Faith-Labor Collaboration

This morning, I attended the 5th Annual Faith-Labor Breakfast, sponsored by Jobs With Justice (JwJ). The purpose of the Portland JwJ Faith Labor committee is “To promote the conscious relationship between the religious community’s sense of social justice and workers’ attempts to obtain justice in their workplace. To work together to promote solutions so that workers can obtain that justice. To hold one another accountable for the dignity of workers.” The group’s actions consist of the annual breakfast, where participants from both interests share oatmeal, listen to speakers, and discuss issues; and the “Labor from the Pulpit” program which aims to promote undertanding of justice issues through specific expression in worship services of many different faiths and denominations.

Highlights from today’s speakers:

“The economy is not an act of God or nature. It is created by people and can be changed by people. Those of us in the Social Justice movement tend to focus on social policy when we think about the economy; ameliorating the impact of the economy on the poor, compensating and retraining the worker who loses his job to global market forces. Instead, we need to focus on our ability to change those global market forces through political action. We have to demand that policymakers change the policies that actually shape the economy, not simply throw palliative measures out to working families once the damage is done.”

“Many people of faith, when relating to the marketplace, exhibit values that seem formed by neo-liberal economics rather than by their foundational religious scriptures. They allow themselves to be manipulated by the market, becoming addicted to consumption, shop for the lowest price without concern that the low price may come at the expense of low paid workers. Their high level of consumption leaves a big ecological footprint. The dehumanization and growing inequalities of our economic system is opposed by the humanizing values in our religious scriptures. It is suggested that our faith communities reflect on their economic life in the light of their scriptures and join with themselves and with others holding similar values to humanize our economic system.”

“It is a large problem that we have not been able to galvanize support around a growing divide, not the one between rich and poor, but the gap between the wealthy and the middle class. We’ve all seen the statistics about skyrocketing CEO pay and the obscene concentration of wealth at the top of the scale [In case you haven’t, the number quoted today is that the average CEO makes 531 times what the average worker in their company makes – AF]. And we all share a sense of indignation about desperate poverty, especially when its victims are full time workers [Example 1: Child care workers aren’t covered by Oregon’s minimum wage laws, and after winning a new contract with a record 18% wage increase, many still make less than $5 an hour. Example 2: 4,000 full time state workers – yes, public employees – are paid so little they qualify for food stamps for a family of four. – AF]. But I worry equally about the stagnation of progress for the middle class – the loss of middle class, family wage jobs, because I think those jobs are the engine of the American Dream. Equally necessary to the work of taking on poverty, I would argue, is the building of strong coalitions that fight for standards that go beyong lifting people out of poverty – for both organized and unorganized workers.”

Father Bob also told of calling a rich employer to urge him to use union workers for his business. The man replied that the wellbeing of the employees was not his concern, only the quality of service and the profits of the company. Father Bob noted with sadness in his voice that the employer is a practicing Catholic. Leslie Frane charitably refrained from mentioning the religious affiliation of the employer, when she told of even the conservative-stacked National Labor Relations Board having filed 10 complaints against a nursing home in Beaverton, where workers trying to unionize have been subjected to unfair labor practices and intimidation.

The morning began with the reading of part of Dr. Martin Luther King’s last speech, in which he called for the “dangerous unselfishness” needed to support workers needing justice. Shared recognition that faith and justice for working people should interrelate is one reason I appreciate this annual event.