Labor

Rick Nowlin 10-12-2023

Tens of thousands of people filled downtown Pittsburgh for the city's annual Labor Day Parade, one of the largest in the nation, on Sept. 4, 2023. Roughly 200 unions participated in the event. Credit: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect.

You may be asking: How do I reconcile, on the one hand, identifying as an evangelical Christian but then, on the other hand, striking with organized labor? “Media Christianity” — represented by “The 700 Club” and other television and radio programs — has, over the years, generally opposed organized labor and its work stoppages, often referring to it as “greedy” and decrying it for disrupting the lives of workers and the economy. For me, however, participating in this strike is congruent with my commitment to biblical principles, such as admonitions about not exploiting workers, of which there are numerous references in the Old Testament, most notably in the prophets such as Isaiah, Amos, and Micah.

Michael Woolf 8-31-2023

Cover cartoon by Art Young for the “Special Christmas Number” of The Masses, 1913. Via Wikimedia.

According to a recent Gallup poll, labor unions are enjoying their highest levels of national national support since 1965. One major reason for renewed labor organizing is the COVID-19 pandemic, as workers started to ask whether a new future for work was possible in the midst of the pandemic. Some of the demands that laborers were making then are still being made now: increased pay, safer working conditions, and flexible schedules. In the U.S., the federal minimum wage is still a paltry $7.25 per hour. Federal minimum wage has not increased since July 2009 but if it had been keeping up with inflation, it would be over $21 an hour today.

What would Jesus have to say about America’s hot labor summer specifically, and the renewed organized labor movement more generally speaking?

Kaeley McEvoy 12-05-2022

FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 - Group E - Japan v Costa Rica - Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, Al Rayyan, Qatar - November 27, Japan's Takuma Asano in action with Costa Rica's Keysher Fuller. Credit: Reuters/Peter Cziborra TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY.

Christians who appreciate soccer, when we watch the World Cup, are not only celebrating stunning aerial goals but are also learning about sin and evil. The workers exploited for the World Cup, which ultimately is a purely recreational event, need to be mourned. Migrant labor markets all over the world prioritize money over human lives — the United States. We live authentically as people of faith in this corrupt world when we acknowledge sin, challenge the powers that be, and work for change so as to prevent the sin’s recurrence.

Mitchell Atencio 4-29-2022

Eloy District, Pinal County, Arizona. Mexican irrigator on duty preparing field for flax cultivation. Via the U.S. National Archives Flickr.

Through the years, we’ve written about the ways churches can help workers — and the way workers can help the church.

Céire Kealty 2-11-2022

Valentine’s Day gifts are displayed in New York City on Feb. 14, 2021. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

Valentine’s Day is the day of romantic love. If we take our cues from advertisements, it’s an opportunity to purchase and consume flower bouquets, candies, chocolate-covered strawberries, and frilly negligees — gifts we bestow upon our beloveds to show the depths of our love. But many of the gifts we give on Valentine’s Day are made available for our consumption through the exploitation of others; they convey romantic love at the expense of love of neighbor.

Matt Bernico 5-17-2021

A McDonald's sign in in Tiegard, Ore., on May 4, 2021. Photo: Tada Images / Shutterstock.com

Rather than reflecting the truth of the motivations of both workers and employers, the "labor shortage" conversation is a tactic to adjust public perception and create the political will big corporations need to capture cheap labor –– it's propaganda at its most straightforward.

Adam Joyce 5-17-2019

C.J. Hawking Speaks To YMCA Workers On Unfair Labor Practice Strike. Image via Youtube

Rev. C.J. Hawking, Executive Director of Arise Chicago, has worked at the intersection of faith and organized labor for over 30 years. Arise Chicago helps organize religious communities in support of union campaigns and advocates for workers’ rights and dignity in the workplace. For Rev. Hawking, the co-author of Staley: The Fight for the New American Labor Movement, this activism is an essential part of her faith and the church’s call to be faithful to the gospel. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Rev. Hawking about Arise Chicago’s work, and how churches can support the labor movement in their fight for workplace democracy and a more equitable economic order.

10-12-2018

1. Scientist Calmly Explain That Civilization Is at Stake if We Don’t Act Now
“The world has already warmed by about 1 degree C and without a global coordinated effort, the world will reach 1.5 degrees in as little as 12 years. ‘Several hundred million’ lives are at stake, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

2. To Protect the Environment, Buddhist Monks Are Ordaining Trees
To harm an ordained monk is a religious taboo and legal offense. An ordination extends this sacred status to the tree. Communities that ordain trees often patrol the forest, taking photos of illegal activity and reporting wrongdoers.

“How can we afford it?” That’s the perennial question that confronts anyone who dares to propose progressive policy changes. A recent example is CNN’s Jake Tapper grilling congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over whether tax money could fund items on her platform such as Medicare for all, a federal job guarantee, and cancelation of student loan debt. For those who are religious and politically progressive, this question is particularly challenging. While many are good at articulating the moral imperative of providing health care to all or protecting the environment, they can stumble on the issue of economic feasibility. So, when I was told about an economics conference in New York City that might connect to this topic, I was intrigued.

Chris Karnadi 9-07-2018

The rift between rich and poor runs deeply through the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. A recent Pew study reveals that Asians, as a whole, “rank as the highest earning racial and ethnic group in the U.S.” But the top 10 percent of AAPI persons earn 10.7 times the amount of those in the bottom 10 percent.

Can someone who owns 10 yachts enter the kingdom of God? I’m not sure. Only God can judge a soul. What I can say is that it’s unjust for billionaires—including the wealthiest Christians in human history—to amass obscene profits while gutting the public goods and social safety nets that help ordinary people. Capitalism is so deeply ingrained in our Christianity that it is the default. Yet, this arrangement is neither natural nor inevitable.

In One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America , historian Kevin Kruse highlights how business leaders partnered with Christian libertarians in the 1940s and 1950s to demonize the welfare state and elevate an unfettered market. They associated the New Deal with theft against business owners and with deification of the state. Under the banner of freedom, preachers such as Billy Graham and media moguls such as Cecile B. DeMille linked Christianity with free enterprise.

Andrew Wilkes 8-30-2018

On June 28, 1894, the United States government designated the first Monday in September as a holiday to commemorate the achievements and contributions of American workers. Christians, like other people of faith and conscience, have a complicated relationship with employment, exploitation, and our global political economy. We should explore what it could mean to forge an economy that more adequately respects—and protects—various forms of labor than our current socioeconomic arrangement of racialized capitalism.

Sarah Ngu 8-30-2018

Although New York state has passed $15 minimum wage legislation, there are thousands of home health care workers, mostly immigrant women of color, who are paid only half of the hours they work.

Epifania Hinchez, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic in her 40s, worked as a home health care worker for 17 years in NYC. The heavy-lifting – her last patient weighed 290 pounds and could not walk – required in her job led to shoulder and wrist injuries, as well as nerve damage which has required surgery. For her entire career as a home health attendant, she has only been paid for 13 hours of her 24-hour shifts.

the Web Editors 8-28-2018

Bill Morson / Shutterstock.com

A new study by the Public Religion Research Institute reveals precarious conditions for workers in California. According to the study, nearly half of California workers — 47 percent — are struggling with poverty. A majority of Californians working and struggling with poverty — 60 percent — are Hispanic.

Reflecting rapid changes in the economy, 11 percent of Californians report participating in the gig economy in the last year, defined as being paid for performing miscellaneous tasks or providing services for others.

Heath W. Carter 8-27-2018

Starting in the 1890s, churches began to set aside the Sunday before Labor Day as a time for lifting up working people’s voices and experiences. Some pastors even turned their pulpits over to union organizers, who never failed to bring the fire. On Labor Sunday 1910, one Chicago painter matter-of-factly informed his Presbyterian audience, “Some of the worst enemies organized labor has are very ardent church goers.”

ICE detainees are seen at the Adelanto immigration detention center in Adelanto, Calif. April 13, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

I am in a cramped waiting room overflowing with the family members of detained immigrants. There is no bathroom easily accessible nor any other amenity. Family members and other visitors, many of them children, wait for hours here at Stewart Immigration Detention Facility for the opportunity to spend the one hour they are permitted per week with their loved one. When a staff member finally ushers me back to meet with a detainee at this Georgia facility, I notice that his employee badge bears the slogan, “CoreCivic: Pride in All We Do!”

Jenna Barnett 3-22-2017

Image via Pitzer College/Flickr

In 1993, Huerta became the first Latina inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. And in January, a documentary about her work, aptly titled Dolores, premiered at Sundance. 

Mihee Kim-Kort 1-09-2017

We have lost touch with the deep significance of work by separating the dignity, creativity, and livelihood of work from the individual person. In today’s emphasis on consumer capitalism — results and products — we have forgotten the interconnectedness of all our work, and the way we are baptized into the human community and live out that baptism through participating in purposeful work with our hands and feet.

Rebecca Ballard 8-03-2016

Image via /Shutterstock.com

The complex history of indigo reveals how little we know, or remember, about how our clothes are made. It’s not a new problem, but it’s still very much a problem — our world is more connected than ever before but, paradoxically, international supply chains are increasingly complex and we feel more disconnected than ever from the impact our lives have on others.

the Web Editors 3-29-2016

Image via  /Shutterstock

On March 29, public sector unions narrowly avoided a severe blow as the Supreme Court handed down a 4-4 ruling in the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers’ Association. The split ruling in the case, which dealt with the use of “fair-share” fees by public unions to fund their collective bargaining on behalf of all employees (including non-union employees).

The split ruling means that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in favor of the teachers’ union and their use of such fees will stand, though no new precedent will be set.