Our Addiction to Cheap Labor

Immigrant farmworkers picking sweet potato

Raleigh News & Observer

As we enter this holiday season of feasting, we need to be honest about how our food is produced. America has always relied on cheap labor to make agriculture work.

The source of much of that labor used to be slave ships making the Middle Passage. Today it’s no longer slaves but immigrant workers, primarily undocumented people from Mexico and Latin America, whose cheap labor makes possible both low prices at the grocery store and high profits for agribusinesses. [...]

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Bladen Churches Unite: Being Healthy, Being Faithful 2012

stained glass

BladenJournal.com

Joy Williams of Partners in Health and Wholeness, a Christian-based organization, will collaborate with churches and the parish nurse on Monday, Nov. 28, at 5:30 p.m. in the fellowship hall of Elizabethtown Presbyterian Church at 800 W. Broad St. (across from the Municipal Building), to make local churches healthier for the glory of God. [...]

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Nonprofit Offers Pharmacy Program

pharmacy program

The Sanford Herald

Giang said N.C. MedAssist representatives wanted to travel to each county to meet with eligible residents and explain the enrollment process. The organization contacted the North Carolina Council of Churches and expressed interest in partnering with faith-based organizations willing to host one-day enrollment programs. The Rev. Mechelle Myers of Sanford’s New Endland AME Zion Church received an e-mail from the Council about the initiative and was the first person to respond. [...]

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Farm labor protection

Photo by Peter Eversoll

Raleigh News & Observer

The N.C. Council of Churches has been working for decades to improve conditions for farm workers in our state. Sadly, too much remains unchanged over that time. Field and poultry workers do backbreaking work, but they don’t have the same protections on the job that everyone else has. Now with the recent filing of a complaint against the N.C. Department of Labor, it appears that even the few laws on the books designed to protect farm workers have been systematically ignored (“Dirty jobs,” Oct. 15 editorial). [...]

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Safety Net Programs: They're Worth Fighting For

U.S. Capitol Building

NC Policy Watch

It’s no wonder why our political leaders are scrambling to find solutions, even while bumping heads in the process. Both sides want what’s best for America, but the process through which we work to achieve that has become increasingly contentious and politically charged. And I can’t help but believe that our own personal experiences and beliefs, not the persuasive views of political pundits, ultimately determine on which side of an issue we fall and what we deem worth fighting for. Let me share a story. [...]

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The Spread of Toxic Immigration Laws

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NC Policy Watch

I can certainly understand that the nation is clearly frustrated with Congress’ dysfunction, partisan gridlock, and seeming inability to deal rationally with the many major policy issues facing our communities. I am too. And immigration reform is now seen as one of the most challenging political battlegrounds, thanks in large part to partisan wrangling. Now a handful of conservative legislators are using fear and misinformation to position immigration as a political wedge issue, cashing in on Washington’s inaction and the down economy to pursue a fierce anti-immigrant agenda [...]

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Budget with conscience

Photo by Flickr user: ttarasiuk

As the “Super Committee” begins to negotiate a deal to cut $1.5 trillion from our national budget, the faith community wants to be sure that our North Carolina congressional delegation – Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan as well as our 13 representatives – remember the calling of the God of all creation to provide for the common good. As the Rev. Dr. James Forbes, a native North Carolinian and senior pastor emeritus of New York’s Riverside Church reminds us, budgets are moral documents that determine who eats and who starves. [...]

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Bishop Curry Interviews Dr. Kathy Shea about NC IPL

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In a recent edition of Please Note, Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina interviewed Dr. Kathy Shea about her work as director of NC Interfaith Power & Light. [...]

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A Pastor's Calling to WORK for LGBT Inclusion

Adam's Gift

Durham Herald-Sun

Jimmy Creech spent his career as an ordained United Methodist pastor until the church took his credentials away as punishment for conducting same sex commitment ceremonies in Omaha and Chapel Hill. He was not convicted at a trial in Nebraska in 1998, but he lost his church assignment and the stage was set for a second trial in 1999 after he officiated a ceremony at United Church of Chapel Hill. Since then he has been a leader of LGBT justice issues, retired to Raleigh and travels the country speaking. He also has written an account of the upheaval, “Adam’s Gift: A Memoir of a Pastor’s Calling to Defy the Church’s Persecution of Lesbians and Gays.” He’ll speak about it Saturday at the Durham County Library Main Branch downtown. [...]

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Left-leaning Christians to rally around ‘Wild Goose’

photo by Johnno Chen

USA Today

DURHAM, N.C. — It’s summer. It’s hot. It’s the South. That must mean it’s time for an old-fashioned camp meeting. Starting Thursday, the bygone staple of the tent revival will be reincarnated on a bucolic North Carolina farm as The Wild Goose Festival. Nearly 10 years in the making, the festival is an attempt to reimagine Christianity for the 21st century under a bigger, wider more inclusive tent. [...]

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Tarheel Footprints in Health Care

Dr  Kathy Shea

North Carolina Medical Journal

The NCMJ features Dr. Kathy Shea, Executive Director of North Carolina Interfaith Power & Light, on page 87 of its March/April 2011 edition. [...]

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Enseñan las opciones legales

QuePasa

Qué Pasa Media Network

Winston-Salem – Las detenciones y deportaciones arbitrarias y el tráfico de personas, fueron los principales temas tratados durante un taller de trabajo sobre inmigración, que tuvo lugar en Saint Paul Episcopal Church de esta ciudad, bajo el auspicio del Consejo de Iglesias de Carolina del Norte. [...]

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Immigration & Arizona: Making a Problem Worse

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NC Policy Watch

In a hyper-partisan era characterized by failures of leadership across the board, perhaps no single issue illustrates government gridlock better than immigration.  Everyone knows that our current immigration system is broken.  Year after year, proposals to help fix the system have been introduced in Washington, only to die without ever taking effect.  Understandably, many states feel they have been left no choice but to take action themselves. [...]

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Reducing Poverty in Eastern Wake a Complex Battle

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Eastern Wake News

Poverty afflicts thousands in eastern Wake County – not just those without a job or some other source of income, but even those so-called working poor who live from paycheck to paycheck hoping to avoid a single disaster that could turn their worlds upside down. Ever since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society aimed the nation’s attention on the plight of the poor in the 1960s, there’s been debate about the best way to raise up those who have less than they need to lead a normal life. [...]

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Civil Rights Panel Gets an Earful on Wake Schools

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The News & Observer

All the conflict raging about the Wake schools for the past year and a half came spilling out Wednesday night when a panel of federal civil rights investigators heard testimony – often heated – in an East Raleigh church. The hearing concerned a complaint against Wake Public Schools, filed with the federal education department by the state NAACP. An estimated 200 people nearly filled the fellowship hall at Martin Street Baptist Church, with speakers making emphatic points on both sides of the issues. [...]

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