Thank you, LaQuita [Honeysucker]. And thank you for leading our service today and for all your incredible work advocating for the members of the UFCW, and workers all across North America.
Good morning everyone.
Before I begin I’d like to acknowledge a few folks beginning with Imam Imam and Rabbi Young for their words of encouragement, and to the Moriah Sisters for lending us their talents and giving us the gift of beautiful and moving songs.
Weren’t they great? I could listen to them all day.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Bishop Vashti McKenzie for joining us today and for delivering such a powerful sermon.
Bishop McKenzie knows that it takes all of us to build the communities we want to have, the jobs we want and we want our neighbors to have, and the kind of country we want our children and grandchildren to have.
We can’t do it alone. It takes all of us, faith and labor and community organizations if we are to transform communities that have been neglected.
That was Dr. King’s dream, that was his vision.
Dr. King said that the two most effective voices for social and economic justice are the labor movement and the civil rights movement. And that together we can lift up the concerns of workers and those who have been disrespected, disinherited, and disenfranchised.
Together we can end discrimination in all of its forms, create a more inclusive democracy, and achieve the goal of full and total human rights.
That’s why Dr. King worked so hard to bring the civil rights movement and the labor movement together.
He knew that together, we can bend the world toward the greater good.
Racial justice and economic justice.
But in order to do that we need to act. At all levels of our movement but especially at the grassroots level. In our churches. In our communities.
And as LaQuita said at the beginning of today’s program, the faith and labor movements are uniquely connected, and now more than ever do we need to strengthen that connection between us.
And for us to succeed, we need that bond between us to be unbreakable.
Labor. Faith. Civil Rights. Social Justice. All of the progressive forces pulling in the same direction.
One alliance, working together to vanquish oppression in all its forms, working together to build a more democratic and equitable society.
That’s why we came to Austin this weekend, to remember the legacy of Dr. King, to build on his work and on the work of those who came before us... Bill Lucy... Nancy Wohlforth... and carry it forward.
In that spirit, the AFL-CIO has a program that is designed to emphasize the fundamental values of fellowship the labor and religious communities share. During the Labor Day weekend each year, union activists and leaders speak in churches, synagogues and mosques, touching on our shared values, our common goals, and building support for the struggles of local workers.
Labor in the Pulpit is a program of the AFL-CIO state federations and area and central labor councils and was launched nearly 30 years ago and it’s a good one. Labor in the Pulpit is for Christian congregations and we have Labor on the Bimah for Jewish congregations and Labor in the Minbar for Muslim congregations, and today you will find fliers on your tables about the Labor in the Pulpit program.
One is an explainer, which describes the program and has some testimonials by various Christian faith groups in support of the right to form unions.
The other is a call for you to volunteer to assist your state federation and area and central labor councils in organizing the program in your local community. There’s a QR Code on it, which will lead you to a volunteer interest form.
I encourage you to get involved with this program. And I encourage you to tell your faith leader that you are a union member and proud of it. Talk to them about what it means to you to be a member of their movement and of ours. And invite them to be a part of a key component of Labor Day celebrations nationwide.
It’s one of the ways we can strengthen that connection between faith and labor, and honor the legacy of Dr. King.
Now of course, not all members of the clergy are familiar with our movement and our values. They may not see the connection between the teachings of their faith and worker justice, or might recognize the connection but aren’t sure how to bring it into action. So that’s a knowledge and understanding gap we would like to bridge.
Some years ago, the AFL-CIO sponsored a program called Seminary Summer. Some of you may remember it. It was a 10-week internship for seminarians, novices and rabbinical and Islamic graduate students, and other future religious leaders, the opportunity to witness the obstacles workers face when trying to get a voice on the job, and the opportunity to join with religious, community and union activists to build support for workers organizing unions.
It too was a good program, too good not to be resurrected.
So the AFL-CIO’s Center for Transformational Organizing and Civil and Human Rights Department is bringing it back. It’s going to be different in scope and name, and it’s going to reflect the best practices and lessons learned from the original program, but the spirit of it remains the same, to provide progressive faith leaders the knowledge and tools they need to educate and mobilize their memberships for economic and social justice.
Because here’s the deal, we truly cannot succeed in growing the labor movement, especially in the South, without communities of faith fighting alongside us, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder.
It’s called the Spirit and Solidarity program and it will be one-week intensive training for clergy on labor unions and organizing, contract campaigns and community benefit agreements and so on.
Our partner, Bargaining for the Common Good, is taking the lead to organize the training and the internships that follow the training with unions and allied labor organizations. And together we’ve just started reaching out to unions and faith partners about this initiative and we’re generating lots of interest as this program is taking shape.
We will be recruiting participants for the first cohort from the South where our Center for Transformational Organizing has been focused on supporting geographic and sectoral organizing and long term movement building with community. It’s a week-long program, but our goal is to build deep relationships between faith communities and labor that help us mobilize and organize, not just at individual work sites, but for power to effect lasting change in the communities where workers live.
We are starting in the South, but also intend to recruit from other areas of the country where we see potential for long-term and authentic alliances.
This is still taking shape and we’ll provide more details as they come into focus, but please reach out if you have an interest.
Thank you again for joining us for our annual conference. It was another good one, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the vision and leadership of our very own Danielle Noel. She and her team have been everywhere this weekend, making it happen. Thank you.