Rochester CLUE: Background and Prayers
Rochester CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice)
Early in 2006, a group of Rochester area clergy and laity concerned about economic justice and the rights of employees to form unions formed CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice). The immediate cause was the support of employees at the Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Rochester. The primary thrust of CLUE is twofold: pro-democracy, to secure the rights of employees to decide whether they wish to form a union in an atmosphere free of harassment and intimidation; and anti-poverty, to aid the employees at the Crowne Plaza to work their way out of poverty and into jobs with living wages and affordable benefits.
Crowne Plaza workers and CLUE members have made numerous attempts to reason with hotel management, including meetings, attempted meetings, prayer services and rallies, as well as two trips by both employees and clergy to New Jersey to try to talk to the hotel’s principal owner. Despite these steps, management continues to deny its employees their democratic right to choose whether or not they want to form a union. For more background, click here.
CLUE has announced a boycott of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rochester beginning March 1, 2008 if the management does not agree to a fair process for workers to decide on whether to form a union. Local CLUE members are informing Crowne customers of this action and inviting further support for the workers.
Below are prayers you can use from our early 20th Century Rochester theologian Walter Rauschenbusch. Also, links for further study of religious support of workers’ rights.
Links to important religious stances on worker justice:
Justice Prayers by Walter Rauschenbausch (from Prayers of the Social Awakening)Walter Rauschenbusch (October 4, 1861 - July 25, 1918) Born in Rochester. He had national and international influence as Theologian of the Social Gospel movement in first two decades of 20th century. These prayers have been lightly edited to eliminate the exclusive language. You may adapt them for your own use.
FOR CHILDREN WHO WORK
THOU great Father of the weak, lay thy hand tenderly on all the little children on earth and bless them. Bless our own children, who are life of our life, and who have become the heart of our heart. Bless every little child-friend that has leaned against our knee and refreshed our soul by its smiling trustfulness. Be good to all children who long in vain for human love, or for flowers and water, and the sweet breast of Nature. But bless with a sevenfold blessing the young lives whose slender shoulders are already bowed beneath the yoke of toil, and whose glad growth is being stunted forever. Suffer not their little bodies to be utterly sapped, and their minds to be given over to stupidity and the vices of an empty soul. We have all jointly deserved the millstone of thy wrath for making these little ones to stumble and fall. Grant all employers of labor stout hearts to refuse enrichment at such a price. Grant to all the citizens and officers of states which now permit this wrong the grace of holy anger. Help us to realize that every child of our nation is in very truth our child, a member of our great family. By the Holy Child that nestled in Mary’s bosom; by the memories of our own childhood joys and sorrows; by the sacred possibilities that slumber in every child, we beseech thee to save us from killing the sweetness of young life by the greed of gain.* * *
FOR CONSUMERS
GOD, thou Father of us all, we praise thee that thou hast bound humanity in a great unity of life so that each must lean on the strength of all, and depend for his comfort and safety on the help and labor of his brothers. We invoke thy blessing on all the men and women who have toiled to build and warm our homes, to fashion our raiment, and to wrest from sea and land the food that nourishes us and our children. We pray that they may have health and joy, and hope and love, even as we desire for our own loved ones. Grant us wisdom to deal justly and fraternally with every man and women whom we face in the business of life. May we not unknowingly inflict suffering through selfish indifference or the willful ignorance of callous heart. Since the comforts of our life are brought to us from afar, and made by those whom we do not know nor see, grant us organized intelligence and power that we may send the command of our righteous will along the channels of trade and industry, and help to cleanse them of hardness and unfairness. May the time come when we need wear and use nothing that is wet in thy sight with human tears, or cheapened by wearing down the lives of the weak.
Save us, we beseech thee, from unconscious guilt. Speak thou to our souls and bid us strive for the coming of thy kingdom of justice when thy merciful and saving will shall be done on earth.* * *
FOR THOSE IN BUSINESS
WE plead with thee, O GOD, for our brothers and sisters who are pressed by the cares and beset by the temptations of business life. We acknowledge before thee our common guilt for the hardness and deceitfulness of industry and trade which lead us all into temptation and cause even the righteous to slip and fall. As long as we are set against each other in a struggle for wealth, help those in business to make their contest, as far as may be, a test of excellence, by which even the defeated may be spurred to better work. If any are pitted against those who have forgotten fairness and honesty, help them to put their trust resolutely in the profitableness of sincerity and uprightness, and, if need be, to accept loss rather than follow on crooked paths. Establish in unshaken fidelity all who hold in trust the savings of others. Since the wealth and welfare of our nation are controlled by people in business, cause them to realize that they serve not themselves alone, but hold high public functions, and do thou save them from betraying the interests of the many for their own enrichment, lest a new tyranny grow up in a land that is dedicated to freedom. Grant them farsighted patriotism to subordinate their profits to the public weal, and a steadfast determination to transform the disorder of the present into the nobler and freer harmony of the future. May thy Spirit, O GOD, which is ceaselessly pleading within us, prevail at last to bring our business life under Christ’s law of service, so that all who share in the processed of factory and trade may grow up into that high consciousness of a divine calling which blesses those who are the free servants of God and the people and who consciously devote their strength to the common good.* * *
FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE STREET
HEAVENLY Father, whose unveiled face the angels of little children do always behold, look with love and pity, we beseech thee, upon the children of the streets. Where men, in their busy and careless lives, have made a highway, these children of thine have made a home and a school, and are learning the bad lessons of our selfishness and our folly. Save them, and save us, O Lord. Save them from ignorance and brutality, from the shamelessness of lust, the hardness of greed, and the besotting of drink; and save us from the greater guilt of those that offend thy little ones, and from the hypocrisy of those that say they see and see not, whose sin remaineth. Make clear to those of older years the inalienable right of childhood to play, and give to those who govern our cities the will and ability to provide the places for play; make clear to those who minister to the appetite for recreation the guilt of them that lead astray thy children; and make clear to us all that the great school of life is not encompassed by walls and that its teachers are all who influence their younger brethren by companionship and example, whether for good or evil, and that in that school all we are teachers and as we teach are judged. For all false teaching, for all hindering of the children, pardon us, O Lord, and suffer the little children to come unto thee, for Jesus’ sake.* * *
FOR WORKING PEOPLE
GOD, thou mightiest worker of the universe, source of all strength and author of all unity, we pray thee for our brothers and sister, the industrial workers of the nation. As their work binds them together in common toil and danger, may their hearts be knit together in a strong sense of their common interests and destiny. Help them to realize that the injury of one is the concern of all, and that the welfare of all must be the aim of every one. If any of them is tempted to sell the birthright of their class for a mess of pottage for themselves, give them a wider outlook and a nobler sympathy with their sisters and brothers. Teach them to keep step in a steady onward march, and in their own way to fulfill the law of Christ by bearing the common burdens. Grant the organizations of labor quiet patience and prudence in all disputes, and fairness to see the other side. Save them from malice and bitterness. Save them from the headlong folly which ruins a fair cause, and give them wisdom resolutely to put aside the two-edged sword of violence that turns on those who seize it. Raise up for them still more leaders of able mind and large heart, and give them grace to follow the wiser counsel. When they strive for leisure and health and a better wage, do thou grant their cause success, but teach them not to waste their gain on fleeting passions, but to use it in building fairer homes and a nobler humanity. Grant all classes of our nation a larger comprehension for the aspirations of labor and for the courage and worth of these our brothers and sisters, that we may cheer them in their struggles and understand them even in their sins. And may the upward climb of Labor, its defeats and its victories, in the farther reaches bless all classes of our nation, and build up for the republic of the future a great body of workers, strong of limb, clear of mind, fair in temper, glad to labor, conscious of their worth, and striving together for the final unity of all people.
