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People of Faith developed around two basic organizing concepts: congregations and campaigns. Congregations are where the people are gathered and where religious faith is engaged for justice. Congregations have committees, sessions, and boards of people who are on the line, in the trenches, who fell the crunch of unjust policies and trends. Activists in congregations can mobilize sometimes only a handful of people, but when multiplies by thousands of congregations around the country they can form a mighty army of justice. Campaigns are the mechanism to move issues into visibility. The Bible tells us that without a vision the people perish. But without a vehicle, the vision has no wheels. Campaigns are those vehicles. Every successful advance in American social justice was connected to a campaign, be it abolition, child labor, labor rights, civil rights, racial justice, or women’s rights. People learn best about social and economic inequity through active participation in campaigns that are geared to realistic objectives that can be accomplished by public action.
As the People of Faith Network was developing, an opportunity fell into our lap. Word came to us in New York from friends in Central America about the terrible conditions in a maquiladora factory (a factory where only labor is added to the production process) in El Salvador that is used by several United States clothing companies. Many of the hundreds of young girls working in the plant were underage, some as young as thirteen. The factory was brutally hot, the drinking water was dirty, the supervisors were sexually abusive, the girls were allowed only two short bathroom breaks a day, and many were forced to take birth control pills. Even with all this, the most unpopular feature to the girls was “forced overtime.” When a big order came in it often meant twenty-hour shifts, from seven in the morning until three the following morning. Many girls went to work to make money (very hard to accomplish at fifty cents an hour) so that they might complete high school in night classes. With forced overtime, if they went to class and refused to work the long shift, they were fired and placed on a computerized “black list” shared with other companies. They would never work again in the garment industry, which was often the only employment game in town.
Working with trade union and human rights activists, we raised these deplorable conditions with executives of The Gap, a major United States clothing company using the Mandarin International Factory in El Salvador. They denied all the charges and said they checked the plant regularly. A war of words raged, but the evidence was mounting – against The Gap. Getting nowhere in our discussions with the company, we mailed out an appeal to People of Faith Network. As a result pastors, rabbis, priests, nuns, and lay people – consumers all – contacted The Gap, wanting to know why the company couldn’t police its own subcontractors. One rabbi on the West Side of Manhattan got frustrated after writing two letters and receiving double-talk replies. In a third letter, Rabbi Rolando Matalon, leader of the large B’Nai Jeshrun congregation and a survivor of Argentina’s Cival War, wrote The Gap that if they were not forthcoming with plans to change their corporate policy with regard to these factories, he would announce to his congregation that holiday shopping at The Gap was a violation of Jewish ethical law. That letter was one of hundreds, but it was a beauty. Two weeks later, senior Gap executives were on a plane to New York, not to meet with the captains of industry, but to meet with clergy. After much preliminary negotiating, we met together with The Gap officials, not at the University Club, not at a fancy New York hotel, but in the parlor of the house of Dr. Paul Smith, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn.
At this historic meeting, an agreement was signed that called for the strict compliance of subcontractors with The Gap corporate code, the rehiring of workers fired for union activity, and the implementation of a team of independent human rights workers on the ground in El Salvador to watchdog conditions in the plant and to give the young seamstress someone they can speak to without fear of reprisal. It is very hard for American church people to comprehend the complex problems of global economy. But here was one company, The Gap, that we knew, and we could speak to them. We were not a special interest group or labor union. We were their customers, and spoke with the authority of people of faith from all across the country.
People of Faith’s social and economic justice work as succeeded beyond our greatest expectations. It confirmed our basic belief that an enormous, untapped potential exists for local clergy and church members to become active participants in social and economic justice work. Each People of Faith campaign has succeeded, in some measure, in encouraging new clergy to come forward, and in generating coverage in denominational and secular media. Our passion for this ministry is born of the concern that we are becoming a nation of diminishing expectations, numb to realities that seem beyond our control. But the moment we abandon hope, we are lost. The moment we turn cynical or turn inward, we give up. We can never stop asking, “Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or naked?” People of Faith, and the participating members of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, have created a mechanism for small and middle-sized congregations to have a voice. It is a vehicle with which to slay giants. It is Christian faith moving beyond charity toward justice.
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