SAN JOSE, CA – This week high-ranking clergy across five faith traditions endorsed San Jose’s Measure E, the Opportunity to Work Initiative. The local religious community’s support of the measure is rooted in the value that offering full time work to employees would give those workers the opportunity to spend more time with their families, creating stronger, more stable family units.
“Pope Francis teaches that the home ‘…is a crucial place in life where life grows and can be fulfilled, because it is a place in which every person learns to receive love and to give love.’ Due to the high cost of housing, parents must work two or three part time jobs rather than one stable job which would give them more time to spend with their family. Measure E isn’t just an opportunity to work, it is an opportunity to be a family,” said Bishop Patrick McGrath.
Fouad Khatib, Muslim Community Association President stated, “Our community has been blessed in many ways and we believe that blessings should be enjoyed by everyone. Measure E gives part-time workers an opportunity to share in the blessing of stable, full time employment.”
Rabbi Dana Magat of Temple Emanu-El said, “We have an obligation to the most vulnerable in our community. Measure E will help lift the living standard of thousands of low-wage workers. By lifting up another, we are all lifting the standards of our community.”
“One of the most valuable ways to spend our time is with our families. However, part-time workers who have to work multiple jobs because an employer will not give them the hours they need to make ends meet, do not get the opportunity to share time with their loved ones. Offering full time work to employees would give them the chance to eat a meal with their children, play with their grandchildren or spend time with their spouse. Measure E would give San Jose’s hourly workforce, which is struggling to survive, the chance to spend invaluable time with their family rather than spending that time shuttling from one job to the other,” stated Pastor Oscar Dace of Bible Way Christian Center.
Reverend Peg Bryan of St. Andrews Episcopal Church said, “While serving as pastor at an east San Jose church, I witnessed beleaguered families painstakingly trying to make ends meet by both parents patching together multiple part-time jobs. The relative stability gained by breaking into the middle class was one full-time job away but those elusive extra hours were routinely given to another hard worker and another and another, consequently stranding everyone as the working poor.”
Measure E, the first of its kind aimed at providing hourly employees across all industries access to enough work hours so they can pay the bills and feed their families, will impact approximately 64,000 part-time employees in the City of San Jose.
