The time between Thanksgiving and mid-January is a time of both feasting and fasting, giving and receiving. During Ramadan, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, people around the world celebrate faith through fellowship.

Those in the union community also seek fellowship, a fellowship most commonly known as solidarity. This solidarity extends beyond family, co-workers, and congregation members, to include all workers worldwide who toil, often in sweatshop conditions, to make the goods and services we enjoy during the holidays and throughout the year.

Among these workers are: nursing home workers who care for the infirm, child care workers who care for the young, poultry workers and growers who process turkey (the centerpiece for holiday meals), farm workers who harvest the food, garment workers who cut and sew clothes, and children around the world who work long hours to manufacture toys.

This holiday season, consider celebrating faith through solidarity with all workers who contribute to the joy of this sacred season.

What You Can Do:

Join a campaign to support workers.

Donate toys to striking workers’ families. Visit www.nicwj.org for a list.

Try to give gifts that were not made under sweatshop conditions. For a copy of Conscious Giving: A Guide to Sweat-Free Holiday Shopping, download free from www.nicwj.org or contact Bridget Harris at 773-728-8400 extension 10, or bridget@nicwj.org. Hard copies are 25 cents each, plus shipping and handling.

Join or form a local interfaith committee for worker justice. Contact Regina Botterill at 773-728-8400 extension 15 or regina@nicwj.org.

Read your clothing tags. Find out about labor conditions in the countries where clothes are made. Seek out organizations that work in these countries to improve conditions and join their campaigns.

Host a worker rights training at your congregation. Use the bulletin inserts developed by NICWJ and the Department of Labor. Visit www.nicwj.org to download in nine languages.

To engage your congregation, denomination, campus group or other organization more deeply, purchase the eight-section Challenging Sweatshops Organizing Kit. $10 from NICWJ. Contact Bridget Harris at 773-728-8400 extension 10 or bridget@nicwj.org.

Christmas Day Litany

Reader: We offer our prayers to God, who gifted us with compassion in the person of Jesus, who deemed us co-creators with God, and who blesses the labor of all. Compassionate God, make us mindful of the abundant gifts we receive from the labor of many in this season of joy.

ALL: COMPASSIONATE GOD, make us mindful of the gifts we receive from the labor of many.

Reader: For workers in fields, food plants, restaurants and grocery stores, who raise and prepare the food we enjoy, let us pray:

ALL: COMPASSIONATE GOD, make us mindful of the gifts we receive from the labor of many.

Reader: For all those who work in nursing homes, providing care and services for those we love, may they receive affordable health benefits for themselves and their families, let us pray:

ALL: COMPASSIONATE GOD, make us mindful of the gifts we receive from the labor of many.

Reader: For all employees, especially in toy and clothing companies, that they provide a just work environment that does not rely upon the labor of children, let us pray:

ALL: COMPASSIONATE GOD, make us mindful of the gifts we receive from the labor of many.

Reader: For all employees., that they may receive a living wage to provide for their families, let us pray:

ALL: COMPASSIONATE GOD, make us mindful of the gifts we receive from the labor of many.

Reader: For retail workers, that in this season of giving and generosity, face long hours, low wages, and anxious shoppers, let us pray:

ALL: COMPASSIONATE GOD, make us mindful of the gifts we receive from the labor of many.

Reader: For all of us who shop and buy goods, may we have the courage to say "NO!" to goods produced in sweatshops, where women, men and children earn only pennies a day and work in unsafe conditions, let us pray:

ALL: COMPASSIONATE GOD, make us mindful of the gifts we receive from the labor of many.

Reader: For all workers, that in this season of giving and generosity, they will receive affordable health benefits for themselves and their families, let us pray:

ALL: COMPASSIONATE GOD, make us mindful of the gifts we receive from the labor of many.

Reader: For those who are without any or enough work, especially in this season of abundance, may they also reap the benefits of our "good" economy, let us pray:

ALL: COMPASSIONATE GOD, make us mindful of the gifts we receive from the labor of many.

Reader: Compassionate God, let our hearts and minds be opened in this season of light. As we celebrate the gifts of Your loving presence, may we never stop working to build Your reign here on earth so that all of creation knows and experiences Your justice, joy and peace.

Reflections on Hanukkah

During Hanukkah we celebrate the triumph of the few over the mighty.

We commemorate a small band of Jewish rebels’ victory over the suppression of their faith and the persecution of their people in the second century, BCE.

We light the candles on our menorah to honor the rededication of the Temple, defiled by an imperial power that aspired to snuff out the community.

Our menorah holds nine candles: one central candle, taller than the others, the shamash, is used to light the other eight, one for each of the holiday’s eight days.

On the first day, only one candle is lit, and the flame is just a flicker.

On the second day, two candles are lit, and the flames, alongside one another, produce twice as much light.

Each day, another candle is added. Each day, the glow of the light builds.

We place our menorahs in doorways and windows, because we are taught to "publicize the miracle" (in Hebrew, pirsum haness). We are not shy of our endurance, cannot shrink from the reach of our reflection.

Hanukkah means "dedication."

This year the holiday begins on December 10.

This year, may we dedicate ourselves to lighting the dark places each day, shining light on the corners of factories where injustice barks orders, each day illuminating the corridors of nursing homes where the lure of profits too often trumps the care of patients.

Let the menorah stand as a symbol of the power of organizing.

As the flames gain strength in numbers, so too may we.

Ramadan and Worker Justice

For many Muslims engaged in worker justice issues, the call by low-wage workers for a better quality of life in return for their labor is even more relevant during the Holy Month of Ramadan. For more than one billion Muslims throughout the world, Ramadan—the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar—is when the first revelation of the Holy Qur’an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah as guidance for humanity and a means of obtaining salvation. This year, the month will occur between mid-November and mid-December, as other religious communities participate in the holidays of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. [According to the Islamic Society of North America, the first day of fasting this year for Ramadan is expected to be November 17, 2001.]

In observance of this divine revelation, participants fast, which includes refraining from eating, drinking, and engaging in sexual relations from dawn to sunset every day for the entire month of Ramadan. This is a time when Muslims concentrate on their faith, kicking bad habits, and seeking opportunities to do charitable acts. It is a time of worship, contemplation, reflection, devotion to God and self-control.

Ramadan is derived from an Arabic root word denoting intense scorching heat and dryness. Some scholars say it is so called because the fast of Ramadan scorches away sins from the practitioner, just as the sun scorches the earth. Socially, Ramadan is an expression of solidarity with the poor, the family, and the whole society. This is a period where the rich can reflect on what it is to be poor and on the pains that indigent people suffer in daily life. The fasting discipline is intended to instill the virtue of mercy in the rich, a virtue that is critical to social well-being, harmony and justice.

One must remember that the good practiced during the fast can be destroyed by five things—the telling of a lie, slander, denouncing someone behind his/her back, making a false oath, and greed or covetousness. Though frowned upon throughout the year, these acts are considered especially offensive during Ramadan.

It is particularly appropriate during this holy month to acknowledge the divinity of all work and workers, and to denounce the greed that too often compromises their dignity.