Jedi Women strike back
by Tim Wheeler

SALT LAKE CITY - The JEDI Women filed into the galleries of the Utah Legislature last March and as the legislators debated legislation to clamp a strict 36-month lifetime limit on welfare benefits, the women rang bells in protest.

Most of the Utah legislators are religious, explained JEDI Women's new executive director, Tamera Baggett, "so we used a little parable from the Bible: Let the bell toll three times before you deny 'those people' - they always refer to us as 'those people,' as if we are pariahs.'"

Capitol police confiscated the bells, donated by the Salvation Army, and escorted the women from the legislature. JEDI stands for Justice, Economic Dignity and Independence for Women and the group has shaken up Utah politics since it was founded four years ago.by Deeda Seed. A grassroots activist, Seed has since been elected to the Salt Lake City Council representing the Central City ward, a low-income section of town.

JEDI Women broke into the national news in February 1995 when the Utah women initiated "Our Hearts Are in Your Hands," a protest against the drive to end welfare as an entitlement. People were encouraged to send Valentine cards to the president and members of Congress demanding that Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) not be slashed. People in at least 77 cities were galvanized by the protest which generated tens of thousands of protest Valentines.

"We wanted to sound a warning that what these lawmakers were doing would harm millions of children," Baggett said. "It would undermine the ability of mothers to provide for their children. And now it is 1997 and we see that children are the victims of these policymakers."

Utah's welfare legislation is more punitive than the federal law, she said, limiting the poor to 36 months of benefits. "It rests on the assumption that poor women are not working," she said. "But if you are caring for children, it is work."

In the past 25 years, she said, welfare rolls steadily declined. "Yet poverty has increased, the number of living wage jobs has decreased, wages and benefits have declined. More and more are working for less and less."

Baggett said that 20 years ago Utah was at the bottom in the percentage of women working outside the home. "Now, Utah is in the top half in the percentage of working women. Why? Because this is a right-to-work state. These non-union jobs pay wages so low it takes two breadwinners just to keep a roof over your head."

Baggett herself has endured brutal exploitation. Her abusive husband left her with four young children. She was denied welfare because the car she drove had too high a blue book value. She worked two minimum wage jobs, one at a 7-11 convenience store and the other at a retail clothing store.

One day, she wore her 7-11 I.D. badge to work by mistake. "The manager asked me to come in Sundays to wax and buff the floors of the store. He said I wouldn't mind since I worked for 7-11. I told myself, this is too much ... I'm out of here. The next day I attended my first meeting of JEDI Women." To top off the cruel indignity, her former husband won custody of the children.

Baggett expressed pride at the groundbreaking work of JEDI Women which low-income women in several other states have emulated. It is part of a nationwide upsurge of protest against the welfare terminatiin law spearheaded by the AFL-CIO, the Children's Defense Fund, and other low-income advocacy groups. What makes JEDI Women stand out so dramatically is that it is an organization "of, by, and for," low-income women.

Baggett said they are especially proud that the group's founder won election to the Salt Lake City Council. "We need to elect people who understand what working people are going through," she said. "We need elected officials who fight for human rights, who are not going to be bought."

Asked to define JEDI Women's constituency, Baggett said, "It's a majority of the people. They don't have a voice. It's difficult to organize these millions of low-income people because all their energy goes into the fight for survival. . .It is getting to the point where people are not surviving any more."

And she added, "When we walk into the legislature they tell us, 'You can't do that!' We do it anyway!"