How the Jews stiff the help...

The Rabbinical Assmebly does it again:

A rabbinic opinion calling on Jewish business owners to pay their workers a living wage and hire union employees was stymied by the Conservative movement’s top lawmaking body after the opinion received fewer than the minimum number of votes needed for a paper to be approve

Maybe this is part of the reason why rabbis are loath to be more supportive of workers' rights:

For Vera Haim, teaching Jewish children about their religion, history and culture gave her life a deeper meaning. For 17 years, the 53-year-old Israeli-born educator taught at Jewish nursery schools throughout Southern California, most recently at Temple Kol Tikvah in Woodland Hills. Nothing made Haim happier than helping young students develop self-esteem and a curiosity about their roots.

But her dream job held the seeds of a nightmare. Earning just $15,000 annually and with no health-care benefits, Haim landed in dire financial straits after she and her husband divorced last year. Unable to support herself, she had to move in with her 31-year-old son. In short order, she left Kol Tikvah and nearly doubled her income by opening a home day-care business in her son’s house.

She and other Jewish day-school teachers are not alone in their frustration. From social workers caring for Holocaust survivors to cooks preparing kosher meals for the elderly, many Jewish communal workers complain that low wages make it nearly impossible for them to buy homes, take vacations or live a comfortable middle-class existence. Some even must work two jobs to eke out a living.

(Note that this person was trying to live on $15K in greater Los Angeles!)

I will tell another anecdote about an acaquaintance who teaches at a large Conservative syanagogue in a major metropolitan area. They told him last summer that his hors were to change this fall. They neglected to tell him, until it was too late to get another job, that the change in hours would result in a substantial reduction in pay. On top of that, he told a bunch of us that he has having trouble collecting back pay from these jokers! This, at a shul where they just let out a major contract for substantial renovations to a big fancy building that seems to be in decent shape as far as I can tell. They had no problem getting donors to have rooms named after them, but they can't even pay their own employees. about the only advice my friend got was "call the rabbi," and I'm not sure whether he did or not, but our people are in a hell of a state if a person has to call the rabbi to intercede with shul management in order to get what's due him by right.

Oh, yes, and I have another person I know who works for a Federation-run "newspaper" ("house organ" is more like it, considering it's lack of independent reporting on the Jewish community) where he get's constantly hassled about getting time off to observe the Jewish holidays.

No wonder less than 50% of American Jews bother affiliating with the organized Jewish community. Our community is primarily a corrupt vehicle for gratifying the egos and assuaging the consciences of rich businessmen. The sooner it falls the apart, the better off will be the House of Israel.