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Kim Bobo, the founder and executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ), has long worked at the intersection of faith and economic justice. Bobo, who was herself raised an evangelical Christian, and is the author of Wage Theft: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid, and What We Can Do About It, will transition out of the organization's leadership at the end of 2014. Although the problem of wage theft—workers not being paid what they are owed for their work—is rampant in low-wage workplaces, Bobo’s ability to persuade Christians, Jews and Muslims to support the rights of workers in their communities has even earned her the respect of some employers.
But it has also earned her the distinction of being targeted by both the religious and corporate right. In 2012, the Catholic-funded American Life League issued an 80-page “report” red-baiting Bobo. Recently, too, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has challenged IWJ by blocking anti-wage theft laws and naming IWJ in a series of reports claiming that worker centers should be regulated like labor unions.
In this interview, Bobo talks about her personal journey of bringing together workers’ rights and faith, and about her reasons for remaining optimistic despite the continued suffering of many low-wage workers under the most extreme economic inequality in 100 years.
PE: What is your faith background?
I grew up in an evangelical fundamentalist home in Cincinnati, Ohio, in what’s called the Church of Christ. I memorized lots of Bible verses as a kid. The heart of the scripture is: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. For me, my whole life is trying to figure out how to put that into actuality. Some would say that’s an odd background to be doing this work. I don’t think so. It was fundamentalist teachings of the core of the scriptures that drove me.
I have been involved in church work my whole life; in fact, I’m the choir director and moderator at my church. I am now a member of the United Church of Christ. (The names sound similar; they’re about as far away from one another as you can get.)
One of the things that has not been smart has been to lump evangelicals and fundamentalists in with the conservative Christian Right. While a lot of people have been confused on things and connect with the Christian Right on stuff, to lump this huge group of people or write them off as not part of our [workers’ rights] movement is dumb.
You see that right now on immigration reform. The evangelical world is completely solid on immigration reform. And at the local level, we see a lot of fundamentalists and evangelicals involved in the work.
We need to understand there are some very well-funded, concerted efforts by right-wing forces to continue to capture [evangelicals]. The Heritage Foundation published a small study guide entitled “Seek Social Justice.” It argues that the best way to help poor people is to do it through your church, because we are closer to people, and thus the best way to get there is to cut taxes of rich people and give more money to the church. It also makes these wild statements like, “If people aren’t happy with their jobs, they can just go find another one.” Really? It is not a very sophisticated argument.
We should not assume [evangelical Christians] are a static group of people that is owned by the Right Wing. This is a set of folks that have a set of values of their faith that are being contested. I think that we need to be in there contesting for them. It’s hard because the Right Wing understands the importance of the faith community in these issues. They put a lot of money into funding right-wing religious organizations; the progressive world doesn’t.
You look at those of us working in the economic justice space within the religious community and every one of us is struggling for money. The progressive funding infrastructure doesn’t get that this is contested space and that we need to be out there working at it. Most progressive donors do not fund in this world. It is a problem. We get a little money from the unions, but most large donors, the people who are viewed as the larger progressive donors, do not fund in this world. They just don’t believe in it.
I say that a shame campaign should be the step in which the people along with the governments power can use in order to bring these employers back around again. I don't believe in government intervening in ways that are anti-capitalist, but what it can do is to seek (along with the people in this country) to shame companies who choose to do their workforces wrong now.
It can start by using the bill board system in order to put a grade up for companies that are doing well and yet seek to have a very bad employee program that does their employee's wrong. It works for restaurants when we grade them, so why not every other company in this nation we do the same with ? Hey I am for boycotting companies as based upon a grading system that shows that they are scumbags when it comes to working people.
I agree, but sometimes fraud is hell to prove, and it doesn't always have to be about a crime being committed either, otherwise so if an investigation shows that people aren't being treated fairly (even turning up some sort of modern day slavery going on), and yet there is no way to prove that a crime is being committed other than just pure greed maybe going on, then the shame campaign should begin based upon this finding (IMHO). Now is there a problem with that or are you just in the tank for big business maybe doing what ever they want to their employee workforce, and having no body saying nothing ever at all about it ? I mean history has a terrible record on repeating itself, and we know what we have had to do in the past in this nation to make things right, and it could be that some things have to be looked at again.I say that a shame campaign should be the step in which the people along with the governments power can use in order to bring these employers back around again. I don't believe in government intervening in ways that are anti-capitalist, but what it can do is to seek (along with the people in this country) to shame companies who choose to do their workforces wrong now.
It can start by using the bill board system in order to put a grade up for companies that are doing well and yet seek to have a very bad employee program that does their employee's wrong. It works for restaurants when we grade them, so why not every other company in this nation we do the same with ? Hey I am for boycotting companies as based upon a grading system that shows that they are scumbags when it comes to working people.
This makes no sense to me. If companies are defrauding employees, they should be prosecuted for it. We wouldn't treat any other crimes this way. Should we also 'shame' burglars into giving their loot back?
I agree, but sometimes fraud is hell to prove, and it doesn't always have to be about a crime being committed either, otherwise so if an investigation shows that people aren't being treated fairly (even turning up some sort of modern day slavery going on), and yet there is no way to prove that a crime is being committed other than just pure greed maybe going on, then the shame campaign should begin based upon this finding (IMHO). Now is there a problem with that or are you just in the tank for big business maybe doing what ever they want to their employee workforce, and having no body saying nothing ever at all about it ? I mean history has a terrible record on repeating itself, and we know what we have had to do in the past in this nation to make things right, and it could be that some things have to be looked at again.I say that a shame campaign should be the step in which the people along with the governments power can use in order to bring these employers back around again. I don't believe in government intervening in ways that are anti-capitalist, but what it can do is to seek (along with the people in this country) to shame companies who choose to do their workforces wrong now.
It can start by using the bill board system in order to put a grade up for companies that are doing well and yet seek to have a very bad employee program that does their employee's wrong. It works for restaurants when we grade them, so why not every other company in this nation we do the same with ? Hey I am for boycotting companies as based upon a grading system that shows that they are scumbags when it comes to working people.
This makes no sense to me. If companies are defrauding employees, they should be prosecuted for it. We wouldn't treat any other crimes this way. Should we also 'shame' burglars into giving their loot back?
