Labor and Worker Rights

Rev. Laurel Scott
978-452-3062
umclowell@verizon.net 

                                    --Matthew 20:7-9 (The Message)

 

 

Worker Justice issues affect everyone, for we are all workers and we are always at work, whether our work is formally recognized or not. Some of us are valued for our contributions in the world outside the home. This valuation may manifest in the amount of compensation and benefits we receive in exchange for our work. Others may not experience official, formal recognition for our work, whether we volunteer outside the home in a charitable setting or whether our work is the result of roles we play inside the home, such as mother, father, sibling or child. As a mother or father, we may find ourselves being the care-giver for young children, and teacher and mentor for older children, or we may be the care-giver for a parent or sibling who might be unable to care for him/herself. In these roles, our compensation comes in the form of love and life-long, mutually supportive relationships.

 

All work and all workers, however, are valuable to God, but not all workers are valued and treated fairly in our society. This is the chief concern of those of us with a passion for worker justice issues – that all workers are valued and treated fairly. Since many professionals and those with a fair degree of formal education have been trained to represent themselves, there is not often the need to speak out on their behalf. So we find ourselves drawn to considering the issues affecting those with the least amount of formal education and whose work is valued least in the society. We work on minimum wage and living wage issues, on questions of health care for the working poor, on working conditions, lack of benefits for those at the bottom of the employment ladder, and the immigrant worker. These issues affect the state of our economy, and the state of our society. The people who are adversely affected by these issues are our neighbors, our friends, our sisters and brothers in Christ.

 

The New England Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church has participated in the Massachusetts Interfaith Committee on Worker Justice (MICWJ) for the past seven years. This Committee works with leaders of different Faith traditions to view worker justice issues through an ethical lens and give moral voice to Worker Justice Issues in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. MICWJ educates, organizes, and mobilizes religious leaders and faith communities on issues and campaigns to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions for low-wage workers. Our organization is part of Interfaith Worker Justice (www.iwj.org), a national organization dedicated to rebuilding partnerships between the religious and labor communities.

Through Labor in the Pulpit, hundreds of UMC congregations nationwide have focused at least one worship service during the month of September on the struggles of low-wage workers, their families, and religious communities to secure living wages and good benefits. The Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice invites you to celebrate the sacred link between faith, work, and justice.

 

To learn more about Labor in the Pulpit, click here: http://www.iwj.org/outreach/labor_day.html.  To bring Labor in the Pulpits to your congregation, or to schedule an immigration workshop, contact Anthony Zuba, lead organizer, Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, at (631) 840-5860 (cell), (617) 316-0451 (office), or info@massinterfaith.org.

Interfaith Worker Justice also supports sensible and humane immigration policies that protect the rights of immigrant workers and preserve their families. The Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice offers a workshop, "For You Were Once a Stranger," to explain the economic forces that drive immigration, demystify the stereotypes that surround immigrants, and propose just solutions to the economic and social crises of immigration that are grounded in the social teaching of the world's great faith traditions.

Information on The Employee Free Choice Act

• Create a fair playing field that allows all workers the freedom to form unions. With more workers uniting for a voice on the job, we can build our strength to win higher wages for all workers, healthcare for all, and protect our retirement.
• Prevent corporations from illegally firing workers who try to form unions.
• Give workers the same freedoms to negotiate their contracts that CEOs already have.

Resources and More Information