Interfaith Worker Justice

Friday was the last day of my internship and tomorrow I leave for debrief in Chicago. I realized I haven't written anything about the work I've been doing this summer! Here is some basic info:

The internship I did was through an organization called "Interfaith Worker Justice." Their philosophy is:

1.The US faces a national crisis in terms of the rapid increase in workers earning poverty wages and the vast number of workplaces that routinely violate workers' rights. This crisis requires a broad-based approach to the work.

2.All religions believe that workers should be paid fairly and treated respectfully.

3.People of faith want to help low-wage workers but generally do not know how to get started. Getting people involved is an organizing challenge, not particularly an ideological one.

4.The majority of people of faith wants to help low-wage workers but do not see unions as vehicles for economic justice. Talking cannot change these negative stereotypes. Rather, people of faith must get to know workers who are struggling for unions and union organizers who are on the front lines of justice, which is why building local interfaith committees is so important.

This summer I worked at Service Employees International Union. SEIU is the fastest growing union in the U.S. and represents service employees like janitors, security guards, and home healthcare workers. Here are some things I learned about unions this summer:

1.In the 1950's union membership stood at a high of 35%. Unions helped negotiate social policies that helped all working people rise out of poverty and helped bring about Social Security, the 8-hour work day, paid overtime, vacations, and pensions.

2.Union membership now stands at 12% (8% in Colorado) which means there is less negotiating power. It also means that most workers don't know anyone personally who has benefitted from a union.

3.Unions are blamed for increasing costs and causing outsourcing. However, what has increased is CEO salaries, not low-wage worker salaries. Between 1973 and 2003, the average member of the top 1 percent of wage earners saw an after-tax income increase of 129%. During the same time period, the bottom 20% of wage earners saw an after-tax income increase of 4%. Regarding outsourcing, Sweden is 87% union and does not outsource.

4.In Japan, the average CEO makes 11x more than the average worker. In England and Germany, the average CEO makes 13 times the average worker. In the United States, the average CEO makes 540 times the average worker.

5.Unions help close the gap for women and minorities. Nationally, the gap between men's and women's pay is 32%, but between union men and women, the gap is only 5%. Latino union members earn 45% more than nonunion Latinos. African Americans earn 30% more if they are union.

6.Workers in the United States face some of the weakest worker protection laws in the industrialized world. In the US, over 10,000 workers are illegally fired each year for union activity.

7.80% of employers hire high-priced anti-union consultants and lawyers when they find out their workers are trying to organize.

8.Workers who try to organize are often punished by the employer. Employers change their shift, cut their hours, threaten job loss, and sometimes threaten deportation.

Here are some pics from Chicago and Denver: