Labor
Over 40 top leaders of American unions issued a joint
statement strongly condemning Britain's most influential trade unions for
resolutions to boycott Israeli goods. The signers included presidents of the
AFL-CIO and the Change to Win federation and the heads of two important
African-American labor organizations. "No segment of American democracy
has been a more reliable friend to democratic Israel over the past six decades
than the labor movement," according to a recent article in the Forward.
In the
richest country in the world, more than 2 million full-time, year-round workers
live below the poverty line, struggling to pay for necessities such as food,
housing healthcare, and childcare. On Labor Day (September 3, 2007) Shabbat,
encourage your synagogue to focus on worker justice issues using the “Labor on
the Bimah” resource packet available in PDF file from the Religious Action
Center of Reform Judaism.
"You shall not abuse a needy and
destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger."
—Deuteronomy
For the past 12 years, Rabbi Morris Allen, leader of a Conservative
synagogue in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, has asked his congregation to adhere
more to "Chew by Choice"—fuller observance of kosher dietary strictures.
But recently his campaign for kosher standards expanded to creating a "hechsher
tzedek," a justice certification, on the basis of how kosher food companies,
often heavily dependent on Latino immigrant labor, treat their workers. "As
concerned as we are about how an animal gets killed, we need to be equally concerned
about how a worker lives," said Rabbi Allen.
By JESS CHAMPAGNE
The author describes the difference between the Jewish role
in the student anti-sweatshop movement today and that of the same age played in
the early 20th-century movement.
The Hotline for Migrant Workers in Israel and the Association
for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), two grantees of the New Israel Fund, helped a
foreign worker in Israel score a legal victory when Israel 's Supreme Court ordered
the government to formulate new arrangements for foreign workers.
Founded in 1934 by Jewish leaders of trade union and Jewish
organizations, the Jewish Labor Committee serves as the voice of the Jewish
community in the labor movement, and the voice of the labor movement in the
Jewish community. The JLC is an active support organization that mobilizes
union members on behalf of a wide range of issues of shared concern to the
Jewish community and labor.
Working closely with national and local Jewish agencies and
the trade union movement, through national and international labor federations,
their affiliated unions, and local labor leaders, the JLC advances a shared
social and economic agenda for the benefit of all people in our society. At the
same time, the JLC is influential within organized labor to garner the support
of America's working families for the Jewish community.
For readings on traditional Jewish texts on labor and worker
rights visit the
JLC website.
Position of the Reform Jewish Movement
From RELIGIOUS
ACTION CENTER
The Torah emphasizes the importance of fairness to workers.
"You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer", but you must pay
him his wages on the same day, for he is needy and urgently depends on it (Deuteronomy
24:14-15)."
Unions are models of self-sufficiency: workers stand up to
demand their own rights. As Jews we have an obligation not only to assist the
downtrodden but also to help those in need become self-sufficient (Maimonides, Mishneh
Torah), a goal we can pursue by promoting unions.
The Union for Reform Judaism has often affirmed its
commitment to America's workers. A 1961 resolution on "Migrant
Farmers" states the Union for Reform Judaism's commitment to raise the
status of farm-workers from degradation to "dignity and equality." A
1948 resolution entitled "Urging Elimination of Labor and Management
Abuses" looks back on the strident labor reform of the 1930s: "We
rejoice in the gains that labor has made in the past generation and hope that
they will be retained. We urge that abuses in labor and management will be
remedied."
The CCAR has spoken out directly in its support of unions.
In a 1921 resolution, the CCAR resolved, "Under the present organization
of society, labor's only safeguard against retrogression to former inhuman
standards is the union."
