Legislative Tactics in a Movement Strategy:
The Economic Human Rights-Pennsylvania Campaign
Mary Bricker-Jenkins
The Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU) is a membership organization of poor and homeless families and others, like myself, who are not currently living in poverty but know that it can and must be ended. Founded in Philadelphia in 1991 by five "welfare moms," KWRU works from local to global levels to build a movement to end poverty based in the unity and leadership of the poor—that is, we are consciously multiracial, focus heavily on leadership development, and our program is rooted in the analysis and vision of the organized poor. The members of our policy-making body, the War Council (because there is a war on the poor in this country), are drawn primarily from the ranks of the poor. We have no paid staff; our core leaders get housing and a stipend when we have funds, which is not all the time.
KWRU is the lead organization in the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) which is a national and indeed international network of grassroots organizations that have come together with a particular mission—to end poverty in the United States and, in fact, in the world. We are about building a mass movement to end poverty—not [End Page 108] "reducing" or "ameliorating," and certainly not "managing" poverty. As a KWRU leader often points out, "Reducing poverty sounds great until you ask a poor mother which of her children she's going to leave in poverty. Only ending poverty is acceptable." So, in concert with many other organizations, we are building a mass movement to end poverty and using an economic human rights framework to do so.
One of our many projects is the Economic Human Rights Pennsylvania Campaign (EHR-PA), which contributes to building that mass movement and is eminently replicable. At KWRU, the Education Committee is at the core of KWRU action because education is key to any successful social movement and everyone in our organization is expected to study. I chair the Social Work Strategy Subcommittee of the Education Committee. This sub-committee coordinates the EHR-PA, which is a joint project of KWRU/PPEHRC and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers as well as visionary state representative, Larry Curry, a Democratic legislator from a heavily Republican district just north of Philadelphia. As we shall see, the EHR-PA campaign is a child of analysis and opportunity.
First, the analysis: in order to build this EHR-PA mass movement, we need at least three things. We need a new consciousness. We need new relationships. And we need new grassroots organizations with leaders that can pull together this kind of movement. One instrument we use to achieve these objectives is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly articles 23, 25 and 26 which include the rights to food, clothing, housing, health, education and work at livable wages. I will return below to how we are using this instrument.
Another point of analysis: the EHR-PA campaign uses legislative tactics to accomplish strategic objectives, but I want to make clear that we are not seeking legislative solutions to poverty. At this point in history, the primary work of legislative bodies is not to meet the needs of people but to produce weapons of mass destruction called policies and the budgets to deliver them. These policies are placing increasing numbers of people on the edge of poverty—just one plant closure, uninsured illness, or divorce away—or working two and three jobs to keep up. These folks must be included in a mass movement because their financial security and human rights are circling the economic drain. The concept of rights has historically moved the people of the United States, and the legislative process still has [End Page 109] credibility with most of them. So while we are not seeking a legislative solution to poverty, we are using legislative tactics to organize a mass movement at the base of U.S. society where legislative hearings can reveal the nature of people's vulnerability and the language of economic human rights can contribute to a new consciousness.
Now for the opportunity: In August 1996, we were under pressure from many quarters to dismantle our homeless families' tent city in North Philly. Having no options for housing its residents, we decided to march to Harrisburg, the state capitol, to appeal to the legislature for protection and homes for the homeless. On the day we broke camp and started walking the hundred miles to Harrisburg, Cheri Honkala, our director, spotted a tall, grey-haired, rather distinguished looking man walking along with us and instructed me to go find out who he was.
So I went over and introduced myself and asked if I knew him from somewhere. He passed me a business card identifying him as Lawrence Curry, a state legislator. Knowing there wasn't a single vote from his heavily Republican district on this line of march, I asked diplomatically why he had come. He explained that he was also a student and teacher of history. He understood movements.
On that day, he became "twenty-mile Curry" because he walked that important first twenty miles with us. Over the next few years we stayed in touch with him but didn't have a particular project until I was called upon to chair the Social Policy Committee of the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW-PA). In that role I called Rep. Curry and asked, "Larry, what have you got coming up in this legislature that we can support?"
And he said, "Absolutely nothing."
I said, "What are you waiting for, Larry? We're bleeding out here!"
And he said, "I'm waiting for action in the streets."
I took that back to our meetings at KWRU and then approached Rep. Curry and said, "Larry, let's make a deal. What if I placed a couple of social work students in your office as legislative assistants and in return you sponsor for us an economic human rights resolution that will call upon the integration of the principles of economic human rights into the laws and policies of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?"
He asked, "Has this been done before?"
And, only because I was misinformed, I said, "Yes. It's been done in [End Page 110] Massachusetts." I knew that social work Professor Joe Wronka at Springfield College was instrumental in introducing into the Massachusetts legislature an economic human rights resolution. I did not know then that it had never gotten out of committee. But my misinformation convinced Rep. Larry Curry that it would be safe to move forward. Yes, I had to "fess up" later.
In spring 2002 the "Curry Resolution," HR 473, was introduced to the Pennsylvania legislature calling for the establishment of a special house committee to study the feasibility of integrating economic human rights principles into the laws and policies of the commonwealth. We actually didn't want the resolution to pass because then the study would go into the hands of the Republican controlled legislature. We simply wanted the opportunity to travel around the state with Rep. Curry having hearings on the resolution.
In preparation for these hearings, NASW-PA divisions and social work educators organized training sessions on economic human rights and the movement which were conducted by KWRU members (including social workers). People learned the core concepts of economic human rights: how to document rights violations, and how to organize hearings in key areas, especially rural areas and small cities. The hearings then brought together social workers, other professionals and advocates, and the people with whom they were working as "clients" to bear witness to economic human rights violations, both personal and political, individual and institutional. We were able to capture the attention of the media in these small communities by personifying and punctuating esoteric analysis of socioeconomic forces and data trends with stories of local people's lives.
And then, lo and behold, the bloody resolution passed—200 to nothing!
At that point, we mobilized across the state for more hearings before the special committee appointed under the aegis of the Republicans. The appointed legislators were surprised to discover that they could actually fix some of the causes of violations they heard described in the hearings. So they voted unanimously to call for a new resolution—HR 144—mandating that the study continue another two years. HR 144 passed easily this spring, so we are busily organizing more trainings and hearings around the state.
Now, having told you that story, I want to reemphasize that our goal is not to have hearings to reduce poverty. Our goal is to build a movement to end poverty. The EHR-PA campaign has four strategic objectives that derive [End Page 111] from the need for a new consciousness, new relationships, and new organizations. First is to use the UDHR to redefine poverty as a violation of economic human rights—to introduce new language, new concepts, to provide a new intellectual scaffolding for the construction of new ideas about poverty, rights, and ultimately the role of the government.
A second strategic objective is to build the leadership and unity of the poor across color lines. In the United States, this is a seditious notion. Martin Luther King got killed when he tried to do this because it threatens to erode the foundation of institutions and mechanisms used in this country to maintain the status quo. But he knew and we know that it must be done.
A third objective is to facilitate new relationships among poor people. This is very difficult to do because poor people have absorbed the myths and legends about poverty and therefore they often don't like or trust each other very much. However, new relationships among poor people facilitate the emergence of new leaders among them. Social workers can have a special place in the movement because we often have contact with many more people living in poverty than individual poor people themselves have. However, the relationship between social worker and "client" must change from one of "service" to one of solidarity. The structure of the EHR-PA project promotes that change.
A fourth objective is to develop new organizations "at the base"—local economic human rights committees consisting of people directly affected by economic human rights violations as well as advocates and other allies indirectly affected. The people we seek to mobilize are found particularly in small and medium-size cities where economic dislocations are engulfing people who consider themselves middle class. Geopolitically and strategically, these people are our organizing edge.
These four strategic objectives shape and inform the activities of the EHR-PA campaign. We promote economic human rights resolutions in the legislature. We host community-based hearings and testify at those organized by legislators. We train social workers and advocates to understand and apply the economic human rights framework. We promote documentation campaigns. We are particularly interested in having social workers sit at computers with "clients" accessing www.kwru.org and filling out the economic human rights violation forms together on the Web. And we provide consultations with emerging leaders who wish to commit themselves to developing local economic human rights committees. [End Page 112]
We believe we are living at a moment in history when it is crucial to remember Marge Piercy's assertion that "we make history or history makes us" (1976, 74). In this moment we have the technology and abundance to ensure that all human beings on this earth have basic human needs met and all human rights promoted and preserved forever. The other road from this historic juncture leads to increased poverty and political repression. At this juncture, it is clear that poverty is not a by-product of production, but the raw material of production in our economic system, and it can and must be ended.
