Forum will address poverty and fair wages

Tulsa World, Nov 10 2007

A People of Faith for Fair Wages forum will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at Southern Hills Methodist Church, 6160 S. Lewis Ave.

Karen Spradlin, Oklahoma project coordinator for People of Faith for Fair Wages, said the focus of the project is to educate people of faith about the connection between faith and fair wages, and to build community-wide, cross-denominational support for fair wages and the elimination of poverty.

Speakers will include columnist Holly Sklar of Boston, co-author of "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future;" and former Tulsan Shelley Moskowitz, manager of public policy for the international human rights group, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's Washington, D.C., office.

Local panelists include the Rev. Gerald Davis, minister at Church of the Restoration Unitarian Universalist and director of Tulsa County Department of Human Services; Jan Figart, associate director and senior planner in maternal and child health at the Community Service Council of Greater Tulsa; and the Rev. Jeff Jaynes, pastor at Southern Hills United Methodist Church, who will deliver the keynote address.

Sponsors include Oklahoma United Methodist Church and Society, Kansas/Oklahoma Conference of the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Let Justice Roll, and Fellowship Congregational Church.

Let Justice Roll is a national, nonpartisan coalition of more than 90 faith, community, labor and business organizations.