INTERFAITH COALITION FOR WORKER JUSTICE
OF SOUTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN

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Happy Labor Day From the Director

Rabbi Renée Bauer

It is my pleasure to spend my first Labor Day as director of the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin. Although most Americans celebrate Labor Day by going to sales at the mall or enjoying the last barbeque of the season, it is also an important time for time for reflection. In the richest country in the world, more than two million full-time, year round workers live below the poverty line, struggling to pay for necessities such as food, housing, healthcare, transportation, and childcare. Labor Day calls all of us, and especially members of religious communities, to respond to this crisis. Our nation's major faith traditions teach us to care for the poor, treat the worker justly and welcome the stranger into our communities. Labor Day weekend provides an opportunity to study and reflect on the messages from our traditions so that we can put them into action.

I have had plenty of opportunities since I began my role as director in January to reflect on the troubling conditions many workers in our community face everyday and how far we have to go to live out the words of our various faith traditions. In my first few months as director I was swept into a heated campaign with the Superior Health Linen workers and UNITE HERE to gain a union contract for this mostly immigrant labor force. Because this vulnerable workforce could be easily intimidated by the pressure applied from management, the workers trying to organize a union were unsuccessful. However, since their efforts began, the company has increased in pay and improved working conditions. Unfortunately, without a union in place the workers have no protections or guarantee that these gains will remain in place. Throughout the campaign, the voice of faith sounded by ICWJ members who witnessed and spoke up for the workers helped them make progress in their struggle. We look forward to continuing to work with UNITE HERE as they continue to work to improve conditions for laundry workers around the state.

There are excellent resources on the national Interfaith Worker Justice's website for you to use in your faith communities or in your personal reflections this Labor Day. I hope these materials help you find deeper meaning in this late summer holiday, and give you renewed energy to join the effort to fight for worker justice.

Happy Labor Day,
Rabbi Renée

Faithful Education

In the coming year ICWJ will be starting a new sustained effort to educate and engage faith communities in South Central Wisconsin on issues of worker justice in general and how immigration and labor issues are linked in today’s economy and national discourse.

The effort has already begun with programs in various faith communities. This spring the ICWJ held a community forum on faith and immigration at the Stoughton Public Library. The forum brought members of different faith communities into conversation about the current immigration debate and how our faith traditions can guide us as we work for comprehensive immigration reform. On Mother’s Day, congregants at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Monona had a conversation about similar issues in an educational forum before the morning worship service. In early August, Beth Israel Center hosted a two part series about the immigration raid and worker abuses in Postville, Iowa.

ICWJ plans to take the experience and energy from these educational events and deepen our educational work in the faith communities. We will be inviting a handful of communities to delve deeply into issues of faith, worker justice and immigration in the coming months with the intent of helping the communities find ways they can do their part in the effort to create safety and fairness for all members of society. Through education and engagement the ICWJ seeks to build a strong coalition of worker conscious people of faith, assuring that a base of support is to ready to act in support of workers in our community when needed. If you are interested in being part ICWJ’s educational initiative or are a member of a faith community that may be interested, please contact Rabbi Renée at (608)255-0376 or at director@workerjustice.org.

ICWJ Goes to Postville for Immigration Rally

Kara Stockdale, Workers’ Rights Center Summer Intern

On the morning of Sunday, July 27th, over 80 individuals gathered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Memorial Union to make the journey to the small town of Postville, Iowa. Riding for two and a half hours on buses chartered by the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice (ICWJ) and the Workers’ Rights Center (WRC), they joined about 1,500 others at a rally and march protesting the raid of the town by the US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). The event was organized by St. Bridget’s Catholic Church of Postville, Jewish Community Action of St. Paul, MN and the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs of Chicago.

The May 12th ICE raid detained 389 allegedly undocumented workers at the Postville kosher meat-packing plant owned by Agriprocessors, Inc. This raid was the largest workplace raid in U.S. history and will forever be remembered for the heavy-handed tactics employed. ICE surrounded the plant with vehicles and helicoptors, and hundreds of gun brandishing agents converged to apprehend nearly 400 workers simply trying to do their jobs.

One worker described his experience after being seized. During the arraignments, workers were shackled, brought to a fairground holding area designed for cattle, and placed into trailers in groups of ten to be taken to appear before judges. Once there, they were offered a plea bargain; if they admitted guilt, they would receive five months in jail and then deportation. If they refused the plea, they faced serving up to two years in jail followed by deportation if convicted. Considering their family responsibilities, there was really not much a choice for the workers who needed to return to their families in order to care for them. Notably, many of the accused workers did not know they had filed an incorrect Social Security Number because someone else in the plant filled out their paperwork.

In addition to significant local support for the protest, hundreds more joined the rally from Chicago, Minnesota, Milwaukee and Madison. Since Agriprocessors is the nation’s largest producer of kosher meat, the Jewish community was uniquely impacted. Many members of the Jewish community expressed concern after learning that the kosher meat was produced unethically and were outraged by the raid and the working conditions in the plant. Protestors gathered to draw attention to both the draconian methods that ICE used in the raid, and several horrendous labor standards violations – including unsafe working conditions, child labor violations and complaints of unpaid wages.

The march through the town was preceded by a prayer service at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Postville. Many Jewish, Catholic and Lutheran groups participated, praying in English, Spanish and Hebrew. Leaders shared their thoughts on the treatment of the undocumented workers and families torn apart by the raid. Several community leaders and clergy members spoke out, encouraging reform of immigration laws that “…make us choose between what is legal and what is righteous.” During the interfaith prayer sevice, each section concluded with the energetic crowd repeating “Danos coraje. Danos esperanza. Danos amor. – Give us courage. Give us hope. Give us love.”

The events in Postville illustrate the broken state of the immigration system. The time is now for our government to take substantive action on this issue, action that repects family values and the dignity of each human being. The ICWJ calls on all people to demand that their government representatives reform our broken immigration system so that no one must live in fear of another raid like the one in Postville.

Reflections on the Rally in Postville

Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman, former ICWJ board chair

I was standing next to a long table full of neatly arranged trays of cookies when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a woman with white hair smiling kindly at me. Noticing my yalmulke she offered, "The kosher cookies are over here." After finishing our march through the tiny town of Postville, Iowa, the hospitality committee of St. Bridget's Catholic Church was waiting for us, eager to show their appreciation that we had come.

It was an extraordinary experience to march through Postville, a town of 2,200 people. The afternoon began with an interfaith service with hundreds of people packed into the tiny church. We read liturgy of courage, hope, and love together both in English and Spanish, and we sang a beautiful rendition of Hinei mah tov in unison - indeed, how great it was that we were all sitting there together.

We were quite a diverse group of over 1,000 people. As we walked through the neighborhoods, Postville residents sat on porch stoops or lawn chairs watching us as we marched by. They seemed to be fascinated by us - after all, such a march had never happened in this town.

When we arrived at Agriprocessors, a rabbi, speaking through the loudspeaker, explained a piece of Talmud, which prohibits employers from oppressing their workers. We passed a park where we heard more speeches and a poem by children. We then walked into the center of town where we were confronted by a small, angry group of counter-protestors who did not seem to be from Postville. One sign read, "Pack their sack and send them back." A line of police officers separated us.

I walked for some time with an older couple that were parishioners of St. Bridget's and lived ten miles outside of Postville. They kept repeating the word disaster - the raid was a disaster, the working conditions at the plant were a disaster, the plight of the children separated from their parents was a disaster, the deportations were a disaster. I asked what people in the church thought of all of this. They answered, "The church just doesn't like to see families separated. It's just not right."

A downpour interrupted the last of the speeches outside of St. Bridget's. We all piled into the church - with a spread of cookies waiting for us. Throughout the day I had wondered what the folks at St. Bridget's thought of so many Jews converging on their town. Did they understand that we also shared so many things in common? The kosher cookies seemed to say it all. I thanked one of the women on the hospitality committee. She responded, "We are so happy to have you." "But serving 1,000 people cookies?" I asked. "We're Iowans. This is what we do”.

Supporting Workers at Woodman’s Food Markets

On July 29, 2008 ICWJ board members and supporters pastors Bob Sitcha, Clint Schnekloth, Paul Shupe and retired Episcopal Priest Art Lloyd met with a group of six Woodman’s Food Market workers who have worked for the company for between 12 and 29 years. The workers appreciated having their story heard and asked members of ICWJ to pray for them. ICWJ will let our members know if and when there is further action to take to support the workers at Woodman’s.

The following is a reflection about the situation written by ICWJ board member Pastor Bob Sitcha.

Picture this: You’ve been coming to work at the same job for nearly thirty years. You’ve always done a good job, had solid evaluations and, financially speaking, your Employer is doing well. Your employer wants to do even better, and because you believe their success is your success, you’re ready to pitch in. Unfortunately, your employer has decided you are the problem. Not because your seniority costs them more, and not because you don’t have constructive ideas, and not because you are not well qualified to help make things happen that save your employer more than it costs them to have you there. No, if that were the whole equation, you’d be part of the solution. What makes you part of the problem is that you are a member of a union. And unions, as we all know, are the bane of corporate growth. At least, that’s the attitude at Woodman’s these days.

That’s right, Woodman’s. You know, the store that runs the corny ad where that lanky guy named assures you, at the end of each take, “Better products sold by better people, because we’re employee owned.” Having a few relatives that own the bulk of the stock is a far cry from the implication that workers exercise day-to-day control of the business.. What they are is a company intent on ferreting out its union employees in favor of less-than-full-time employees glad for part-time, no-benefits, work your way through school or second, minimum wage, jobs.

I’ll leave it to you as to whether this approach results in having better employees helping save you money, while providing living wages, health and pension benefits to its members in ways that spread a decent measure of prosperity throughout the community and build a stronger social fabric. After all, that’s so 20th Century.

What should get your ire, though, is the way Woodman’s has chosen to go about its business. For their union employees, it became evident late last January, but it actually began a long time before. Consultants were hired, strategies were formed, unauthorized meetings were called, and fraudulent petitions were prepared. No, January was just the time when management hit the ground running, circulating petitions through the use of surrogates who had the audacity to tell their co-workers (you know, the people who trust and work with them every day?), “By signing this, it’ll give you more rights”. Many people signed, thinking they were strengthening their position. After all, if you’re like most of us, you don’t read half the stuff you sign, but you do put stock in the words of the people you work with. Imagine their surprise when they learned they had signed petitions allowing for the decertification of their union by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

And when that did not work, when union employees asked questions, they were fired. Some were moved to new locations within the store where their every action could be – and was - directly watched or “speed-timed” by management. Firing was best, though, and any trumped up charge would do. Truck drivers who stopped at a Burger King – to eat or use the restroom, no one cared; warehouse workers who drove a fork truck down the wrong aisle. Ordinarily they’d be admonished with a warning, if anything was said at all, but these were union workers, and it was important that they be gone.

But the decertification of the union, that was the best. It says a lot about how the country we live in– and our world – functions these days. You see, Woodman’s is probably well aware that in an ordinary world, a Federal Court would enjoin them from what they were doing, if the NLRB didn’t move on them first. But ours is no longer an ordinary world, and these are not ordinary times. Companies trying to harm unions know that these things take time, which means that an effective strategy is to do it – just do it – and worry about the (negligible) cost of the consequences later.

Got a fraudulent petition going? Don’t worry, circulate it. By the time the NLRB gets around to sorting things out, those lame union people who were in the way will be long gone. Or, they’ll be so intimidated they’ll fold. (That’s because, of course, while the months roll by during which administrative agencies like the NLRB sort through their files, the people most affected still have car payments, mortgage payments, phone bills, and even grocery bills to pay.) And as for those new employees, the ones sitting on the edge, working an extra job to make their sub-prime mortgage payments or getting the cash they need to pay their living expenses while going to the local college, they’ll get the message, too. In the law, they call it the “chilling effect,” and boy oh boy, does it work.

In today’s world, after all, and in this precious country we love, we can no longer be sure from day to day whether the law as we once knew it will be applied. Will the NLRB see Woodman’s ruse for what it is? Will they say it was perfectly okay for Woodman’s to orchestrate a phony campaign that enables them, one day, out of the blue, to announce they are no longer a union shop? Will it be alright for Woodman’s – and for the communities that depend on the wages its employees are paid – to devolve into a big box store composed primarily of well-paid management teams and low-wage part-time non-union workers simply because Woodman’s one day decided to throw its employees over the side? They, the NLRB – and Woodman’s - already know, mind you, that the newly constituted Supreme Court is more likely than not to see things their way.

These things find their way down to the local level. And at that level, we depend on playing on the level. When large employers think they can arbitrarily flex their muscles thinking that by the time things come back around it will be yesterday’s news, it affects us all. Somewhere in there is an ideal called Worker Justice. We would do well to be involved in keeping it alive. We can begin by supporting a group of people whose only wrong move – from their employer’s perspective, at least – was to join and support a union.

Book Review: Christians at the Border by M. Daniel Carroll, R.

Reverend Elaine Weidemann, ICWJ Board Member

Daniel Carroll R. is sympathetic to both sides of the immigration debate, and although he addresses this book to Christians, its message applies to people of the Islamic faith and the Jewish faith as well.

He begins by defining words: refugees are people who flee out of fear of persecution or war; immigrants are people who move to another country of their own volition, seeking lengthy or permanent stays. The term illegal aliens is pejorative, and suggests people with no scruples or guilty of crimes. Most Hispanics are not. More realistically, some are undocumented immigrants. They are not criminals!

Carroll asks people of faith to look at the message of their sacred books – the Bible, the Torah, the Koran – and to remember that the U.S. has always had immigrants coming here. The rate depends on conditions in other countries. The lack of opportunity in their country of origin is the push. The drive to meet the needs of industry, business and farming here is the pull. Dangers like war and persecution are a push, too. Therefore, we are a people with a unique mix of gifts. History tells us that the American identity has never been static.

Today we hear economic complaints. Yet economic factors present a complex picture. The cost of social services varies by states and the size of their immigrant populations. The kinds of taxes vary by states! There is the ‘prison population’ argument, yet the rate of incarceration is lower among Hispanics than in the general population. The Social Security system needs an influx of younger workers. There are no simple answers for arguments on either side of the debate.

Carroll states that for people of faith to address the problems posed by the immigrations of Hispanic people and contribute to possible solutions, they need to do it consciously, informed by their faith, by the Bible, the Torah and the Koran.

Basic teachings in all three of these books are:

the inherent value and dignity of all persons, since people are created in the image of God/Allah.
the limitless compassion of God/Allah – and our Creator’s concern for the vulnerable.
hospitality to the stranger is a virtue.

Then he goes on to give concrete examples from the Old Testament (the Torah) stories about Abraham, Laban, the poor widow and Elijah, Job and Isaiah. And in the New Testament he cites Jesus’ interactions with Samaritans, lepers, the poor, the sick and the hungry. Jesus knew his disciples would be ‘outsiders’. (Some of us still are!) The Koran also has teachings about hospitality and the vulnerable.

Our responses to the challenges of immigration should arise from our beliefs and commitments. We know – legality cannot be limited just to complying with present law. All laws are not inherently good and just. In the U.S., we do have the right to disagree, and to move self-consciously toward new laws. We need to consider our faith and our beliefs as we take part in the dialogue about Hispanic immigration.

ICWJ stood in solidarity with UNITE/HERE Local 229

Reported by Craig Myrbo, ICWJ Board Member

Amos 5:24 “Let justice roll down like a river and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

Late this spring the ICWJ learned of the struggle for justice of the workers represented by Local 229 of UNITE HERE at the Aramark Plant on Stoughton Road in Madison. The ICWJ board of directors immediately issued a statement of support and urged its members to support the workers.

The Aramark workers, who wash uniforms, floor mats and restaurant supplies, providing services for the UW-Madison, various medical clinics, restaurants and businesses, had a union contract that was about to expire. As the expiration date drew near the company began to play hardball, denying union representatives access to the plant and demanding to take back important gains the union had made in previous negotiations.

Fearing the worst, the union began strike preparations with a cookout and rally with supporters, June 6, 2008 including five members of the board of directors of the ICWJ, in the parking lot of the Teamsters union hall next door to Aramark’s plant on N. Stoughton Road. Apparently when the company heard of the impending picket they agreed to resume talks and asked that the plant not be picketed. As a token of good faith we left our picket signs in the cars and enjoyed the cookout with the workers.

We are pleased to announce that Aramark and the union negotiated a good contract for the employees including wage increases, a new pension plan and an agreement from the company write language guaranteeing “dignity and respect” for workers and their union into the contract.

Congratulations to the Aramark workers and thank you ICWJ supporters and friends for assisting these workers in receiving just treatment.

THANK YOU

The ICWJ could not function without the dedication of our volunteers and supporters who work tirelessly to make sure that issues of workplace justice are addressed. We send a special thank you to Courtney Derwinski for her four years of service on the ICWJ board. Courtney’s organization, energy and commitment have been an invaluable asset to the board. We look forward to continuing our work with Courtney as she steps down from the board but continues to help us in our fundraising efforts. We wish Courtney all the best as she enjoys her new found free time.

Thank you also to Jan Van Tol, the board representative from the Student Labor Action Coalition, for his service and especially for the web and computer support he has provided ICWJ. Jan has served on the board since February 2008 and will rejoin the board when he returns from his semester abroad in Moscow in January. We wish Jan wonderful and safe travels.

CALLING FOR BOOK REVIEWS

Have you read a book recently or have an old favorite that addresses worker rights’ or economic justice issues? If so please share it with the ICWJ community by writing a book review for our next newsletter. If you are interested contact Rabbi Renée Bauer at director@workerjustice.org or at (608)255-0376.

COMING SOON

ICWJ is organizing an interfaith forum about the recent immigration raid in Postville, Iowa. We will be bringing speakers from the Catholic community in Postville and the Jewish community in the Twin Cities to share how their faith communities have responded to the raid and the worker abuses at Agriprocessors in Postville. It will give local faith communities an opportunity to reflect on how they respond to worker justice issues both locally, regionally and nationally.

WATCH FOR UPCOMING ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR FURTHER DETAILS.

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A Chance to Work/A Chance to Succeed
A Chance to Work/A Chance to Succeed is a coalition formed to educate the community about the negative impacts of arrest and conviction discrimination in employment in our community and to challenge and eliminate this form of discrimination.
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