Labor Day 2011 is just around the corner and America’s workers are still suffering through the worst economic crisis since the Depression. Some 25 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed or have stopped looking for work, and wages are essentially flat. 

In the richest country in the world, millions of  full-time, year-round workers live below the poverty line, struggling to pay for necessities such as food, housing, health care, transportation and child care.

Each Labor Day weekend, Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) and the AFL-CIO sponsor the Labor in the Pulpits/on the Bimah/in the Minbar program, which highlights the shared goals of the faith community and the union movement for a new vision for justice in our communities. (If you need materials for a Labor Day service or want to add your congregation to the list of participants in Labor in the Pulpits, click here or contact Ted Smukler at 773-728-8400, ext. 39, or tsmukler@iwj.org.)

As part of Labor in the Pulpits, union members serve as guest speakers in congregations to speak out about their faith, work and the union movement. Some AFL-CIO central labor councils use this program as an opportunity to host a Faith and Labor meeting in which participants discuss important issues facing workers in their communities and reaffirm their shared commitments to social justice. Last year, more than 1,000 congregations participated in Labor in the Pulpits.

Visit IWJ’s website to access resources for Labor in the Pulpits, to get your congregation involved, or to get your union involved.

This year, Labor in the Pulpits will focus on issues of worker justice, unemployment and state campaigns to secure workers’ rights. Through its Faith Advocates for Jobs initiative, IWJ is addressing  the severe suffering of millions of unemployed workers. The campaign is organizing a nationwide network of congregations committed to supporting the unemployed and their families, both spiritually and materially.

Its Keeping Faith with America’s Workers program provides a list of actions faith groups can take to support workers’ rights.