Unions Hiring Liberal Church Leaders

Imagine, if you will, the story the LATimes would write if it came out that America's conservative Christian pastors and parachurch leaders were on the payroll of, say, WalMart or the big hotel chains, to further their efforts to keep unions out.

The outrage would be immediate, unrestained and unrelenting.

But when the unions hire "more than three dozen aspiring ministers, imams, priests and rabbis to spread the gospel of union organizing across the nation this summer," the LATimes positively rhapsodizes:

As it prepares for a national convention next week in Chicago, the AFL-CIO faces stark challenges: Less than 8% of private-sector workers belong to unions, compared with more than 35% in the 1950s. Calling the federation so weak it risks irrelevancy, several member unions have threatened to secede.

Labor leaders are responding with programs to overhaul their image. They want unions to be seen as a dynamic force for social justice, not as a stodgy special interest.

That's where the seminary students come in.

For $300 a week, they're organizing security guards in metropolitan Washington, carpenters in Boston, hotel maids in Chicago, meatpackers in Los Angeles. Some spend their days with the workers, trying to give them courage to mobilize. Others visit local congregations to urge solidarity with the union cause.

The interns also march on management, quoting Scripture, hoping the power of prayer — and a bit of embarrassing public theater — might force concessions come contract time.

"We're showing up in their office, telling them that God does not want them to act the way they're acting toward their workers," said rabbinical student Margie Klein, 26. "They're going to get the message."

Throughout the story, there's not a mention that putting the church on the payroll might be a tad unethical. To the LAT, religion is a bad thing if it's pro-life, anti-Hollywood morals, but it's a fine thing in the employ of the union bosses.