Union membership as Christian Practice

Like a whole lot of other people I recently received a request to support a couple of house staff working for the Hyatt Hotel chain in the US. They were fired a few days after protesting against what they saw as humiliating treatment by other staff.

I occasionally talk to people who feel that they have been poorly treated in their workplace – abused, treated with disrespect, not paid proper allowances, or denied other rights. They feel powerless to defend themselves, worries that if they stand up for themselves they will be fired.

Our workplaces are marked by individual contracts, part time and casual work, and by outsourcing of jobs and labour hire companies. Workplaces are also marked by decreasing union membership, partly as a result of changes in the workplace and partly because people don’t see any immediate benefit for themselves and don’t give much weight to ideas of worker solidarity.

Christian faith isn’t simply about what we believe but the habits and patterns of our life that give expression to what we believe. It is about embodied social practices.

I think that belonging to an appropriate union or professional association is or ought to be a Christian practice. Despite all the bad publicity about corruption in unions, belonging to a trade union is a practice of solidarity, community and care for those under enormous pressure in the present workplace. Unions create another locus of power in a society which would be otherwise totally overwhelmed by big business