Interfaith Worker Justice

Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) is a nonprofit and nonpartisan interfaith advocacy network comprising more than 60 worker centers and faith and labor organizations that advance the rights of working people through grassroots, worker-led campaigns and engagement with diverse faith communities and labor allies. IWJ affiliates take action to shape policy at the local, state and national levels.

As of June 2017^[update], IWJ is governed by a 36-member board of directors. The president of the board is Rev. Doug Mork, the lead pastor of Cross of Glory Lutheran Church. The executive director is Laura Barrett.

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. After a brief transition period, Laura Barrett, the former executive director at Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ), took Bobo’s place as the new executive director at IWJ.

IWJ has been active on a number of worker's rights and worker justice issues. It has taken 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 has also been 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.

...
Wikipedia