Teacher Opts for Education in Real World

Marcos Vargas should have his PhD by now. In fact, the Ventura resident took a leave of absence last year from his teaching position at the local satellite campus of Cal State Northridge to wrap up his dissertation, the final step in the process.

Somewhere along the way, however, he got sidetracked.

As point man on what is now a countywide campaign to lift the wages of the working poor, the 44-year-old father of two devoted much of his thesis-writing time to laying the groundwork for last week’s decision by county leaders to adopt a living wage law.

He may have put his doctorate on hold, but the longtime community activist said he has received the education of a lifetime.

“I just got swept up by it, and it’s actually going to make my dissertation more meaningful,” said Vargas, a UCLA doctoral candidate whose thesis explores the effect of community-based organizations on the political landscape.

“It just seemed like the time was right to do this,” he said. “Once there is an idea like this, it just seems to click with folks and there’s no stopping it.”

Of course, Vargas’ ideas are not universally embraced.

Born in Santa Paula, the son of a grade school cafeteria worker and a hard-muscled longshoreman, Vargas remembers the derision that came with taking stands, such as rallying against the Vietnam War.

“I was called a communist before I had any idea what it meant,” he said.

No one appears to be going that far when it comes to the issue of a living wage--a minimum salary of $8 an hour with health benefits, $10 without--now required to be paid by those who contract with the county.

The mandate, to be formally adopted by the Board of Supervisors this week, applies only to contracts worth more than $25,000.

But the movement spearheaded by Vargas--and supported by dozens of faith, labor and environmental groups--has drawn plenty of opposition, especially from business leaders who contend the pay raise will hurt employers and do little to address the underlying causes of poverty.

Zoe Taylor, president and executive officer of the Ventura Chamber of Commerce, said county leaders should have postponed their decision until budget deliberations in June.

“With the economy struggling and this energy situation, I think they should have waited to find out exactly what kind of money the county is going to have and then set priorities,” she said.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with him [Vargas] as an individual,” she said. “We’re looking at it from the standpoint of fiscal responsibility and the impacts to businesses.”

Added Don Facciano, president of the Ventura Taxpayers Assn.: “We are on opposite sides, but I have the utmost respect for him. He has a belief and he follows through, and I applaud him for that.”

Protested Vietnam War in Junior High

Those beliefs were born a long time ago.

Vargas said his father was a strong union man who worked the docks at the Port of Hueneme and Long Beach Harbor. He described his mother, who lives in Santa Paula, as a deeply religious woman who used to bring her four sons along when she delivered food to the poor.

He grew up in the Orange County community of Cypress, and as a junior high school student he protested the Vietnam War. Vargas took a year off from college, between his freshman and sophomore year, to join a statewide campaign opposing efforts to dismantle affirmative action in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling outlawing racial quotas in university admissions.

He was chairman of the Chicano students organization at UC Santa Barbara, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in economics in 1981.

He earned a master’s degree in urban planning from UCLA in 1985 before returning to Ventura County, where he worked for United Way and then El Concilio del Condado de Ventura, the county’s largest Latino advocacy group.

It was while Vargas was executive director of that organization that he made many of the contacts that would help him on his living wage campaign, including Anthony Guillen, senior pastor at All Saints Episcopal Church in Oxnard.

“I think Marcos is a person who has a real keen sense of justice and injustice, who is aware of the inequalities in our community and who is driven by compassion to correct those situations,” said Guillen, a member of the Ventura County Living Wage Coalition.

“I highly admire him for his fortitude,” he added. “He has mobilized people of this community to stand up and speak to this very important issue.”

Vargas knows firsthand the struggles of blue-collar workers, having worked as a graveyard-shift janitor, packinghouse forklift driver and gas station attendant.

He also is planning to take the living wage movement to city halls across the county and perhaps some school districts. He acknowledges criticism that the rates in the new law will barely push the lowest-paid workers above the poverty line, but he says a small step is better than none at all.

And he is looking forward to continuing his community activism in other forms, including efforts to register new voters and get them to the polls.

“Few people can say they are able to see the fruits of their labor daily, and I have,” he said. “We’ve been able to bring legislation that is going to impact the lives of poor working families and raise consciousness around issues of economic justice. These are things you can’t put a price tag on.”