A wonderful article from the Boston Review: God’s Work: What can faith-based activism do for labor?
—I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain, common workingmen,— recalled Frances Perkins. And so she did. From 1933 to 1945, Perkins helped create the core features of the New Deal state: minimum wage and maximum hours laws, legal guarantees for workers’ rights to organize and join unions, prohibition of child labor, Social Security, unemployment compensation, and fair labor standards. For all of the New Deal’s limitations, its laws and programs tamed Upton Sinclair’s —Jungle,— encouraged broad economic security and prosperity, and created, in economic terms, the most equitable America in history. And it was promoted and protected not only by strong unions but also by religious leaders, thanks to the prominence of a social gospel in the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish traditions at mid-century. During her twelve years as secretary of labor, Perkins herself spent one day a month in contemplative retreat at a convent. For her, the reference to God was not simply a rhetorical flourish.
Since the 1970s economic inequality has surged to levels not seen since the 1920s, Dickensian abuses of workers have returned, and deregulation has enabled the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. President Obama’s Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, faces challenges not unlike Perkins’s. Yet today, as in the 1930s, crisis also creates the opportunity for a bold new direction—”a New New Deal, potentially more inclusive of the nation’s diverse labor force than Perkins could have imagined. Might the nation’s churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples again have a role in rescuing a wayward economy?
In addressing this question, Solis can learn much from Kim Bobo, founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ). Bobo’s goal is to revive America’s justice-seeking prophetic tradition, with a particular focus on economic justice…
The PNCC has a strong tradition as an advocate for working men and women. Its immigrant and democratic roots were formed by men and women who were workers, who knew degradation at the hands of mine bosses, and who looked forward to a brighter, more democratic future. John J. Bukowczyk covers a lot of history in the Labor, Radicalism, and the Worker chapter in his book: Polish Americans and Their History: Community, Culture, and Politics
The PNCC connection is both historic and full of opportunity. Knowing what I know from my 9-5 job, Ms. Bobo is correct in her assessments:
Labor laws today are such a mess that they bewilder and deter those who need them most. As Bobo notes, they are —woefully inadequate,— —incredibly confusing,— and barely enforced. She tells the story of Anka Karewicz, a twenty-year-old Polish immigrant to Chicago who, in order to stop a single employer from cheating and demeaning her and her fellow workers, would have had to contact three different federal agencies (the Department of Labor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and two state agencies. Karewicz gave up.
Whatever a person’s ethnic background, whatever their status, the Church, our democratic Church, cannot stand by as the exploitation of working men and women continues. We are to stand with them, pray for them, and work together for a brighter future for all of God’s children.
