The labor movement is the largest and most powerful economic
justice organization in the world. From its beginning, the union movement and
some parts of the religious community have worked together to help bring
justice to our society. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1909 recognized
this connection by designating the Sunday before Labor Day as Labor Sunday, a
day dedicated to the spiritual and educational dimensions of the labor
movement.
Labor organizers have often drawn from the deep wells of
religious imagery to lead struggles for economic justice. As scholar and author
Perry Bush points out, “They have been able to do so because a great mass of
U.S. workers have held religious convictions that were not easily stripped away
or transmuted into mindless obeisance to the power of the wealthy.”
Labor Day and Labor Sunday are times for the religious
community and the labor movement to not only celebrate working people and their
contributions to society. It also is a time to remember the struggles that
workers endured to achieve the many benefits we now enjoy but take for granted.
Benefits such as the eight-hour day, workers’ compensation, overtime pay,
pensions, health and safety laws, Social Security, Medicare, vacation days,
unemployment compensation, family medical leave, restrictions on child labor, a
minimum wage and the freedom to form unions for collective bargaining. These
benefits helped to humanize the workplace and to provide a safety net for
millions.
This Labor Day and Labor Sunday, we need to recommit
ourselves to the principles that have energized the labor movement over the
centuries. For example, in this richest country in the world, more than 2
million full-time workers live below the poverty line, struggling to pay for
necessities like food, housing, healthcare, transportation and child care.
If America’s
economy is going to recover, we need paychecks that can fuel consumption. And it
would be unconscionable to allow profitable companies to use the recession to
drive America’s
middle class out of existence.
With record long-term unemployment and communities losing
vital public services, it is time to put full and fair employment and a massive
federal works program back on the national agenda. Anybody who wants to work
should be able to find a job, and not just any job but a job with justice
Big Business is sitting on record cash reserves. Rather
than put America
back to work, they’re spending that money opposing jobs and fair taxes. The
labor movement and the religious community must combine their power and
mobilize to achieve full and fair employment. We must push hard for Congress to
pass legislation like the Local Jobs for America Act, which would save or
create 1 million jobs. We must continue funding the emergency Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families subsidized jobs program and again extend emergency
unemployment compensation. To rein in Wall Street, Congress must pass a financial
speculation tax.
After the Labor Day weekend is over, we can keep raising our
voices.Labor, religious, and community
coalitions across the country are organizing to address the jobs emergency in
many ways, including actions on Sept. 15, organizing local Unemployed Workers
Councils, and building for the “One Nation Working Together” march on Washington on Oct. 2.
Now is the time to make sure that we use our political and moral power once
again make life better for working Americans.
The Rev. Jim Sessions
is the president ofthe Working America
Education Fund and is former director of the AFL-CIO Union Community Fund.
