INTRODUCTION

The religious organizations of our country—Protestant,
Catholic and Jewish—and their leaders, have repeatedly
shown a vital concern about the social, economic, cultural

and spiritual aspects of American community life.

They have stood for the abatement and prevention of

poverty everywhere, for reasonable hours of labor, for

just wages, for fair working conditions, and for an equit-

able division of the product of industry.

They have joined with other groups in our American

society such as trade unions in supporting workmen s com-

pensation, unemployment insurance, minimum wage and

social security legislation and for recognition of labor s

right to organize and bargain collectively.

The AFL-CIO, recognizing the tremendous role that

religion and religious organizations play in American

national, state and community life, seeks through its

Office for Religious Relations to interpret the labor move-

ment, its ideals, aims, practices and achievements to the

members and leaders of the various religious bodies in our

country and to provide a channel of communication, friend-

ship and cooperation between religious and labor groups.

Since December 1955, Charles C, Webber, the AFL-

CIO's representative for religious relations, has worked

closely with all the religious organizations of our country

to continue the excellent relationship that exists between

religion and labor.

This pamphlet by Mr, Webber traces briefly the develop-

ment of the relationship between the trade unions and the

churches and synagogues. It is dedicated to the hope that

these relationships will continue and that the forces of

religion and labor that have so many common aims and

objectives will work for greater material, cultural and spir-

itual fulfillment for all Americans



F
\ THIS ATOMIC AGE it is exceedingly important
that the forces of religion and labor that have so many

common aims and objectives should understand one

another and work for greater material, cultural and spirit-

ual fulfillment for everyone.

Religious leaders from almost the dawn of history have

demonstrated their belief that God wants mankind ''to do

justly and to have mercy.'"

The Hebrew Prophets and Jesus the Carpenter of Naza-

reth and their disciples—believing in a God of love and
justice—have shown time and time again, down through
the centuries, a vital concern for the poor and needy and

for the victims of social and economic injustice.

St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan

Order of the Catholic Church, devoted his life to aiding

the poverty-stricken in the Middle Ages.

Wycliff, a medieval English clergyman, organized the

"Poor Priests" who went up and down the countryside in

England alleviating the suffering of the agricultural

workers.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism in the late

Eighteenth Century, supported "a living wage and honest,

healthy employment for all."

During the early years of the Industrial Revolution,

when women and children as well as men were compelled
to work long hours under conditions which imperiled

health, religious leaders reached the conclusion that if there

was to be even "approximate justice" in the relationships

of labor and management, the workers had to be organized

into unions.

They were then both "doers of the word" as well as

speakers. For example, several English Methodist "local

preachers" were arrested in 1834 and sent as prisoners to

Australia simply because they dared to organize a union

of "farm hands" and in the process had administered a

"secret oath."

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During the middle of the Nineteenth Century, Roman
Catholic Bishop Von Ketteler of Germany declaimed
against unfair treatment of the workingmen and their

families.

He urged the workers to organize for social reform and

was a pioneer in this field. His work influenced social

legislation in Germany and the building up of voluntary

self-help associations among the workers.

In Britain, Cardinal Manning, during the great London

dock strike in 1888, threw his influence and support to

the striking dock workers. He loaned his prestige to the

effort to find a basis of settlement.

A public conciliation committee was set up to work
with the strike leaders and the directors of the dock corpo-

rations, and after five weeks of strike the directors, through

the effort of Cardinal Manning and his committee, granted

all the workers' demands.

TN the united states. Cardinal Gibbons of
^

Baltimore, '‘the most influential man in the American
hierarchy" in the 1880s, conferred with the Grand Master

Workman of the Knights of Labor, Terence V. Powderly,
and then went to Rome where, with the support of Eng-

land's Cardinal Manning, he pleaded the cause of the

Knights of Labor at the Vatican and won his case. Where-

upon, as a Catholic trade unionist puts it, "Pope Leo XIII

found no objection to the U.S. Knights of Labor."

In 1891 Pope Leo XIII, undoubtedly influenced by

Bishop Von Ketteler and Cardinals Manning and Gibbons,
issued his justly famous social encyclical, "Rerum

Novarum."

In it the Pope declared for a program of social reform

(not simply individual reform), with state intervention

to protect the worker against the abuses of capital, the

right of the worker to organize and the doctrine of the

worker's right to a living wage as a minimum.

In regard to workmen's associations. Pope Leo XIII

stated:

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‘It is truly to be desired that they grow in number and

in active vigor/'

From 1891 down to this day, Catholic clergy and laity

have been outspoken in their advocacy of trade unionism.

In 1931 Pope Pius XI in his encyclical, “On Recon-

structing the Social Order," asserted that “associations of

this kind (unions) have molded truly Christian workers

who, in combining harmoniously the diligent practice of

their occupation with the salutary precepts of religion,

protect effectively and resolutely their own temporal inter-

ests and rights, keeping a due respect for justice and a

genuine desire to work together with other classes of society

for the Christian renewal of all social life."

On February 7, 1940, the Catholic Bishops of the
United States declared:

“Labor can have no effective voice as long as it is unor-

ganized. To protect its rights it must be free to bargain
collectively through its own chosen representatives. If
labor when unorganized is dissatisfied, the only alternative

is to cease work and thus undergo the great hardships which

follow unemployment."

In recent decades the Social Action Department of the

National Catholic Welfare Conference, under the leader-

ship of Msgr. John Ryan, Father Raymond A. McGowan,

Father John Cronin and Msgr. George G. Higgins, has

made outstanding contributions to the cause of economic

justice through its publications, through its conferences

on economic problems and especially by the effective coun-

seling these leaders have given in tense industrial situations.

P ROTESTANTISM'S OUTSTANDING prophet ofthe social gospel was Walter Rauschenbusch, who served
for eleven years in the early 1900s as pastor of a Baptist

church on the edge of Hell's Kitchen in New York City.

He was forthright in his defense of the aspirations and

aims of the labor unions. For example, in his “Christian-

izing the Social Order," published in 1912, the year the

Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America

came into being, he asserted:

5



“When the unions demand a fixed minimum wage, a
maximum working day and certain reasonable conditions
of labor as a security for health, safety and continued

efficiency, they are standing for human life against

profits. . . .

“They are standing for the growth of democracy, for

earned against unearned income, for the protection of

human weakness against the pressure of profit, for the

right of recreation, education and love, and for the soli-

darity of the workers. . . . The seed of a new social order

is in them. They, too, belong to ‘the powers of the coming

age\“

The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. was the first

Protestant denomination to show a formal interest in the

labor problem. In 1905 it authorized the setting up of a

Department of Church and Labor and appointed the Rev.

Charles Stelzle, an ordained minister and a member of the

International Association of Machinists, to be its director.

The AMERICAN EEDERATION OE LABOR seated
him as a fraternal delegate at the 1905, 1906, 1907

and 1908 conventions. In his addresses he pleaded for

better understanding between the church and organized

labor.

Dr. Stelzle made a profound impression upon the dele-

gates—an impression that undoubtedly played a significant
role later in getting the A. E. of L. to ask the Federal Coun-

cil of Churches to recommend to the churches of America

that the Sunday before Labor Day or another as near Labor

Day as possible be observed as Labor Sunday with appro-

priate sermons and exercises.

On December 3, 1907, at a national conference of socially
minded Methodists in Washington, the unofficial Methodist

Federation for Social Service was born. The clergy and

laity at this conference drew up a document relating Chris-

tianity to such problems as child labor, low wages, ex-

ploitation of women in industry, industrial accidents, dis-

ease and unemployment.

The following year the General Conference of the Meth-

6



odist Episcopal Church formally adopted the statement

prepared by the Methodist Federation for Social Service

and ordered it printed in the Discipline under the title of

'‘The Social Creed of the Methodist Episcopal Church/'

In 1912 the newly organized Federal Council of the

Churches of Christ in America took this Methodist social

creed and expanded it into a social creed for nearly all of

the American Protestant churches.

TN this social creed the recognition of ‘‘the right
of employes and employers alike to organize" was set

forth in no uncertain terms.

In 1932 this position was expanded to include "the

right of employes and employers alike to organize for col-

lective bargaining and social action, protection of both in

the exercise of this right, the obligation of both to work

for the public good."

In 1940 this same body said:

"That the Federal Council record its conviction that

not only has labor a right to organize but also that it is

socially desirable that it do so because of the need for col-

lective action in the maintenance of standards of living."

In February, 1958, notwithstanding the bitter attacks

made upon the labor movement during the last two years,

the General Board of the National Council of the Churches

of Christ in the U.S.A., a fellowship of thirty-four nation-

wide churches with more than 34,000,000 members, the

successor of the Federal Council of Churches, issued a

"Statement on Basic Principles Relating to Collective Bar-

gaining."

This statement declared:

"We recognize the right of both employers and employes
to organize for collective bargaining, and in connection

with employes we believe that it is generally desirable to

do so."

Both labor and management, the General Board's state-

ment held, should exercise "a compelling sense of respon-

sibility for the public interest and for what is mutually fair

7



and just’’ in their relationships with each other, should

bargain in good faith and refrain from violence, and should

respect '‘the right of each other to exist.”

It also called for “fidelity” in observing contracts, with

adherence to agreed upon procedures for settling disputes,

avoidance of pressures to break contracts, and protection of

the interests of consumers and the public against possible

collusion in matters of prices and trade practices.

The Department of the Church and Economic Life of

the National Council of Churches and of its predecessor,

the Federal Council of Churches, under leadership of the

Rev. James Myers, F. Ernest Johnson, A. Dudley Ward

and Dr. Cameron Hall, has made most significant contribu-

tions to the development of a more Christian social and

economic order.

This has been done in part through its series of pub-

lished volumes and also through its annual Labor Sunday

messages and its conferences on economic problems.

Its leaders, along with the leaders of the corresponding

Catholic and Jewish organizations, have served repeatedly

as mediators in labor-management disputes, on “public

review boards” and as advisers to individual clergymen

and laymen involved in complex economic situations.

Rabbi EUGENE LIPMAN and Albert Vorspan, intheir book “Justice and Judaism,” point out that the
early prophets and rabbis were workers and artisans. They

further assert:

“The Mosaic Law is solicitous for the rights of the
laborer. The hired servant must not be mistreated. He

must be given rest on the Sabbath. * * * The employer

had a right to the work of the laborer but could not pre-

sume to control his body or soul.”

“In modern times,” they note, “individual Jews and

the organized Jewish labor movement have played sig-

nificant roles in the building of a strong American labor

movement.”

8



In 1918 the Central Conference of American Rabbis

(Reform Judaism) made one of the earliest comprehensive

Jewish pronouncements on economic justice in the United

States. In this document the rabbis urged adoption of a

minimum wage, the eight-hour day, one day of rest in

seven and the right of workers to bargain collectively.

In 1928 the Central Conference of American Rabbis

amplified the pronouncement of ten years before by a state-

ment which read as follows:

“The same rights of organization which rest with em-

ployers rest also with those whom they employ. Modern
life has permitted wealth to consolidate itself through or-

ganization into corporations. Workers have the same in-

alienable right to organize according to their plan for their

common good and to bargain collectively with their em-

ployers through such honorable means as they may choose.
“

I
N 1934 THE RABBINICAL ASSEMBLY of Amer-
ica, representing the Conservative rabbinate, declared:

“We believe that the denial of the right of workers to
organize and form group associations so that they may

treat as economic equals with their employers is tantamount

to a curtailment of human freedom. For that reason we

favor the unionization of all who labor.

“We demand legislation to protect labor in its right to
bargain collectively with its employers through representa-

tives of its own choice without any pressure or influence to
be exerted by the employers on the organization of the

workmen for such purposes or on the choice of their rep-

resentatives.

“We therefore, oppose the organization of labor in com-
pany unions since such a form of labor organization vests

in the employer a power of control inconsistent with full

freedom of collective bargaining.

“We likewise oppose all arbitrary efforts to prohibit
strikes, either by legislation or by judicial injunction or

by the denial of the right to peaceful picketing, and any

9



attempt to restrict, by 'yellow dog contracts or any other

way, the freedom of labor to organize in defense of its

interests,

‘‘Recognizing that the power inherent in organized labor

is possible of its employment to the ends of oppression and

injustice, we urge upon organized labor to establish and

enforce a standard of corporate conduct which will make

impossible racketeering, the use of violence, sabotage and

exploitation,'"

TN 1956 THE SYNAGOGUE COUNCIL of America,
J- representing the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform

national rabbinic and congregational bodies of Judaism,

in its Labor Day statement rejoiced “in the remarkable

progress of organized labor in this country, recently cli-

maxed by the merger of the American Federation of Labor

and the Congress of Industrial Organizations,"

The statement said further:

“The development of a strong, unified and effective labor

movement, cooperating with forward-looking business

leadership in programs for providing working men and

women with safe working conditions, guaranteed annual
wages and adequate social security plans, have given living

force to those remarkable liberal and humane labor policies

adumbrated by Jewish sages more than two millenia ago,"

The Commission on Social Action, which is made up of

rabbis representing the Central Conference of American

Rabbis and lay men and women representing the Union of

American Hebrew Congregations (Reform), under the

leadership of Albert Vorspan and Rabbi Eugene Lipman,

seeks through publications and personal contacts to per-

suade affiliated congregations to set up social action com-

mittees.

The work of such committees is “to examine current

problems in accordance with Jewish ethical principles" and

then to take action in such fields as economic affairs, civil

rights, civil liberties, housing, civic reform and interna-

tional relations.

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An analysis of the words and deeds of theleaders and members of the Catholic, Protestant and
Jewish social action organizations over the past half cen-

tury demonstrates that they have evidenced concern about

equal rights and justice for all men, for adequate housing,

for the abolition of injurious child labor, for regulation of

working conditions for women and for wholesome recre-

ation for every child.

They have stood for the abatement and prevention of

poverty everywhere, for reasonable hours of labor, for just

wages, for fair working conditions, for security in old age,

for insurance against injury to the worker and for an equi-

table division of the products of industry.

They have joined with other groups in our American

society, such as trade unions, in supporting workmen’s

compensation, unemployment insurance, minimum wage

and adequate social security legislation and for the legal

recognition of labor’s right to organize and bargain col-

lectively.

They have opposed the adoption of the so-called “right-

to-work” laws, and have declared that union membership

as a basis of continued employment should be neither re-

quired nor forbidden by law; that the decision should be

left to agreement by management and labor through the

process of collective bargaining.

Philip Murray, one of the world’s great labor leaders,

shortly before his death made the following statement:

‘'We live in this world through the grace of God. His

teachings are our religion, brought to us through our

churches. Churches, synagogues and labor unions should

work hand in hand because of their common concern for
the family life—the unit of all nations.

“What our churches do for the spiritual life of the family
our labor unions are trying to do in the workaday world,

because the sole reason for the existence of labor unions is

to bring to the family life those better things in life v/hich

God in His infinite wisdom has decreed they should have.’’

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Published by

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND

CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL • ORGANIZATIONS

815- 16th Street N. W. Washington i6, D. C.

George Meany Wm. F. S^nitzler

President Secretary^^Treasurer

Publication No. 79