Interfaith Worker Justice
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Interfaith Worker Justice
Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) was a nonprofit and nonpartisan interfaith advocacy network comprising more than 60 worker centers and faith and labor organizations that advanced the rights of working people through grassroots, worker-led campaigns and engagement with diverse faith communities and labor allies. IWJ affiliates took action to shape policy at the local, state and national levels. , IWJ was governed by a 36-member board of directors. IWJ closed at the end of 2021. History of IWJ Kim Bobo founded Interfaith Worker Justice in 1991 as Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues. Bobo had previously been director of organizing at Bread for the World and an instructor at the Midwest Academy. In 1989, Bobo became involved with workers' rights campaigns for coal miners. She was startled to find that almost no religious organizations had labor liaisons. She started an informal network of religious leaders to share information about campaigns for worker justice that year ...
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Kim Bobo
Kimberly Ann Bobo (born 1954) is an American religious and workers' rights activist, and current executive director of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy (VICPP), a non-partisan advocacy coalition based in Richmond, Virginia. Bobo is a nationally known promoter of social justice who leads VICPP's advocacy, outreach, and development work. She wrote a book on faith-based organizing entitled ''Lives Matter: A Handbook for Christian Organizing''. Bobo moved to Virginia from Chicago, where she founded and served as executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, the nation's largest network of people of faith engaging in local and national actions to improve wages, benefits, and conditions for workers. Prior to that, Bobo was national organizing director for Bread for the World and an instructor at the Midwest Academy. In 1991, she founded the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues. Leading efforts for a living wage, she is widely quoted in national newspapers and ...
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Occupational Safety And Health Administration
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration'' (OSHA ) is a large regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. Congress established the agency under the Occupational Safety and Health Act OSH Act, which President Richard M. Nixon signed into law on December 29, 1970. OSHA's mission is to "assure safe and healthy working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education, and assistance". The agency is also charged with enforcing a variety of whistleblower statutes and regulations. OSHA's workplace safety inspections have been shown to reduce injury rates and injury costs without adverse effects on employment, sales, credit ratings, or firm survival. History The Bureau of Labor Standards of the Department of Labor has worked on some work safety issues since its creation in 1922. Economic boom and associated l ...
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Minbar
A minbar (; sometimes romanized as ''mimber'') is a pulpit in a mosque where the imam (leader of prayers) stands to deliver sermons (, ''khutbah''). It is also used in other similar contexts, such as in a Hussainiya where the speaker sits and lectures the congregation. Etymology The word is a derivative of the Arabic root ''n-b-r'' ("to raise, elevate"); the Arabic plural is ''manābir'' ( ar, مَنابِر). Function and form The minbar is symbolically the seat of the imam who leads prayers in the mosque and delivers sermons. In the early years of Islam, this seat was reserved for the Islamic prophet Muhammad and later for the caliphs who followed him, each of whom was officially the imam of the whole Muslim community, but it eventually became standard for all Friday mosques and was used by the local imam. Nonetheless, the minbar retained its significance as a symbol of authority. While minbars are roughly similar to church pulpits, they have a function and position mor ...
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Bema
A bema was an elevated platform used as an orator's podium in ancient Athens. The term can refer to the raised area in a sanctuary. In Jewish synagogues, where it is used for Torah reading during services, the term used is bima or bimah. Ancient Greece The Ancient Greek ''bēma'' () means both 'platform' and 'step', being derived from '' bainein'' (, 'to go'). The original use of the bema in Athens was as a tribunal from which orators addressed the citizens as well as the courts of law, for instance, in the Pnyx. In Greek law courts the two parties to a dispute presented their arguments each from separate bemas. By metonymy, bema was also a place of judgement, being the extension of the raised seat of the judge, as described in the New Testament, in and , and further, as the seat of the Roman emperor, in , and of God, in , when speaking in judgment. Judaism Etymology The post-Biblical Hebrew ''bima'' (), 'platform' or 'pulpit', is almost certainly derived from the Anc ...
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Pulpit
A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accessed by steps, with sides coming to about waist height. From the late medieval period onwards, pulpits have often had a canopy known as the sounding board, ''tester'' or ''abat-voix'' above and sometimes also behind the speaker, normally in wood. Though sometimes highly decorated, this is not purely decorative, but can have a useful acoustic effect in projecting the preacher's voice to the congregation below. Most pulpits have one or more book-stands for the preacher to rest his or her bible, notes or texts upon. The pulpit is generally reserved for clergy. This is mandated in the regulations of the Catholic Church, and several others (though not always strictly observed). Even in Welsh Nonconformism, this was felt appropriate, and in some ...
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Criticism Of Walmart
The American multinational retail chain Walmart has been criticized by many groups and individuals, such as labor unions and small-town advocates, for its policies and business practices, and their effects. Criticisms include charges of racial and gender discrimination,Kabel, Marcus.Walmart, Critics Slam Each Other on Web. ''The Washington Post''. July 18, 2006. Retrieved on July 31, 2006. foreign product sourcing, anti-competitive practices, treatment of product suppliers, environmental practices, the use of public subsidies, and its surveillance of its employees. The company has denied any wrongdoing and said that low prices are the result of efficiency. In 2005, labor unions created new organizations and websites to criticize the company, including Wake Up Walmart (United Food and Commercial Workers) and Walmart Watch (Service Employees International Union). By the end of 2005, Walmart had launched Working Families for Walmart to counter those groups. Efforts to counter ...
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Paid Time Off
Paid time off, planned time off, or personal time off (PTO), is a policy in some employee handbooks that provides a bank of hours in which the employer pools sick days, vacation days, and personal days that allows employees to use as the need or desire arises. This policy pertains mainly to the United States, where there are no federal legal requirements for a minimum number of paid vacation days (see also the list of statutory minimum employment leave by country). Instead, U.S. companies determine the amount of paid time off that will be allotted to employees, while keeping in mind the payoff in recruiting and retaining employees. Generally, PTO hours cover everything from planned vacations to sick days, and are becoming more prevalent in the field of human resource management. Unlike more traditional leave plans, PTO plans don't distinguish employee absences from personal days, vacation days, or sick days. Upon employment, the company determines how many PTO hours will be a ...
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Fast Food Worker Strikes
The Fight for $15 is an American political movement advocating for the minimum wage to be raised to USD$15 per hour. The federal minimum wage was last set at $7.25 per hour in 2009. The movement has involved strikes by child care, home healthcare, airport, gas station, convenience store, and fast food workers for increased wages and the right to form a labor union. The "Fight for $15" movement started in 2012, in response to workers' inability to cover their costs on such a low salary, as well as the stressful work conditions of many of the service jobs which pay the minimum wage. The movement has seen successes on the state and local level. California, Massachusetts, New York (downstate only), Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Florida, Delaware, and Nebraska have passed laws that gradually raise their state minimum wage to at least $15 per hour. Major cities such as San Francisco, New York City and Seattle, where the cost of living is significantly higher, have ...
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Discrimination In The United States
Discrimination comprises "base or the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit, especially to show prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, gender, or a similar social factor". This term is used to highlight the difference in treatment between members of different groups when one group is intentionally singled out and treated worse, or not given the same opportunities. Attitudes toward minorities have been marked by discrimination in the history of the United States. Many forms of discrimination have come to be recognized in American society, particularly on the basis of national origin, race and ethnicity, non-English languages, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. History Racism Colorism is a form of racially-based discrimination where people are treated unequally due to skin color. It initially came about in the United States during slavery. Lighter skinned slaves tended to work indoors, while dark skinned worked outdoors. In 1865, during the Recons ...
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Immigration Reform
Immigration reform is change to the current immigration policy of a country. In its strict definition, ''reform'' means "to change into an improved form or condition, by amending or removing faults or abuses". In the political sense, "immigration reform" may include promoted, expanded, or open immigration, as well as reduced or eliminated immigration. See also *Immigration reform in the United States *Immigration reform in the United Kingdom * Immigration detention in Australia The Australian government has a policy and practice of detaining in immigration detention facilities non-citizens not holding a valid visa, suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorised arrival, and those subject to deportation and ... References Immigration law {{politics-stub ...
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Minimum Wage In The United States
In the United States, the minimum wage is set by U.S. labor law and a range of state and local laws. The first federal minimum wage was instituted in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but later found to be unconstitutional. In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act established it at $0.25 an hour ($ in dollars). Its purchasing power peaked in 1968, at $1.60 ($ in dollars). Since 2009, it has been $7.25 per hour. Employers have to pay workers the highest minimum wage of those prescribed by Federal government of the United States, federal, state, and local laws. In January 2020, 29 states and the District of Columbia had minimum wages higher than the federal minimum, so that almost 90% of Americans earning just minimum wage got more than $7.25 an hour. The effective nationwide minimum wage (the wage that the average minimum-wage worker earns) was $11.80 in May 2019; this was the highest it had been since at least 199 ...
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Child Labor Laws In The United States
Child labor laws in the United States address issues related to the employment and welfare of working children in the United States. The most sweeping federal law that restricts the employment and abuse of child workers is the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), which came into force during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Child labor provisions under FLSA are designed to protect the educational opportunities of youth and prohibit their employment in jobs that are detrimental to their health and safety. FLSA restricts the hours that youth under 16 years of age can work and lists hazardous occupations too dangerous for young workers to perform. Federal law The main law regulating child labor in the United States is the Fair Labor Standards Act. For non-agricultural jobs, children under 14 may not be employed, children between 14 and 16 may be employed in allowed occupations during limited hours, and children between 16 and 17 may be employed for unlimited hours in no ...
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