On Labor Day we honor work and workers. But what happens when the job market is in such turmoil that the very idea of stable, sustaining employment begins to evaporate before our eyes? What happens when the degradation of the contemporary workplace makes a mockery of the idea of "honoring" work? What happens when we Americans can no longer measure our value -- or even feel very human -- based on our paid work? Where is our self-worth to be centered and nurtured in this unsettling new world?
Wonkish ones like me often think of the employment challenge in aggregated terms: we read the business press or tune to NPR's "Marketplace" to hear blips of this and that: new jobless claims, new figures on the "99-ers": the long-term jobless who've already burned through 99 weeks of unemployment compensation, new data on older workers delaying retirement or coming out of retirement. It's reported in the same dispassionate way as new numbers on consumer confidence, manufacturers' inventories, etc. Politicians may try to put a bit more heart into it, but it still mainly comes out as blah blah blah.
Of course it's not blah blah blah at all for the human beings who are struggling. Really struggling, when there are six workers in line for every available opening and when none of the old rules seems to apply.
Those old rules were:
1. Get yourself good training or a good education as your ticket to a good job;
2. Show your loyalty and receive ever-increasing responsibility and compensation;
3. Expect to enjoy a middle-class lifestyle and self-respect by applying yourself;
4. Expect to retire before age 70 in a degree of comfort and security.
These rules, of course, bear little relation to the realities of the contemporary workplace and job market. I meet college-age youngsters all the time who either can't get the training or the college classes they need to get (oversubscribed classes, rising fees, etc.) or who find that having the credential makes no real difference: they end up in junk jobs anyway.
As for loyalty and dedication: there may be some employers who still recognize and reward these traits, but the majority of companies are run by bean counters who couldn't care less -- and who do not hesitate to cut the compensation and benefits of long-term workers for the company's short-term benefit.
And expecting to enjoy a middle-class lifestyle? We are rapidly hurtling into a new social space without that stable middle: a future with well-compensated elites at the top and a seriously undercompensated majority of drones at the bottom, slinging our food and drinks and changing our sheets in the hospitality and health care industries, temping in call centers, or trying to piece together a living from multiple short-hour jobs in retail.
The almost-retired and wannabe-retired are in the weirdest and must frustrating bind of all: they are told they should keep working in order to have enough in their golden years, yet employers take full advantage of the super-tight job market to discriminate against and exploit them when they do seek to keep working.
I want to stay focused on the specific hurts experienced by people who have internalized the rules, which all come down to one rule: in America you are on your own -- it's you against the world -- so if you fail it means you are defective in some way.
How many religious leaders (pastors, priests, rabbis, imams) have discovered people within their faith communities who are just keeping up appearances: getting up, getting dressed and going out to hunt for a job (or even fake going to a job they no longer have) as though it is still a "normal" world out there?
How many have talked to young people who are consumed by anxiety over the winner-take-all challenge they see in front them--or distressed by the amount they are borrowing for an education that may still not give them any real earning power? How many counsel women workers who know perfectly well that they are paid less and getting fewer promotions than males doing comparable jobs--but who suck it up every day because "that's just the way it is"? How many hear the anguish of workers in their 50s and 60s who can't cope with the demands of the brave new workplace or with the outright viciousness of the brave new personnel managers?
I won't even mention the absolute social and psychological catastrophe created by record-high unemployment and underemployment within communities of color -- a catastrophe eloquently evoked by Bob Herbert and too few others. Pastors serving these communities have to dig really deep for faith resources strong enough to sustain their people's hope and courage.
Religious leaders cannot avoid taking their pastoral responsibility seriously during a terrifying time like this. I want to suggest that this responsibility includes not just one-on-one counseling but also the creation of a different kind of worker support group than the conventional type that concerns itself with buffing up resumes and "trying to keep a positive outlook."
Serious religious leaders can and should sponsor open-ended conversations in safe-space environments: environments in which people can speak freely about their fears and frustrations -- and their anger about an economy and an economic discourse that shuts them out, that treats their shattered lives as collateral damage as the prerogatives of investors increasingly trump the needs of workers. Serious religious leaders should actually counsel their parishioners against adopting the "think positive" mentality that shuts out pain and hurt and that perpetuates the idea that if you aren't doing well in America, there must be something wrong with you. (These days I advise my clergy colleagues to read Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright Sided in order to understand Satan's wiles in greater depth.)
Many congregational leaders are wary of wading into politics by raising questions about a jobless "recovery" or about the scandal of our top corporations sitting on over $2 trillion in cash while refusing to hire new people and continuing to slash the pay and benefits of existing staff.
The best thing these faith leaders can do now is not the least bit "political," but it is revolutionary: They can tell their traumatized community members this essential truth: Your value as a child of God is infinitely more important than your employability "value" in a badly degraded labor market -- and yes, if you are angry about what that market is dishing out, you have every right to be angry. Because this situation really stinks -- and you don't.
For Labor Day, church should embody social teachings | National ...
Labor Day | The General Board of Church and Society
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
hire just one more employee if they didn't buy that new Lexus or that grand house in the gated community or took the vacations in Europe or send there kids to private schools....would they do it....i doubt it...
so why do they call themselves christians when they are obviously not.
Not any more!
Where & How Labour Day came to North America.
You're Welcome,
Jonny Canuck.
the point i wanted to make is precisely what Zyklonia is saying A study would find on a PER CAPITA basis that th e % of atheists who care is more than the % of christians who care on a percapita basis [ when speaking of % percapita is redundant ]
BUT one needs to distinquish between clergy and the social work [ and word ] of churches and their congregations which include businesmen and lawyers etc
and among those atheists who are like Dawkins very Darwinian the % who care may be less than among christians [ [ e.g. wall st is darwinian ; that's what i meant by defacto atheist ]]
it's probably true that most environmentalists , most green , are agnostic or humanist rather than church going beleivers
heere there's also a distinction bettween beleivers who have little contact with their places of worship and those who attend church regularyly
in what direction is a good question....atheists by definition want a rational approach that means scientific study because it would be held by all theologians that their own discussions are rational and in LIFE there is intuition also ; a mother needs to manage baby intuitively in the present moment ...little time to read a couple of books or remember them when baby says aaaaaaaahhhh
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Heh!
"God loves the poor" - this trick has been used by the wealthy religious since who knows when. It tells the poor to not worry about those who exploit them and are greedy, because they will be punished at some future date, after they are all dead.
Their value as children of God is more important? Why doesn't God do something so they can have enough money for their families to meet basic human needs?
And how does telling them that 'their anger is justified and things stink' news to those people?
More importantly, how does that help them, even if it is, somehow, news to them?.
Great deceiver, Devil, thought he won seeing Christ on the cross. Deceiver knew then, there, He lost, in destroying souls, stealing souls for eternal damnation, his weapon of choice to steal souls was greed.$$. Now Greed time is coming to an end. I am coming in a wrath. Feed My sheep. .
Christ made us all Righteous, to enter the Kingdom of God.
For Christ who was without sin, took on all our sins, paid the crime for our sins. The devil was deceived himself. Do onto others, what you would want done unto you.
Peace I give you, my peace I WILL (inheritance, Christ gave us his greatest wealth, peace in the Kingdom, his rest, made us all Righteous to enter ) to you, not as the world gives peace, do I give you my peace. Peace the world does not understand. Fed a false peace? Wars, greed?
Christ taught, Lords Prayer, begins with Our Father, we are his children, thou sinners, we suffer because of greed. Greed's Father is the devil, his children. Moses people were also sinners, who suffered by greed. Vengence is mine, not yours.
People with college degrees did well because fewer people had them.
Most people were not middle class in the past, still are not.
We HuffPost types are mostly "bi-coastal", richer than the heartland, don't see it.
Don't glamorize the past, the "Good Old Days" never were.
Labor now has a smaller part of a "bigger pie".
Compared to the '60s, new homes are 50% bigger, home ownership is higher (still), people have more and bigger cars, drive 4x more per-capita (true!), have a higher standard of living.
BUT the reason for that is that more women went to work.
Working women grew the economy and kept households "above water" as wages declined.
Even today, 59% of the population have jobs, same as in 1983, higher than before that.
But in 1983 our workforce was 43% female; now it's 50%.
Any gains in prosperity over the last 30 years came from adding women to the workforce.
Trouble is, that means you need more jobs. Our current high unemployment is the result.
With higher wages, most mothers or fathers could afford to be full-time parents.
When all God tells us in his very word, is about mans greed of $$, lust of $ who, worship wealth as their god?
The very thing $ that destroys. Satan is out to destroy God's children and steals souls of men, with. temptation of riches$$, materialism, idols. The weapon the devil uses is $$. Devil used $$ also, with Jesus, in tempting Jesus, before he started his works on earth. The devil tempted Jesus by offering Christ all riches $$, all Nations, Be King, all power, control over, if Christ would bow and worship the Devil
Remember the devil appeared also to Christ, to tempt Christ. The devil appeared aa beautiful angel of God. Christ knew the devil was no angel of God. The Devil said also to Christ, he to was doing -God's work- right? not good..
Funny Christians who boast never boast of the Woes or Curses do they? For do they not expose them for who they themselves are? All are sinners.
Woe to you who work unrighteousness and deceit and blasphemy. (God His Image is now nothing more then a corporation, corporation is now a person, a person is a human being created in the very Image of God, God is nothing more then $)
Woe to you who acquire silver and gold in unrighteousness and say , we have become rich with riches and have possessions, and have acquired everything we have desired.
Woe for our riches shall not abide, but speedly ascend from you. For ye have acquired it all in unrighteousness. And ye shall be given over to a great Curse.
Woe to you who make deceitful and false measures and to them who cause bitterness on the earth. (all is greed?)
Woe? you who build your houses(wealth) through the grievous toils of others.
Woe? And all their building material are the bricks, stones of sin (idols) and where souls follow after idols.
Woe? to them who work unrighteousness and help oppression and slay their neigbours
Woe? to you ye sinners on account of the words of your mouth. (no such thing as freedom of speech in God Laws. Every word that rolls off your tongue will be accountable for , even your thoughts)