“Being paid for one’s labor is such a fundamental point of our whole economic system,” says Peter Mazzella, a deacon at the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church and a member of PEACE. “And if that doesn’t happen, or it isn’t happening, the whole structure starts to fall apart.”

PEACE supports a proposed ordinance to combat wage theft, and has been urging the Palm Beach County Commission to move ahead with the measure.

A similar ordinance approved in 2010 by the Miami-Dade County Commission created a resolution process for wage theft claims outside of court. Supporters of the measure say it can help prevent employers from cheating workers out of pay they are owed by allowing workers to make claims without having to hire a lawyer.

State Rep. Tom Goodson, R-Titusville, proposed a bill in the 2011 legislative session that would do away with the Miami-Dade ordinance and any others like it. The bill, which did not pass, was supported by the Florida Retail Federation, which has a pending court challenge against the Miami-Dade measure, and Associated Builders and Contractors.

State Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, today revived that legislation.

According to PEACE, since February 2010 the Miami-Dade department that oversees and enforces the anti-wage theft ordinance “has conciliated and recovered over $160,000 in back wages and has awarded nearly $420,000 in back wages to workers through administrative hearings.”

PEACE organized the Monday night meeting to ask state senators and representatives three questions:

• Do you agree that it’s fair for workers to get paid for work they have done?
• If a bill preempting a local wage theft ordinance comes before you, will you vote against it?
• Will you write letters to Palm Beach County commissioners calling on them to pass a countywide anti-wage theft ordinance?

State Rep. Irving Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, answered yes to the three questions. Abby Ross, a legislative aid for state Rep. Lori Berman,D-Delray Beach, said Berman answered yes to questions one and two, but was still undecided on No. 3.

According to Mazzella, on Wednesday PEACE will meet with Palm Beach County Commissioner Shelley Vana to discuss the advantages of implementing the anti-wage theft ordinance and to get the issue on the commission’s agenda by December.

Rev. Kevin Jones told the audience at Monday night’s meeting that support from Slosberg and Berman is very important, “but we have to notice the 17 empty chairs,” refering to the absence of many state senators and representatives.

“We have to let them know we are not going away,” Jones said. “They need to represent us and not the Florida Retail Federation.”

But turning it down would be a slap in the face to an international community that is showing, in the most generous way possible, that it wants the U.S. back as a leading component of the global order. The issue is not Barack Obama. It’s what the president represents internationally: a symbol of an America that is willing, once again, to drive the international system forward, together, toward the humane positive-sum goals of peace and disarmament. The fact that Obama hasn’t gotten the planet there misses the point entirely. It’s that he’s beginning, slowly, to take the world again down the path.

Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, observes that the award is a “recognition of President Obama’s work to strengthen international cooperation. It validates the president’s approach to tough trans-national challenges such as global warming and the spread of nuclear arms. And it celebrates his steady efforts to improve America’s standing around the world.”

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An unafraid president says things like this:

THE PRESIDENT: Well, here’s what I think is important. Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia –

Q: Right.

THE PRESIDENT: I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage –

Q: Absolutely.

THE PRESIDENT: — to put forward something that is as significant as that. I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace.

As Matt Duss explains, this is perfectly true, and yet the same hidebound conservative elements that have obstructed a thoroughgoing U.S. involvement in the peace process for eight years try to portray the Abdullah peace plan as beyond the pale. Now we have a president that isn’t interested in frivolous demagoguery.

Despite a flurry of other negotiating tracks, including talks pursued by Turkey, Cairo has become the hub of diplomacy over the Gaza war in the past few days. Egypt has served as a mediator between Israel and Hamas before, helping to broker the six-month ceasefire between the two sides, which ended last month. In the past, it has also tried to mediate between squabbling Palestinian factions, Hamas, and the U.S.-supported Fatah party.

Isn’t this a really positive development from Israel’s perspective?

The Egyptian government, if not its people, really hates Hamas. You would too, if you had to live next to this band of violent fanatics. Throughout the entire 12-day Gaza war, Egypt has kept its border crossing at Rafah shut, earning it the ire of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah. For Egypt to broker a ceasefire will mean that an ally of Hamas’ rival Fatah will be in a lead role, absorbing the brunt of regional acrimony over seeming Arab intransigence against Israel, and also allowing Israel to elide the complicated issue of negotiating with Hamas. Perhaps that all means Hamas won’t bother with the Egyptian government this time, but there isn’t really evidence of that so far.

The United States is basically abdicating, much as it did at the dawn of the Bush administration — a time of dismissive petulance toward a deteriorating Israeli-Palestinian situation, and an era that Condoleezza Rice endlessly assured us was over when she became secretary of state in 2005. Her statement on a ceasefire wasn’t really objectionable per se — she wants something “durable,” as does everyone, in principle — but she talks about a ceasefire the way most people talk about a formal peace deal:

We must find a way, with the consent and full cooperation of likeminded governments, to prevent any arms or explosives from entering Gaza, and the tunnel systems that have allowed rearmament of Hamas must be prevented from reopening.

Another approach would be to get an immediate return to the status quo ante — Rice: “The situation before the current events in Gaza was clearly not sustainable…” — and then following it up with an Egyptian-led multinational discussion on enforcing a more durable ceasefire that inches closer to a lasting peace. Rice’s position makes the perfect the enemy of the good. She’ll actually be at an event I’m covering for TWI tomorrow, so we’ll see if she makes any further statement.

But it would be in Israel’s interest to let Egypt’s Mubarak government try to sort out the Palestinian political equation on a ceasefire. Their interests are basically aligned here: both want to weaken Hamas, quiet Gaza and strengthen Fatah. And while Hezbollah hasn’t disturbed Israel’s northern border so far, it’s beginning to make more bellicose noises. If there really is no Israeli strategy at work, quitting while you’re ostensibly ahead isn’t the worst idea.