Sixty-two years agio this month a Baptist preacher held hundreds of thousands of Americans spellbound at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, backed by the Teachers, IBEW, Machinists, UAW and other labor unions.
Two years before, that preacher, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., addressed the AFL-CIO convention in Miami, where he stressed the ties between fighting for good union jobs and fighting for freedom from racist policies.
“Dr. King’s speech rested on a moral bond. His manner and his spirituality elicited a deep appreciation for the ethical and moral purpose of collective bargaining rights,” said John Lavin, a former organizer for the United Food and Commercial Workers and director of St. Joseph University’s Comey Institute for Industrial Relations.
“Those rights keep people safe at work and ensure workers a just quality of life.”
King recognized the National Labor Relations Act, but said, “like any other legislation, [it] tended merely to declare rights but did not deliver them. Labor had to bring the law to life by exercising its rights in practice over stubborn, tenacious opposition.”
Author Peter Cole – a history professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb and unionist (University Professionals of Illinois-AFT – quotes the minister and Civil Rights leader as remarking, “Our needs are identical with labor’s needs – decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community.”
King asked the labor federation, “What good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can’t buy a hamburger?”
Cole added, “If Martin Luther King Jr. still lived, he’d probably tell people to join unions.”
The intersection of faith and labor extends beyond Christianity and ’60s activism. Religious leaders historically have supported labor, but as Labor Day 2025 approaches, it’s obvious that some political leaders who claim to be devout actually oppose unions. Faiths that for centuries have espoused solidarity and compassion have been twisted into acts of cruelty and hate.
Imam Mazhar Mahmood of the Islamic Foundation of Peoria told the Labor Paper, “Islamic tradition prohibits exploitative labor, delayed wages, or unfair treatment. The Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) stood for workers’ dignity, fair contracts, proper compensation, rest and humane conditions – long before modern labor laws emerged.
“There are several foundational Islamic principles affirming the dignity and rights of working people,” he continued. “A key prophetic saying states, ‘Give the worker his wages before his sweat dries’ (Sunan Ibn Mājah).” (See below.)
In the Quad Cities, Rabbi Henry Jay Karp has addressed current events through the lens of history, focusing on threats to civic order and dishonestly appealing to the population.
“Authoritarian regimes are inherently cruel and self-serving,” Rabbi Karp says. “Hitler wrote in detail about the importance of deceiving the public by telling the Big Lie. He explained that people were more likely to believe a statement ‘fabricated in colossal untruths than a smaller lie’.”
Pointing to the anti-union White House attacking legal actions as “witch hunts,” legitimate journalism as “fake news,” and DEI initiatives as schemes giving “special benefits to individuals on the basis of race, color or ethnicity,” Karp implicitly reminds people of the Ten Commandments in the Jewish Torah. The 9th Commandment plainly orders people not to bear false witness.
The attack on DEI “is the exact opposite of what the words Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mean,” he says, adding that such “Big Lies” can confuse people or scare them into silence.
Appreciating scripture can be positive, and instead of resenting differences in faith, it’s comforting to realize the common ground virtually all religions share. Wisdom for life and labor, bargaining and participating in democracy, etc., has been taught for centuries in countless countries and languages and faiths: The Golden Rule (NOT the version that today’s billionaires seem to favor: “He who has the gold makes the rules”).
A few years before Christ, the Jewish sage Hillel the Elder summarized the first books of the Old Testament: “That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary.”
Proclaiming devotion to a religion while openly violating its values is another Big Lie.
The Methodist-trained Idaho minister Benjamin Cremer writes, “If our Christianity causes kids to go hungry, the sick to go without health care, the stranger to be unwelcome, the elderly on Social Security to be called ‘parasites,’ all while billionaires get richer, we’ve profoundly misunderstood the most basic elements of Jesus’ teachings.”
Religious institutions have long embraced worked and endorsed unions when organized labor developed.
“To trade union leaders of the late 19th and 20th centuries, ‘Rerum Novarum’[(‘Of New Things,’ Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 Encyclical] was a powerful tool for reminding workers that the Holy Father supported fair wages and healthy working conditions for all God’s people,” wrote Indiana University history professor Janine Giordano Drake in the Saint Louis University Law Journal. (It was influential beyond Catholicism, too, as Protestants’ Federal Council of Churches 21 years later adopted its principles in their “Social Creed of the Churches.”)
“Pope Leo XIII called the employer class to respect the human dignity of workers by offering them generous pay, limited hours, healthy working conditions, and enough time away from work to enjoy their families,” Drake continued. “He harshly condemned those employers who robbed workers of their dignity in their relentless pursuit of greater profits [and] encouraged workers to join trade unions and use them as righteous tools for bringing the real needs of workers to the attention of business leaders and government leaders.”
Besides institutions, ordained individuals have been active proponents of unions.
“Labor priests” used to be more common, including Msgrs. George Higgins and John Egan in the 20th century, New Jersey’s Russian Orthodox Father David Gerritson, who worked with the International Association of Stage and Technical Employees (IATSE), and – during the 1990s’ “War on Workers” involving thousands of Illinois strikers at Caterpillar, Bridgestone/Firestone and Staley – Father Martin Mangan of the St. James Catholic Church in Decatur. Mangan described that long conflict as “a war zone, and much of it is a spiritual war. I am compelled by God’s teachings to take a stand.”
Today’s most prominent labor priest is Father Clete Kiley, who’s worked with UNITE-HERE and the Archdiocese of Chicago.
He said, “ ‘Rerum Novarum,’ the first of the Catholic Social Encyclicals, provided the basic vision underwriting the [labor] movement: the dignity of work itself; the dignity of every worker; the fundamental right to work and to emigrate in order to secure work; the right to a living wage which provides for a family, health care, savings for retirement; an 8-hour work day; an elimination of all child labor; and the right to bargain collectively and to form a union.
“Pope Francis said it best: Profit cannot be the only motive for economic decisions.”
Jim Wallis, an evangelical pastor, author and Georgetown University scholar who in 2013 helped SEIU with its “Fast for Families” campaign, has praised such teachings, especially the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1986 Pastoral Letter saying, “Economic decisions have human consequences and moral content; they help or hurt people, strengthen or weaken family life, advance or diminish the quality of justice in our land.
“The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions. Organizations of this type are an indispensable element of social life. No one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself.”
Wallis ties such statements of doctrine and conscience to today’s chaos and crises.
“On June 25, Alberto Rojas, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of San Bernardino, said, ‘Authorities are now seizing brothers and sisters indiscriminately without respect for their right to due process and their dignity as children of God.’
“By abandoning any kind of due process in regard to undocumented immigrants, family separation has now become the policy of this Trump administration as it was for a time during Trump’s first term,” Wallis continued. “The difference is now they have made the policy permanent, a slap in the face to Christ and his teaching that individuals and nations should welcome immigrants and asylum seekers.
“All of us – pastors, church members, parents, community leaders, citizens – need to find our ways in our venues to stand up against policies which are both unconstitutional and anti-Christ. It is time to resist.”
Conceding difficulties in finding common ground in a divided society, Imam Mahmood said, “Islam emphasizes muʿāmalāt – righteous dealings with others – as a central expression of faith. The Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH) lived in a society with extreme differences in religion, class and politics. Despite that, he built coalitions on shared principles of justice and mercy.”
Further, back to the universality of the Golden Rule, Imam Mahmood shared the “widely accepted and accurate rendering of a saying of the Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH): ‘None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
Finally, the Protestant Rev. Cremer recalled another Old Testament passage that sounds like something uttered on a picket line: “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed, making widows their prey and robbing the orphan.” -Isaiah 10:1-2
A few meaningful passages from different faiths
on life, labor and false worship
* "Our prime purpose in this life is to help others, and if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.” – the Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama
* “To observe religious practices, but oppress your workers is false worship.” The Old Testament’s Isaiah 58:3-7
* “To deprive an employee of wages is to commit murder.” = OT’s Sirach 34:26-27
* "In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.” – The New Testament’s Matthew 7:12.
* “All workers should be paid a just and living wage.” – NT’s Matthew 20:1-16
* “Those who become rich by abusing their workers have sinned against God.” – NT’s James 5:1-6
* “One should not behave toward others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself.” – the Hindu text (Anusasana Parva 113.8)
* “Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.” – the Confucian text (The Analects 15:24)
Finally (Proverbs 6:16-19) could be seen as a warning to corrupt bosses, in negotiations or government: “There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”
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