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.
In 1991, Bobo founded the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues. It was an all-volunteer group led by Bobo and four influential Chicago religious leaders.
In 1996, using a $5,000 inheritance from her grandmother, Bobo launched the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. The organization initially was run out of her home.
By 1998, the organization had 29 affiliates throughout the country. The group changed its name to Interfaith Worker Justice in 2005, by which time it had grown to 59 local affiliates and a full-time staff of 10.
In 2015, Kim Bobo stepped down as executive director at IWJ in order to expand on her social justice work as the new executive director for the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy. Rudy López, the former Political Director for the Center for Community Change took Bobo’s place as the new executive director at IWJ. After a brief transition period, Laura Barrett, the former executive director at Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ), then became the new executive director.
IWJ was active on a number of worker's rights and worker justice issues. It took a lead role in criticizing Wal-Mart for forcing employees to work off the clock, not providing affordable or comprehensive health insurance, and refusing to pay an adequate wage. In 2006, the group sued the United States Department of Labor to obtain the names of migrant agricultural workers who had been victims of unpaid overtime. It was also active in supporting higher wages for workers and the use of unionized laborers in the reconstruction of New Orleans, and condemned the importation of lower-paid illegal immigrants to displace American workers.
Near the end of its existence, IWJ included a national network of more than 60 local interfaith groups, worker centers and student groups, making it the leading national organization working to strengthen the religious community's involvement in issues of workplace justice.
Issues focus
Wage theft
Interfaith Worker Justice was dedicated to ending wage theft.
Wage theft covers a variety of infractions that occur when workers do not receive their legally or contractually promised wages.
It happens in every industry to millions of workers. Billions of dollars are stolen when employers pay less than minimum wage; refuse overtime pay; force workers to work off the clock; hold back final paychecks; misclassify employees as independent contractors; steal tips; and fail to pay workers at all.
Most commonly wage theft is a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which provides for a federal minimum wage and allows states to set their own (higher) minimum wage, and requires employers to pay time and a half for all hours worked above 40 hours per week.
Health and safety
Millions of individuals in the workforce are working at jobs where they are not guaranteed a safe and healthy work environment.
Immigrants (especially Latino immigrants), low-literacy workers, young workers and low-wage workers are particularly vulnerable to unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. Through grants from NIOSH, the Public Welfare Foundation, and OSHA's Susan Harwood program, Interfaith Worker Justice and members of its national worker center network were rapidly expanding their health and safety work, doing outreach, training, and organizing of workers.
Right to organize
Interfaith Worker Justice was dedicated to educating, organizing and calling people of faith to stand with worker unions so their voices are heard.