We are pleased to be joined by Magaly Licolli – Executive Director, Northwest Arkansas Worker Justice Center and Ahmed Ali – Executive Director, Greater Minnesota Worker Center for a discussion on worker organizing and economic justice. Learn how faith communities can work in solidarity with workers centers to advance our common struggle for dignity and equality.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by French economist Thomas Piketty. At the UUJEC "Escalating Inequality or Justice for All" Conference in Evanston, IL  Michael Teasdale, offered an overview of the key ideas in Piketty’s book. [Michael Teasdale, UUJEC Co-Chair] 

Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy by Dean Ritz. This little book, a collection of 70 essays, sermons, speeches, and yes, even rants, - was invigorating on first read and has been a valuable reference over the years. It challenges the usual approaches of regulations, demonstrations, and puts the essence of illegitimate corporate power on display for all to see. Use the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon to sample a few of the gems within. You will be hooked. [Rich Florentino, UUJEC Board Member]

Reviewer: [Terry Lowman UUJEC Co-Chair]

Arlie made connections to go to Louisiana and get to know Tea Partiers as people.  Liberals and Northerners dismiss Southerners as dumb and voting against their own interests, but that's only because we Northern Liberals have a different "deep story".  The deep story is that after the Civil War and reconstruction and then after the 1960's Civil Rights movement, it feels like the Federal government is out to keep Southerners down. 

The Tea Partiers have been in a long line waiting for the American Dream, except us liberals keep waving women, people of color, immigrants and the LGBT community in front of them.

Many of their parents and grandparents came from nothing...when oil came to Louisiana and people started making a living.  But then the government brought in immigrants, passed environmental laws and it felt like our government and liberals were against white men making a good living despite loyalty, working hard, and supporting our military

Their own state government has also sold them down the river--approving over 99% of drilling applications and given permits that have polluted their land and water.  They gave permits that destroyed a salt dome and consequently hundreds of acres of land and homes were sucked into the bijou.  If you can't trust the government you can see, why should you trust the Federal government when they give lots of money to no good, lazy people.  Louisiana economically performs next to the bottom, so a lot of people get food stamps and other welfare.

If we're going to help the lazy people, we need to be sure to help those that are working and deserve credit for their effort.

This is a great book with an interesting set of characters.  Arlie writes like a novelist--you feel like you know these people and it's so visual, it could be a movie.

Reviewer: [Chuck Collins, UUJEC Advisory Member]

There are many theories and explanations for the rise of Donald Trump and the current incarnation of white right-wing populism.

A deeper understanding—and an invitation to scale the “empathy wall”—comes from veteran sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in her new book, Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.  The book is, as its second subtitle suggests, “A Journey to the Heart of Our Political Divide.” 

In Strangers, Hochschild spends over five years embedded with Louisiana Tea Party activists, including families that have suffered from environmental disasters at the hands of chemical and petroleum companies.  As she builds relationships with her subjects, Hochschild goes to meetings, shares meals, goes on local driving tours, attends church, samples food at Cajun cook-offs, and goes to a Trump rally. Read the complete book review by Chuck Collins on Common Dreams. 

This was published by our Beacon Press.  To understand injustice, a good place to start is by studying hate.  This was an amazing and thoughtful look into our origins of hate.  Hate often begins with comparing humans to vermin and/or human fluids, pus, etc.  To create justice, we need to understand how to remove these vile labels from humans. [Terry Lowman, UUJEC Co-Chair]

Tim Wise gets deep into the structural base of racial wealth disparities starting with the 1676 Bacon rebellion which led rulers to exploit race as a way to control the poor, black and white. Africans were monitored by slave patrols of poor whites, giving poor whites a leg up on blacks and keeping them busy so they don’t notice who is exploiting them. This is a legacy that continues with modern policing

Segregated neighborhoods barely supporting substandard education leads to fewer higher education choices. Even with an education and a clean criminal record, less educated, ex-felon whites still get better jobs. If African Americans do get a good job, they are exploited by racist traditions from housing segregation to credit, which is substantially more expensive. At every turn—private and public policies have given African Americans a raw deal. Wise weaves a comprehensive, fascinating and compelling story. [Terry Lowman, UUJEC Co-Chair]

If you believe that economic justice is an impossibility under capitalism, read Richard Wolff, Democracy At Work: A Cure for Capitalism for a path toward positive systemic change. He analyzes the popularly misconstrued labeling of countries, such as Russia, China and Cuba, as “communist” or “socialist” when, in truth, they are state capitalism. That is, the power to decide where surplus profits from labor go is located in the state instead of in corporations, and not in the workers responsible for the production and surplus. This is a crucial and fog-lifting insight. It also serves as warning that government “New Deals” like raising the minimum wage and providing social security payments, while certainly helpful, are not the same as where decision-making is located. Thus, his “cure for capitalism” is to put the power for decision-making into the hands of the workers.

Of course, this is a major upheaval from what is done now, but there are examples of it working in individual workplaces, like cooperatives, as well as the large and long-term experiment of Mondragon. It gives those of us longing for a fair path forward a blueprint to strive for and companions with whom to collaborate. [Rev. Dr. Lucy Hitchcock, Membership Committee Chair]