to discuss problems confronted by working families.

Many of Santa Monica’s clergy have been supportive of the living wage ordinance on this November’s ballot, and the majority are members of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.

CLUE has been heavily involved in advocating for the unionization of several local hotels and drumming up support for the city’s living wage ordinance.

“Working poverty is one of the great moral challenges of our time,” said Alexia Salvatiera, executive director of CLUE. “When people work full-time and can’t provide for their families, the religious community must make a stand.”

Father Mike Gutierrez, of St. Anne’s Roman Catholic Church at 20th Street and Colorado Boulevard, brought the concerns of his poor, working-class congregation that is largely Latino to the packed pews of the Unitarian Universalist Church at 1260 18th Street.

“You all know how to work,” he said. “You all know how to get callouses I hope. If not, you should.”

Gutierrez’s message focused on the importance of hard work, and only once did he mention the living wage ordinance by name.

“Once you get people propelled into the idea of the dignity of work, then everything else falls into line,” he said after the service. “Of course they are going to support the living wage if they respect the dignity of work.”

The crowd at the Unitarian church was a far cry from the congregation Gutierrez administers to only blocks away. Though the faces were paler, the level of education broader, and the income levels much higher, they were nonetheless receptive to his message of economic justice.

“I thought it was a good reminder,” said Charles Haskell. “I think many of us are already on that road and are supportive of the living wage.”

“Not all, ” he added, “but many of us are.”

Members of the church sang an opening hymn titled “We are a Gentle, Angry People” that called for economic, social and racial equality.

A children’s story called “A Day’s Work” by Eve Bunting about California day laborers was read aloud to the congregation before Gutierrez spoke.

“A fair number of our speakers have been on topics of social justice,” said Vilma Ortiz, a Unitarian Church member. “It is a theme we embrace in the congregation.”

The city’s living wage law would raise the minimum, hourly wage for low-income workers at coastal Santa Monica businesses that earn more than $5 million a year from $6.75 to $10.50 with health benefits or $12.25 without benefits. The wage for workers without benefits would increase to $13.00 after one year.

If voters approve the measure on the November ballot, it would mark the first time in the country that a municipality has dictated wages to private businesses that are not taking money, either through contracts or subsidies, from local government.

The majority of the workers that would benefit from the ordinance are low-income employees of luxury beachside Santa Monica hotels and restaurants, supporters say.

Workers from various Santa Monica hotels and organizers with the Hotel Employee & Restaurant Employee Union accompanied clergy on their rounds to the city’s congregations.

HERE has been involved in a public battle to unionize the Loews Santa Monica Beach hotel, at 1700 Ocean Avenue, and the Doubletree Guest Suites hotel, at 1707 Fourth Street. It is also organizing support for the living wage ordinance.

Because the only exemptions from the living wage ordinance are from economic hardship or if a business has a unionized workforce, opponents of the measure say it’s essentially strong-arming hotel owners into capitulating to the unions. Union organizers, however, deny the claim.

In Santa Monica, as in almost every city where a living wage ordinance has been enacted, the area’s clergy have been central to its campaign.

“They have been extremely involved from the start,” said Danny Feingold, a CLUE spokesman. “Go back five years when this started, they have been the moral voice of the movement.”

“The living wage movement is unimaginable without the leadership of the clergy,” he said.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/090202-01_02.jpg)

Father Mike Gutierrez of St. (Photo: Andrew H. Fixmer/Daily Press)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 2, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/090202.pdf?ref=smdp.com)