Feeling the Heat of Solidarity: Labor Day Reflections and Conversations

In our third annual Interventions installment for Labor Day, we continue drawing on assigned scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary for the Christian tradition and expand the conversation across the Abrahamic faiths. The written reflections and video conversations that follow — featuring Wendland-Cook leadership and faith and community colleagues that are engaged in various aspects of economic justice ministry, labor and community organizing, and justice-seeking theological work — are offered with lay and ordained faith leaders and allied community partners in mind. We hope to share ideas, stories, and insights on how to preach, teach, and organize around the issues of labor and economic justice during and following the Labor Day holiday, and how these matters are inseparable other forms of oppression (racism, sexism, homophobia, the ecological crisis, etc.).

Contributors: Francisco García Jr.; Joerg Rieger; Rabbi Aryeh Cohen; Rev. L. Robin Murray; Maura-Lee Albert; Ishraq Ali

Francisco García

17 August 2023

In our third annual Interventions installment for Labor Day, we continue drawing on assigned scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary for the Christian tradition and expand the conversation across the Abrahamic faiths. Labor activity has been continuously on the rise coming out of the worst moments of the pandemic, and the stakes have never been higher for the working majority in the U.S. Our extractive economic system continues to know no bounds, as seen currently through the practices of mega-corporations from hotel chains to film and television companies that are currently feeling the heat from worker strikes across the country.

Most poignantly, thousands of hotel workers with UNITE-HERE Local 11 in Southern California have been on rolling strikes in almost 50 hotels, with no clear end in sight. Writers with the Writer’s Guild of America have been on strike for over 100 days and have recently returned to the bargaining table. Actors and many other media professionals in SAG-AFTRA have been on strike for over a month. UPS workers with the Teamsters were ready to strike and reached a historic settlement with UPS at the eleventh hour. A potential strike looms with UAW autoworkers at the “Big 3” Detroit-based automakers. Local labor and community struggles are also brewing all over the country. Between a hot labor summer and the hottest recorded temperatures in recent human history, the exploitation of people and planet can only be countered with sustained, organized people power at the grassroots, but also coordinated across regions to achieve scale. While labor unions and other worker-centered organizations (worker-owned cooperatives, worker centers) are central to this fight, the role of theological reflection on how religion and labor can come together in the work of collective liberation is also necessary.

The written reflections and video conservations that follow — featuring Wendland-Cook leadership and faith and community colleagues who are engaged in various aspects of economic justice ministry, labor and community organizing, and justice-seeking theological work — are offered with lay and ordained faith leaders and allied community partners in mind. We hope to share ideas, stories, and insights on how to preach, teach, and organize around the issues of labor and economic justice during and following the Labor Day holiday, and how these matters are inseparable from other forms of oppression (racism, sexism, homophobia, the ecological crisis, etc.).

As Dr. Joerg Rieger reflects on the story of the burning bush in Exodus, the real message of that story is not the physical fire but the heat of solidarity—God’s solidarity with working people—a profound heat that can ground and ignite greater solidarity among us all. Rabbi Cohen’s reflection on the rabbinical roots of worker justice proposes a powerful notion—that of the infinite responsibility of employers towards the material wellbeing of their workers. Moving in this direction would require a radical reorientation and restructuring of our current economic system towards a true solidarity economy. Reflecting on Romans, Rev. Robin Murray’s piece explores the intersections of love and justice and calls on faith communities to center the concerns of working people as an essential witness to the world.

In video conversations with organizers Ishraq Ali and Maura-Lee Albert, each make insightful connections between their faith traditions (Muslim for Ali, Mormon/Catholic for Albert), how they got into organizing, and how faith and labor come together for them. Ali calls attention to the need for understanding the concerns of Muslim workers, and how their sacred texts and teachings center dignity and justice for the laborer. Albert reflects on the prophetic grounding of faith from the story of Esther in the Hebrew Bible and Mosiah in the Book of Mormon. It is our hope that these short reflections and conversations provide theological and practical tools for honoring the dignity of labor this Labor Day and beyond through tangible actions. Join us in the effort of reclaiming the longstanding tradition of faith-informed solidarity and witness around issues of labor and the solidarity economy!

Rev. Francisco García, Jr. is a Graduate Research Fellow at the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice, and is a PhD Candidate in Theology at Vanderbilt University in the Graduate Program of Religion.

Dr. Joerg Rieger

17 August 2023

Exodus 3:1-15

At first glance, the miracle of the burning bush in the book of Exodus is simply this: a bush is on fire but is not consumed by it. While this miraculous event grabs Moses’s attention, from the perspective of the working majority there are two even bigger miracles: the first is a member of the ruling elites entering into solidarity with working people and the second—more surprising yet—is God joining in worker solidarity as well.

Recall that Moses, while being born to Hebrew parents, was raised at Pharaoh’s court and adopted by his daughter. Growing up as an Egyptian prince, he was as clueless about the exploitation of the slaves that built Egypt as anyone. When he finally wakes up to what is going on, observing an Egyptian taskmaster abusing a Hebrew slave, he overreacts and kills the Egyptian (Ex. 2:11-15). This is not the solidarity working people need or want (for the reaction of some Hebrews see Ex. 2:14), as overreacting hardly makes a positive difference and often makes things worse.

It is only after long years of laboring alongside the working majority as a shepherd that Moses is called by God—out of this bush that is burning but not consumed—to lead the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. This might be considered the first miracle of solidarity. Of course, this is merely the beginning of solidarity for Moses, as he knows he cannot accomplish this act of liberation by himself. His brother Aaron and his sister Miriam soon join the movement, and the hard work of building solidarity continues. The lesson for faith communities is not hard to see: become aware of your own place in the working majority as 99 percent of us have to work for a living, start building solidarity, and don’t get stuck in elitist charity or advocacy.

Nevertheless, perhaps even more unlikely than the story of someone raised at the royal court joining a worker solidarity movement is the story of God joining as well. Many definitions of God place the divine among the ruling elites at the very top of the universe, “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” (Anselm of Canterbury). Located at the top, God is typically seen as standing in solidarity with people at the top. Many assume that those at the top are there because God put them there. It seems only logical.

In this story, however, God is different. God is not only not on the side of the elites—God is not even found somewhere in the middle, trying to maintain a neutral position. God takes the side of the underdogs. In the speech from the burning bush, God not only observes the misery of the slaves and hears their cries, but God also plots to deliver them from exploitation and enslavement altogether. God enters into solidarity with the working majorities and takes a stand against those who exploit them. The is the second and perhaps the most surprising miracle of solidarity: God is taking the side of the people rather than the ruling elites. This is a fundamental lesson not only for people of faith but should also be of interest to those who have given up on dominant ideas about God.

The miracle of solidarity does not end with the Exodus from Egypt. It has often been argued that the liberated slaves become slave masters themselves when they go on to conquer the promised land of Canaan. But some of the ancient stories of conquest may reflect fantasies rather than reality. Could ragged bands of slaves lost in the desert for 40 years really have razed fortified city states like Jericho? Some experts read the ancient stories in the Bible differently, arguing that the Hebrew slaves eventually entered into solidarity with the Canaanite peasant population, which was exploited by the city states, building new economies that pushed back against exploitation. This is the final lesson for faith communities: the solidarity economy is where real transformation is happening, providing inspiration for political and religious development.

The three Abrahamic traditions that mention the Exodus—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—share a sense that God stands in solidarity with exploited working people. Whenever these traditions forgot about this, they became the religions of the respective empires of the day, providing justification for the ancient Roman and Ottoman empires, upholding European colonizations, and supporting repeated American conquests. The miracles of solidarity are crucial, therefore, not only to ease the many and often increasing burdens of working people then and now; these miracles also remind us of who is God (and who is not) and of what is at the heart of many of our religious traditions.

Joerg Rieger is the Distinguished Professor of Theology, Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair of Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion, Affiliate Faculty, Turner Family Center for Social Ventures, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, and the Founder and Director of the Wendland-Cook Program.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen

Leviticus 25:55

Babylonian Talmud Baba Metzia 10a, 7:1

17 August 2023

In this “hot labor summer” in which workers in many industries (at last count—tourism and hospitality, entertainment, shipping, driving) are demanding fair wages, the ability to live in dignity and to be able to afford a house near where they toil, and a fair share of the profits they help their industries make, it is good to recall the scriptural and rabbinic roots of workers’ demands.

One of the earliest Sages who established the great yeshivot (plural of yeshivah or study hall), in Bablyonia in the fourth century CE, known simply as Rav, turned to Leviticus 25:55: “For Mine are the Israelites as slaves, they are My slaves whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” Rav queried this text: Why does the Torah repeat the fact that the Israelites are slaves to God? The rabbinic assumption is that there are no extra words in Torah, therefore this repetition must be significant. Rav derives from this repetition that “Israelites are slave to Me but not slaves to slaves.” This radical statement is brought in a context of a discussion of the agency of a laborer (Babylonian Talmud Baba Metzia 10a), and is used to draw a bright line between wage labor and slave labor. The line that is drawn is that a worker can leave a job whenever they choose—even in the middle of the working day— because they are not a slave. A worker has rented out their labor in return for pay but has not sold their body.

There are several implications of this statement. The most basic implication is that there is a stark difference between a worker and a plow, or as Barbara Ehrenreich pointed out in Nickeled and Dimed, between a cashier and a cash register. A worker is a person created in the image of God who is deserving of being treated with dignity while leasing out their labor to an employer in what, ultimately, becomes a joint venture—whether that venture ends with strawberries in a grocery aisle, cleaned rooms in a hotel, or packages at the front door.

The second century Mishnah (Baba Metzia 7:1) brings this home when it discusses the assumptions that an employer must start with when negotiating with workers. Rabbi Yohanan ben Matya sent his son to hire day laborers. When his son returned, he told Rabbi Yohanan that he had agreed with the workers that in addition to their salary they would be given food. Rabbi Yohanan, rather than being satisfied, was angry with his son. He said to him: You must immediately return to them and define exactly what you mean by “food,” because the assumption is that since they are children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you have an infinite responsibility to them and could not fulfill that responsibility even if you were to serve them a meal as grand as one that King Solomon would serve. (The French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has taught us in reference to rabbinic texts that “Israel” or “the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” does not refer only to the Jewish people, but to all people to whom we have duties of respect and dignity. “Before a self-conscious humanity, … our duties are limitless. Workers belong to this perfected humanity…”)

While in this case the result of the negotiation would be agreeing to a lesser meal than King Solomon may have served, the principle is powerfully important. The starting point of a negotiation between owners or employers and workers is not that the workers are supplicants but that an employer has an infinite responsibility to a worker who is a child of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The negotiation is a way to get from infinite responsibility to sufficient compensation, which honors the needs and dignity of workers. This should be the stance that we take this summer when many employers seem to think that the profits that they have raked in by the sweat of workers’ brows are theirs and may be distributed as they wish. Rather, they should recognize that at base their responsibility to workers is infinite, and the negotiations should start there.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, PhD, is Professor of Rabbinic Literature and a former chair of the Rabbinics Department in the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. From 2016-2022, Dr. Cohen was the Rabbi in Residence at Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, a national social justice organization. In this role, he organized the Jewish community around issues of immigration justice and restorative justice and mobilized a multifaith community of clergy and laypeople to nonviolent direct action. 

Video Interviews

In the video conversations below with Maura-Lee Albert and Ishraq Ali we hope to share ideas, stories, and insights on how to preach, teach, and organize around the issues of labor and economic justice during and following the Labor Day holiday, and how these matters are inseparable other forms of oppression (racism, sexism, homophobia, the ecological crisis, etc.).