Interfaith Worker Justice

Interfaith Worker Justice educates and organizes the religious community to advocate for living wages, fair benefits and safe working conditions for all workers, but especially workers in low-wage jobs.

Why do we exist?

Historically, religious institutions and clergy have done much to help the poor through food pantries, clothing drives, and soup kitchens. Interfaith Worker Justice knows many of those helped are the working poor; families that are working full-time but not making enough money to support their families.

Interfaith Worker Justice was created to engage the religious community on changing the economic structures to improve the wages, benefits and working conditions for families in low-wage jobs. Problems of hunger and homelessness would be largely erased if low-income families earned decent wages with benefits.
IWJ programs and campaigns directly address the root causes of this crisis. Unique in its approach to labor-religion organizing, the organization provides an avenue for workers and people of faith to take direct action in securing rights in the workplace, seeking higher wages and benefits, and pressuring the national agencies charged with protecting the rights of workers.  Through its network of workers¡¦ centers and affiliates, IWJ works directly with low-income families, and engages the religious community at the national and local levels and across racial and economic sectors. 

We believe that the religious community is a powerful leader in creating a nation where all workers are treated with respect and dignity in the workplace. Interfaith Worker Justice exists to mobilize that community to stand with workers for justice.

What have you accomplished?

IWJ has many accomplishments that have helped workers win living wages, fair benefits, and safe working conditions. Here¡¦s just one example of someone that has been helped by the organization¡¦s work:

¡§My name is Apolinar Salas.  I am from Mexico.  For 15 years I worked in a restaurant as a cook.  For the first 13 years, we were never paid overtime.  We worked about 50 hours per week, and we were only paid for 42 hours, and we never received the time and a half that we were lawfully owed.

In 2003 one of my coworkers went to report this to the Federal Department of Labor.  We didn¡¦t hear anything from them for many months, so we went to get help from ROC-NY, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (an affiliate of Interfaith Worker Justice).  ROC-NY helped us launch a campaign, including a federal lawsuit against the company. 
With the federal lawsuit, we finally received our rights, the money that we were owed and changes in policies at the restaurant.  ROC-NY gave us the support that we needed, to finally win justice in our restaurant ¡V not just money, but we also changed the restaurant.¡¨ 

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