ReligionDispatches.org

Two of the Obama administration’s picks to staff the Department of Labor are coming up for confirmation this week. M. Patricia Smith and Lorelei Boylan face opposition by right-wing business forces, who don’t appreciate the kind of advocacy they represent.

On this Labor Day, consider the results of a new report that reveals the pervasiveness of wage theft in the United States: from less-than-minimum wage pay to unpaid overtime to the refusal of meal breaks, many workers are being matter-of-factly robbed.

In addition to the direct consequences for workers and their families, one study estimated that for every worker fired, 395 coworkers got the message: attempt to organize and you’ll get fired too.

A leading worker justice organizer writes a book on how and why employers are stealing from the workforce, to the tune of billions every year.

People are lined up at soup kitchens in congregations across the country. Religious communities, the first line of support for struggling families, need to be be vocal in the call to improve conditions for the American worker.

Religious leaders have joined the protest against workplace raids, urging the government to implement a rational and humane approach to immigration reform.

In which our columnist on faith and worker justice takes a family vacation — just a few weeks before Labor Day — and takes the occasion to reflect on workplace conditions across the American labor landscape...

A major union's Labor Day concession to Muslim workers sparks anti-immigrant outrage in a Tennessee town...

A rural town in Iowa is the home of the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, a facility that–while already under scrutiny for its poor treatment of workers and animals–was recently the scene of the largest immigration workplace raid in history...

A controversial new ruling from an up and coming rabbi in Conservative Judaism charts a course for a greater focus on worker justice. Several of its recommendations coincide with crucial legislation favored by the American labor movement...

Steven Greenhouse’s engaging new book exposes the crisis of low-wage work.

Islamic investing and worker justice in Indianapolis...