Work

What Work Is

By Philip Levine

(Listen to Levine read  his poem here.)

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.

Sunday: Catch CBS Special on Faith Communities and Unemployment

This Sunday, April 10, CBS will broadcast a religion special about how the unemployed are being helped by faith communities. The program, Unemployment: How Faith Communities Help Job Seekers, features an interview with Rev. Paul Sherry, Director of IWJ's DC Office and Campaign Coordinator of Faith Advocates for Jobs.


Check your local CBS station for the exact time of the broadcast (in some areas, it's being broadcast later in the week, or the following week).

From the CBS website:

Given the current jobless rate and overwhelming numbers of unemployed workers, many faith communities have created programs to assist people with their job searches and job retraining. Programs are conducted by experienced professionals free of charge and most do not require job seekers be members of the church or religion. Faith communities acknowledge that faith and prayer have to be aided by training and greater market awareness to help increase employment rates. As UNEMPLOYMENT: HOW FAITH COMMUNITIES HELP JOB SEEKERS shows, many experienced and compassionate people are helping today's job seekers.

The CBS special visits the Career Transition Center of Chicago (CTC), where one such program offers professional, spiritual and emotional support to those looking for work or undergoing a career transition. CTC was founded in 1997 primarily by the United Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic and Episcopal communities. The program features interviews with Executive Director Anita Jenke and David Kaiser, a life coach volunteer at the center, as well as those currently using the CTC's outplacement services.

In Chicago, the special visits St. Chrysostom's Employment Council, which dates back to the 1980s. Viewers will see a workshop entitled "Improving With Improv: Presenting Your Best Self through Humor and Spontaneity" and led by Bina Martin, a teacher at Chicago's famed Second City Improv. While there, viewers will also hear from Rev. Larry Green, a Deacon at the church, and Michael Cade, a parishioner and volunteer who oversees the Employment Council's monthly meetings.

Up next is New York City's Riverside Church, which offers a free six-week barber training program. Since 1997, master barber Dennis F. Thomas has trained nearly 2,000 people in the basics of barbering. The special explores the church program's practical results by visiting with some of its graduates at work, and speaking with Debra Northern, Director of Social Services for Riverside Church.

The special's final stop is St. James, a Roman Catholic Parish in Stratford, Connecticut, where Rev. Paul Sherry of Interfaith Worker Justice talks about the realities of unemployment, lending a deeper sense of need to the practical efforts now offered by local churches. His is an advocacy group that addresses related issues of wages, benefits and working conditions. The individual local programs help support job seekers with new skills as well as insights as to what employers are seeking today.

The special is produced in cooperation with the National Council of Churches, Consortium of Roman Catholic organizations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Union of Reform Judaism and the New York Board of Rabbis.

To learn more about Faith Advocates for Jobs or to get your congregation or group involved, e-mail Paul at psherry@iwj.org or call him at 202-525-3055.

Faith Advocates for Jobs has produced a toolkit for congregations that want to get involved with the campaign. Standing With the Unemployed: A Congregational Toolkit can be downloaded here (it's a PDF).

Danny Postel
Communications Coordinator
Interfaith Worker Justice

Dandy news for Lone Star State! (No, not an April Fool's joke)

Below you'll find  just dandy news about workers in Texas.  What's that old saying about thanking God for Mississippi?  Now those folks are thanking the good Lord for Texas! 

States with the highest percentage of workers earning at or below minimum wage:


Texas: 9.5 percent, 550,000 workers

Mississippi: 9.5 percent, 63,000

Alabama: 9.3 percent, 106,000

West Virginia: 9.3 percent, 40,000

Louisiana: 8.9 percent, 87,000

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

[Reported by the Houston Chronicle]

Read more here.

Coal Miners

What would it be like to make your living in a coal mine?

As local news reports out of Comfort, West Virginia put it on April 10, "Time stopped five days ago for the families of 29 coal miners killed in the devastating explosion at Upper Big Branch mine."

The disaster points up the risk and the harshness of some forms of labor, work that communities depend upon for life as we know it.

As I've thought about the loss of life and the sacrifice of these and other laboring people, Willie's new album and the song, "Dark as a dungeon" came to mind. I post it here as a tribute to miners everywhere.

Working folks

Working folks don't enjoy easy lives these days.

I expect that has always been true.

In working my way through the epistle of St. James recently, I discovered that the brother of Jesus had some very pointed things to say about working people, wealthy people and the way the system works or doesn't work for the poor.

Sometimes you just need a song for reflection and strength. Songs often recognize the obvious, but in ways that lend encouragement to the struggle.

Take it away, Merle!

Profits, Wages and Unemployment

Figures that surprise
Mar 22nd 2010, 14:25 by Buttonwood

IF YOU need an explanation as to why political discontent is so widespread on both sides of the Atlantic, take a look at figures compiled by Dhaval Joshi of the hedge fund RAB Capital. This recovery has benefited companies a lot and workers not at all.

In the US, Joshi calculates that, in cash terms, national income has risen $200 billion since the depths of the recession in March 2009. But corporate profits have risen by $280 billion over that period, while wages are down by $90 billion. One would have to go back to the 1950s to find profits outperforming wages in absolute (cash) terms, and even then it was on a much smaller scale. In Britain, national income rose $27 billion in the last two quarters of last year. Profits were up £24 billion and wages just £2 billion.

The latest issue has a piece on this puzzle; US productivity has outpaced European largely because the US has been quicker to sack workers. This is a decidedly mixed blessing. In theory, it is good for resources (including labour) to be relloacted to more productive use. Thus it would be OK if the workers were quickly rehired by new, growing industries or if they were at least retrained, but there is little sign of such a positive development.

Continue reading here.

Reactions?

A quiet day, all a big mistake!

So, on Monday morning I left my house for work, not realizing that I failed to pick up my mobile phone.

By mid-morning the thought hit me, "This day is very quiet.  Wonder why?" 

I toured the new building Downtown.  Talked to several people in the office after a number of issues.  Read lots of email, made a few phone calls at my desk. 

Still, I was thinking, "This day is very quiet!" 

Only after driving to into far North Dallas (Plano, to be more precise--Collin County!) for an appoitment that didn't make due a failure in communication did I realize that I had no cell phone! 

Aaaaggggghhhhh! 

I actually resorted to the retail paint counter at a nearby Home Depot to borrow a phone to call back to the office to figure out what was going on.  Of course, the office had been trying to call me to no avail since everyone was calling my cell phone, remember the one that I left at home?

Once I recovered from the feeling of complete isolation and "cut-off-ness" (that can't be a real word, can it?), I realized that I actually could settle into the quiet, forced and temporary as it might be. 

It felt really very nice not being in touch or available to everyone in the world at every single second of the entire day. 

I began to recall the good old days before cell phones were so available to everyone.  I remembered with fondness my first "car phone."  The thing was about the size of a brick cut in half and weighted about the same. 

At first I thought, "How did we ever work without them?" 

Quite well actually. 

And, maybe it is just me, but I think we may have worked more sanely with a much more even stride about our days. 

Could I go back? 

Would it be possible? 

Dare I try?

"Oh, oh, thanks, I must have dozed off in the remarkable quiet of this very strange day!" 

"Shift Work"

Hard working people get my attention.

Labor.

I'm an advocate.

Kenny Chesney and Goerge Strait sing it here: "Shift Work."

Works for me!

Retro message for these times: The Grapes of Wrath

Quote without comment:

The decay spreads over the state, and the sweet smell is a great sorrow on the land. Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce. Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow.

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people come from miles to take the fruit, but this could not be… And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit – and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.

And the smell of rot fills the country.

…Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates – died of malnutrition – because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.

The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

(John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, pp. 362-363).

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On Through

Clearly, life deals people some pretty tough hands.

Sometimes the best thing to do in some situations is to just change course. You know, turn around. Go a different direction. Take an alternative route.

Often that approach, though desirable, is not possible.

People find themselves trapped, surrounded by enemies and obstacles and, well, nothing with which to work on a solution.

Over the past 15 years, I've seen this reality what seems like a million times. Poverty creates such dilemmas and then imposes them on good people.

Solutions?

Often very, very hard to discover.

But I've noticed in my schooling from and among "the poor" that those who make it just simply keep battling, trying, struggling until they break "on through."

Faith is always a part of that movement through. And, so is community. No one makes it "on through" without help and engagement with others.

As I've been saying for a long time, poor folks have a lot to teach us.

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Work

Central Dallas Ministries continues to put resources and substantial effort into training men and women for livable wage jobs.

CDM WorkPaths, under the direction of Gerald Britt and led by Andrea Bills, provides hard and soft skills training of various kinds for students interested in improving their ability to land better jobs.

What follows provides a live look into the world of WorkPaths. The video captures part of the excitement of graduation day for our latest construction trades class.

We are most fortunate to have great partners like the Construction Education Foundation, OAI, North Lake College, Riverside Church of Christ, Texas Capital Bank and many, many others who help deliver the goods to our students! I wish you could have been there last Thursday.

We are more committed than ever before to pursue the creation of more employment readiness products for the community.

Easter Meditation: "This is my church. . ."

Lots of us these days are wondering about how "church" ought to be redefined more in line with the spirit, values and life of its founder.

Where are we to stand and what are we to do when it comes to the marginalized, the oppressed and those who are routinely taken advantage of? What has this to do with being church in our world today?

As an Easter Meditation, I offer the following clip from the classic 1954 film, On the Waterfront.

Anxious to know your ideas after you watch it.

I Ain't Got No Home

The connection between faith and spirituality and the real world of work and justice is a hard one to negotiate for lots of Christian people. While there have always been voices of dissent to the contrary, the tendency among many evangelicals is to keep these two worlds completely separate.

For these folks faith is almost entirely concerned with issues and questions related to the next life or to the finer points of polity and practice inside religious institutions. Little if any attention is given to facing the harsh realities of this life, at least not as a central article of faith.

As a child, I remember singing the Albert E. Brumley song This World Is Not My Home. The upbeat lyrics were matched by the rousing melody when sung in four-part harmony, as was our custom.

Can't you just hear it?

This world is not my home, I'm just passing through.
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

O Lord you know I have no friend like you
If Heaven's not my home, then Lord what will I do?
The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

You can actually hear the entire hymn right here.

But, you know, there is another version of the song and another way to sing it.

Woody Guthrie's , I Ain't Got No Home, attempts to bring the two worlds together, making a connection that both lifts the soul and matters substantively in the here and now. The melody is much the same, a bit more subdued with a few new twists, but the lyrics refuse to ignore the present, its unfairness and its resultant pain:

I ain't got no home, I'm just a-roamin' 'round,
Just a wandrin' worker, I go from town to town.
And the police make it hard wherever I may go
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road,
A hot and dusty road that a million feet have trod;
Rich man took my home and drove me from my door
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Was a-farmin' on the shares, and always I was poor;
My crops I lay into the banker's store.
My wife took down and died upon the cabin floor,
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

I mined in your mines and I gathered in your corn
I been working, mister, since the day I was born
Now I worry all the time like I never did before
'Cause I ain't got no home in this world anymore

Now as I look around, it's mighty plain to see
This world is such a great and a funny place to be;
Oh, the gamblin' man is rich an' the workin' man is poor,
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Listen to Guthrie's recording with graphics here or in a bit clearer rendition here.

Bringing the truth of faith to the hard, cold facts of work, opportunity and equity--or the absence thereof!--turns out to be a rather daunting task.

Clearly, the task is worth the struggle, a struggle that becomes much less difficult when faith engages to connect the day-to-day decisions of this world with all of the prospects of the next.

Woody got it right.

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What Work Is

Philip Levine writes poems about working class people. People much like many of my friends. People who possess a strong desire to work. People who don't earn much. People who are accustomed to waiting for any and every opportunity.

Levine comes out of his soul and his own experience from a generation ago growing up in Detroit.

But things haven't changed all that much, except that manual labor doesn't pay what it once did, relatively speaking.

Levine writes songs, he tells stories about ordinary working folks looking for even a glimmer of hope.

What Work Is

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.

[Philip Levine, "What Work Is," from What Work Is: Poems, pages 18-19]

Labor Day

Work is sacred in my book.

All kinds of work.

The spiritual quality of work, the substance of human effort and purpose, the connection of labor to the maintenance and promotion of life, creativity and productivity--I'm fascinated by it all.

If regarded properly, there is no such thing as meaningless work.

We arrive at despair regarding work because of the false categories and artificial judgments that promote lies about what work matters and what work does not.

All honest, legal work, grounded in authentic human effort, matters. All such labor should be honored in our communities.

Labor connects us to others.

Production sustains and supports the entire human enterprise.

Labor is sacred.

Often, it is not treated as if it were, especially when it comes to livable wages, opportunities for advancement, access to skills training and continuing education or on the job training.

Food for thought this Labor Day.

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The inner city could help

I've said it before. Let me say it again.

If I were about 15-20 years younger, I would make a career change. (Is a career what I have?)

I would put together an investment fund group and I would start a new energy company.

Our product?

Solar panels.

My hiring practices would be a bit unorthodox. Most of my employees, the vast majority of my workforce, would be drawn from the inner city unemployed and underemployed. Many of my team would be ex-incarcerated and looking for a new start and a new life. I think our company could answer that call.

My marketing strategy would include a new wrinkle or two as well. I'd bill our little company something like "Patriot Power."

That would fit well because we would be responding to the nation's need for increased national security, while decreasing the production of greenhouse gases via the use of petroleum products.
In the process, we would help grow the economy and inject new economic power into the inner city.

In short, we would be helping free everyone from the need to import and burn Middle Eastern and other foreign oil while making a positive contribution to improving the environment, stimulating our sagging economy and putting people with real challenges on the right path.

One huge rate-limiter would be the response of the American Congress. Making the shift to a new energy strategy and product will require subsidies and seed funding to build the necessary infrastructure and to train new workers.

Would you invest in my new company?

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More on immigration and the economy from Ray Perryman

Check back to this past Tuesday's post to read the first portion of my synopsis of a study conducted by Ray Perryman and his team. What follows are excerpts from the same report dealing with our national reliance on immigrant labor. This dependence on immigrant workers presents many problems, especially for the laborers themselves. But the net benefit to our national economy should factor significantly into any conversation about immigration reform. As always, I'm looking for your responses. LJ

______________________________

As the era of a plentiful workforce wanes and the "baby boomers" begin to approach retirement, the US economy has found numerous ways to sustain growth and prosperity. These approaches include. . .an increasing reliance on immigrants, both legal and undocumented.

. . .The relative increase in the immigrant share of the overall population in the past few decades, the greater reliance on undocumented workers, and intense political attention have often camouflaged the fundamental economic concerns. . . . The development of immigration policy affects not only national security and other priorities, but also the economy. Overly restrictive policy has the potential to devastate certain industries which would be faced with near crisis conditions in terms of affordable labor.

. . .If all undocumented workers were removed from the workforce, a number of industries would face substantial shortages of workers, and Americans would have to be induced into the labor pool or provided incentives to take jobs far below their current education and skill levels. For this phenomenon to occur to a meaningful extent, substantial wage escalation would likely be necessary, thus eroding competitiveness in global markets.

As the domestic workforce becomes older, more stable in number, and better educated, the US production complex increasingly requires foreign, low-skilled workers. The economy is now relying on more low-skilled immigrant workers than the allowable work visas under current policy.

In 1960, about 50% of men in this country joined the low-skilled labor force without completing high school; the number is now 10%. . . .The total demand [for low-skilled workers] will far exceed the rate of growth in the workforce that will occur from natural expansion and the entry afforded by current immigration policy, leaving a potential gap of tens of millions of laborers. Even if some marginal workers are induced into the workforce from other sources, the need for an immigrant pool to perform these functions is likely to increase.

For several industries and occupations, undocumented immigrants serve as a particularly important source of labor. These include private households, food manufacturing, farming, furniture manufacturing, construction, textile manufacturing, food services, administrative and support services, accommodations, and selected elements of the manufacturing industry.

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Hot streets

"There are no statistics on the street."

(Bernard Glassman and Rick Fields, Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life that Matters, page 149)

_________________________________

The thermometer in the car read 113. It felt hotter.

At 3:30 p.m. we were just getting around to having lunch. The walk across the parking lot felt like a sauna complete with built-in aerobics.

113.

Not sure how accurate the instrument was, but clearly, well over the century mark.

My mind went to the street.

What's it like "out there" when it's this hot?

Even in the new homeless assistance center, The Bridge, Downtown there wouldn't be enough cool spots to accommodate the crowd.

Looking for shade. No place to shower or rest or use "the facilities."

113.

What would it be like?

_________________________________

Our Resource Center building on Haskell Avenue that doubles as our headquarters is now surrounded by Baylor University Medical Center development. The last pieces of the build out include a surface parking lot directly behind our building that wraps around us to the northeast and a multi-story administrative office building and parking garage just across Crutcher Street to our southwest.

Watching the construction has become a daily enterprise as we come and go from our offices. I've been amazed by the pace of the construction.

It's been hot.

113.

I've watched the labor closely.

Mostly Hispanic gentlemen who demonstrate great skill and impressive work ethic, to say the least. I've also noticed that they remain focused and cheerful.

One day recently, I watched as two men took alternating turns with two sledge hammers driving what started as a 5-foot stake in the hard dirt of the parking garage site. As they finished, I cheered them on. We shared a laugh and a brief exchange.

Hard working guys.

113.

Friends in the heat, whether at work or just trying to survive difficult circumstances.

Hot streets.

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Economic reality and immigration

Economist Ray Perryman (http://www.perrymangroup.com/) knows about as much about the Texas economy as anyone who makes a living studying it. The Perryman Report is consulted by policy makers, business leaders and academics who share a concern for economic forces and the reality facing Texas citizens, consumers, labor and employers.

The Perryman Report & Texas Letter (March 2008) contains an important essay, "An Analysis of the Economic Impact of Undocumented Workers on Business Activity in the US with Estimated Effects by State and by Industry."

Noting the concerns of a shrinking workforce brought about by the aging of the Baby Boomers, Perryman is keen to impress upon his readers, no matter what their ideological or political positions, the central role of immigrants in helping sustain and grow the American economy. Perryman regards "enforcement-only" strategies and responses to undocumented immigrants as inadequate and naive in light of economic reality. As he says early in his report, "Overly restrictive policy has the potential to devastate certain industries. . . . While a national reform initiative is imperative, it must be cognizant of the potential economic fallout in order to avoid unnecessary disruptions, dislocations, and unintended consequences" (page 1).

Here are some facts from Perryman's research and wisdom:

• 1 in 8 people living in the U. S. is an immigrant


• Total number of immigrants is up by 10 million since 2000 to over 37,000,000 nationwide


• 33% of our immigrant population accesses some major welfare program compared to 19% of native-born families, but most of these immigrant consumers are documented, rather than undocumented


• A higher percentage of immigrants are employed than natives, but have lower educational levels, work at lower skill jobs and earn less for their work


• Estimates of the undocumented immigrant population in the U. S. ranges from 11.1 to 12 million


• California, Texas, Florida, and New York have the highest number of undocumented residents


• Undocumented immigrants arrive in increasing numbers with 180,000 annually in the 1980s, as compared to 850,000 per year between 2000-2005


• 78% of undocumented immigrants come from Latin America, with 56% of the total arriving from Mexico


• Approximately 4% of U. S. school-age children are undocumented


• The cost to educate undocumented immigrant children and U. S. born children of undocumented immigrants is estimated to be $30 billion


• 8.1 million undocumented immigrants work in the U. S. economy


• Between 50 and 75% of undocumented immigrants pay federal, state and local taxes.


• Social Security and Medicare contributions made by undocumented workers support the benefits of older American citizens, as the immigrants will not be able to collect such benefits


• Undocumented workers pay "far more" in taxes than they receive in benefits from various governments; while some state and local entities experience a net loss in cost of benefits versus taxes paid. "Viewed on the whole. . .the group more than compensates for the services it receives" (page 3).


• Removing all undocumented workers would result in $1.757 trillion in annual lost spending, $651.511 billion in annual lost labor output, and 8.1 million job losses.


• After the U. S. economy "adjusted" to such a loss of labor and capital, Perryman estimates that the sustained losses would include $551.569 billion in annual spending, $244.971 billion in annual labor output and more than 2.8 million lost jobs.

Amazing analysis.

The economic and labor data line up well with my personal experience in inner city Dallas. We must craft policies that provide guest worker status to immigrants who simply want to work, make a contribution to the U. S. economy and better their lives and those of their loved ones.

Doesn't that sound thoroughly American?

[More from Ray Perryman later.]

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Not kosher in America's heartland

Here's a classic case of religious practice and the terms of "faithfulness" completely missing the point of life, justice, truth and, yes, common, human decency. This particular example comes from Orthodox Judaism. It could just as well have been a story connected to some Christian entrepreneur.

Did you see the story?

The headline and the subtext caught my eye immediately: "After Iowa Raid, Immigrants Fuel Labor Inquiries--Many Teenagers Found--Unsafe Conditions and Long Hours Reported at a Kosher Plant" (The New York Times, July 27, 2008, A1, 16),

Read Julia Preston's complete story by clicking on the title line above.

It seems that immigration authorities raided a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa and found lots to report. In fact, the raid provides a horrifying glimpse into the lives and struggles of undocumented immigrants who work long hours in terrible conditions.

Agents found 389 "illegal" immigrants when they raided Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s largest kosher plant. Among those picked up, more than 20 were found to be under-age, some as young as 13. Having been arrested in violation of immigration law, many of the workers have agreed to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. The details revealed about the jobs at the kosher plant are chilling.

Working shifts of 12 hours or longer, often through the night, six days a week, was common practice for many of the workers. When workers reported problems, complained about work conditions or sought relief from their harsh circumstances, management threatened to turn them over to immigration officials.

Preston reports, "One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not have time to do anything but work and sleep. 'I was very sad,' he said, 'and I felt like I was a slave.'"


Clearly management was aware of the presence of many under-age workers. Due to the dangers associated with the work, Iowa law regulating meatpacking facilities prohibits the hiring of anyone younger than 18 on the floor of a meatpacking plant. The company denies the accusations. Counsel for the immigrant workers maintains that to date she had identified 27 workers under 18 who worked in the packing facility.

Federal labor officials used an undercover agent during the investigation. During this phase of the inquiry, the undercover informant saw “a rabbi who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.” Jewish managers provide oversight to ensure that the slaughtering and processing of meat abides by kosher standards in keeping with their faith's requirements. Other egregious practices were reported.

Read the entire story. It is more than upsetting.

Two reactions here.

First, any religious rule fixated on a legal or technical requirement that is worked out in a practical context of injustice, exploitation and oppression is foolishly useless. That which seeks to honor God, ends up bringing shame to God's name.

Second, this nation needs comprehensive immigration reform that includes a guest worker program providing for workers who simply want to work. Such a guest worker program should include a registration process that is clear and easy to understand and that encourages compliance. Workers must be protected from unscrupulous management that takes advantage of a worker's "illegal" status.

This story is more than disturbing. Our nation must do better. Our faith demands it. . .and, by the way, any definition of "kosher" (no matter what the faith tradition) should include the just, fair treatment of all who simply want to work and make a living for themselves and their families. The silence of so many people of faith relative to this pressing national issue is certainly not "kosher."

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