The bond between the labor movement and communities of faith gets another boost July 11 when the Twin Cities Religion and Labor Network formally inaugurates its new Interfaith Center for Worker Justice.
A party at the hall of United Auto Workers Local 879 will both celebrate the center?s formation and help raise additional money for it.
The party will feature a keynote speech by the Rev. James Orange, a veteran of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Orange now is an at-large representative of the AFL-CIO who works with Jobs with Justice campaigns nationwide. The July 11 event will run from 7 to 11 p.m. at UAW Local 879 hall, 2191 Ford Parkway. Tickets are $10 and include food, beverages, music and raffles.
Worker center will provide hands-on help
The worker center, which could be formally up and running as soon as this fall, will train volunteers to recognize and try to address job-related problems of workers who drop in. Instead of using a single, established location, the center will operate on different days at different sites, such as in churches, temples, and other places of worship; union halls; and community centers.
The trained volunteers ? many of them drawn from local congregations ? will help workers navigate federal and state agencies that enforce workplace laws, point workers toward a union when appropriate, or help find other solutions to problems on the job.
The center also expects to utilize volunteer lawyers, union officials and other experts. Education will be another major focus.
?For congregants, it?s an opportunity to put feet on our faith,? said Bob Hulteen, director of the Religion and Labor Network.
?The Religion and Labor Network has given Catholics more opportunities to work for economic justice,? said Matt Gladue, public policy manager at the Office for Social Justice in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
The worker center, like the Religion and Labor Network itself, is part of a national movement of faith-based communities. Some 66 regions around the country now have formal coalitions between organized labor and religious communities, tied loosely through the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. There are about 10 similar worker centers elsewhere in the U.S., including in Chicago, Las Vegas and Madison, Wis.
The Twin Cities center has raised nearly $50,000 to date, primarily from unions and foundations. Hulteen says he expects that once the center opens, it will be able to expand the contributions it receives from additional foundations and other major donors.
Together again
It?s not new for religious communities and labor unions to work together, Hulteen said. ?Parishes held labor schools in the basements of churches, where they taught English, labor rights and other American acculturation.?
The Vietnam War in the 1960s and American foreign policy in Latin America in the 1980s helped drive wedges between union activists and social-justice activists in religious communities.
Plus, Gladue said, increasing affluence removed many people from their working-class roots and made them less aware of the struggles of other workers, including newer immigrants.
?In my own family, I?m three generations from union membership,? he said. ?We have to learn again that the larger goal we share, as Catholics, is economic justice.?
Since the late 1980s, however, unions and religious communities have rediscovered common ground and united around issues such as rights in the workplace, sweatshops, and trade and globalization. The Religion and Labor Network is key in building such bridges locally, Hulteen said.
Religious leaders have provided active, visible support in a number of union campaigns. The network also coordinates the annual Labor in the Pulpits project, in which union members speak during services at dozens of worship services on Labor Day weekend.
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The bond between the labor movement and communities of faith gets another boost July 11 when the Twin Cities Religion and Labor Network formally inaugurates its new Interfaith Center for Worker Justice.
A party at the hall of United Auto Workers Local 879 will both celebrate the center?s formation and help raise additional money for it.
The party will feature a keynote speech by the Rev. James Orange, a veteran of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Orange now is an at-large representative of the AFL-CIO who works with Jobs with Justice campaigns nationwide. The July 11 event will run from 7 to 11 p.m. at UAW Local 879 hall, 2191 Ford Parkway. Tickets are $10 and include food, beverages, music and raffles.
Worker center will provide hands-on help
The worker center, which could be formally up and running as soon as this fall, will train volunteers to recognize and try to address job-related problems of workers who drop in. Instead of using a single, established location, the center will operate on different days at different sites, such as in churches, temples, and other places of worship; union halls; and community centers.
The trained volunteers ? many of them drawn from local congregations ? will help workers navigate federal and state agencies that enforce workplace laws, point workers toward a union when appropriate, or help find other solutions to problems on the job.
The center also expects to utilize volunteer lawyers, union officials and other experts. Education will be another major focus.
?For congregants, it?s an opportunity to put feet on our faith,? said Bob Hulteen, director of the Religion and Labor Network.
?The Religion and Labor Network has given Catholics more opportunities to work for economic justice,? said Matt Gladue, public policy manager at the Office for Social Justice in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
The worker center, like the Religion and Labor Network itself, is part of a national movement of faith-based communities. Some 66 regions around the country now have formal coalitions between organized labor and religious communities, tied loosely through the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. There are about 10 similar worker centers elsewhere in the U.S., including in Chicago, Las Vegas and Madison, Wis.
The Twin Cities center has raised nearly $50,000 to date, primarily from unions and foundations. Hulteen says he expects that once the center opens, it will be able to expand the contributions it receives from additional foundations and other major donors.
Together again
It?s not new for religious communities and labor unions to work together, Hulteen said. ?Parishes held labor schools in the basements of churches, where they taught English, labor rights and other American acculturation.?
The Vietnam War in the 1960s and American foreign policy in Latin America in the 1980s helped drive wedges between union activists and social-justice activists in religious communities.
Plus, Gladue said, increasing affluence removed many people from their working-class roots and made them less aware of the struggles of other workers, including newer immigrants.
?In my own family, I?m three generations from union membership,? he said. ?We have to learn again that the larger goal we share, as Catholics, is economic justice.?
Since the late 1980s, however, unions and religious communities have rediscovered common ground and united around issues such as rights in the workplace, sweatshops, and trade and globalization. The Religion and Labor Network is key in building such bridges locally, Hulteen said.
Religious leaders have provided active, visible support in a number of union campaigns. The network also coordinates the annual Labor in the Pulpits project, in which union members speak during services at dozens of worship services on Labor Day weekend.