Labor
Social location is vital to understanding how people come to their interpretations, and appropriations, of the Bible and its stories.
Regardless of who wins the presidential election, we need a secretary of labor who thinks and acts like Frances Perkins.
Labor Day weekend is often a slow time for congregations. Members are attending family gatherings. Parents are getting children ready for school. Neglected summer projects are undertaken or (like my garden) abandoned until next summer. Aside from the occasional Labor Day parade, few Labor Day activities seem to have anything to do with honoring labor. Labor Day weekend nonetheless offers congregations an opportunity to lift up the values of work and reflect on our religious [...]
During this BBQ season we have to carefully consider what products are apart of our seasonal celebrations. Recently I attended the DC campaign kick-off for the Justice at Smithfield Campaign. "Smithfield Foods is the largest pork processor and producer in the world, the fourth largest turkey processor and fifth largest beef processor in the U.S." In the early 1990's Smithfield opened its Tar Heel, North Carolina plant, with [...]
In June, a predominantly African-American Christian church took the innovative step of hosting a day laborers’ hiring site in one of its worship rooms.
"Making Work Work," by Tamara Draut, Paul Sherry, Gordon Bonnyman, Joan Fitzgerald, and Jill Suzanne Shook (February 2007) was a laudable endeavor to draw attention to the plight of working
Beginning with churches near the coalfields, more than 750 local and national religious leaders have put forth “A Call for Justice at Peabody Energy” that backs miners seeking to organi
“Taking Back Our Kids” flagrantly overlooks the fact that African-American women have always worked outside the home—before, during, and after the 1950s. Further, it has only been in the last couple hundred years that some women—specifically white upper-class American and British women—did not work outside the home. Immigrants, slaves, and women of lower socioeconomic standing have always worked outside the home.
Sue Brooks
Dickinson, Texas
I was disturbed by the article “Taking Back Our Kids.” The authors seem to think the best way to combat the consumer culture in which we live, and the problems it causes our children, is for one parent to stay at home. I disagree.
They assume that parents work only to keep up with the mounting bills created by a capitalist society. They neglect to acknowledge that many people, especially women, work for self-fulfillment. This is not being selfish. This is being healthy.
"It’s heartbreaking to see how quickly this happened and how much people are already hurting," says Rev. Alexia Salvatierra
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) turns 8 in January 2002. Congress is now considering a hemispheric expansion in the form of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.
The United Farm Workers union has called off its 16-year boycott of California table grapes, citing recent organizing and contract victories as the reason.