Newsroom

New York AFSCME Labor Faith and Community Outreach Program

THE BEGINNING

District Council 37 is excited to launch, in 2014, the second year of the New York AFSCME Labor, Faith and Community Outreach Program with your continued support, leadership and commitment to help us build A Better New York for All! We are working together with our sister affiliates, District Council 1707 and Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), Metro Region 2. We are diligently cultivating this initiative as a way to create a bridge between members who work and live in the community and our houses of worship and other vital community institutions. It is an opportunity to create a space to share and address the challenges facing members and retirees in their communities to build solidarity in the fight for a Better New York for All.

This is also an opportunity to build our union through engagement of our members and retirees in a sustainable and positives manner through their faith and community relationships to help build a Better New York for All!

VISION

The vision of this program is to support DC 37 members and retirees in organizing around common challenges and opportunities impacting them through the faith and community-based organizations they belong to.

We will build sustainable relationships with our members, retirees, faith and community leaders in the communities where they live, work and worship for the common good as we embrace the vision of a Beloved Community for all, especially for the most vulnerable in our midst in these challenging times.

WHY LABOR FAITH: OUR WORK

Every day, we see distorted accounts of the issues that are important to us as workers and members of the labor movement. It’s time we tell our story to our friends and neighbors in our churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples. It’s time we tell our story to our friends and neighbors in our community boards, tenant organizations, and block associations. They need to know that our issues are their issues, and that the labor movement isn’t limited to just union members and our workplaces.

They, like us, have a stake in health care reform. They, like us, have a stake in vital services like child care, public education, and affordable housing in our communities. They, like us, have a stake in creating and protecting decent paying jobs with good benefits and retirement security. We need to come together with our neighbors and co-worshipers to fight off the anti-worker attacks that threaten all our futures.

But we can’t do any of this without your participation. DC 37 invites you to join this movement to build a community that can work towards the betterment of New York City.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called his vision of a society founded on justice and fellowship the Beloved Community. We invite you to help us in fulfill the promise of the Beloved Community for our children and our future!

A recent example of our work is supporting and participating in the National Night Out initiative throughout the city last August.

Get involved/More information

Please fill out an online outreach form
Or print and complete this outreach form
E-mail us at laborfaithcomgroup@gmail.com
Call us at (212) 815-1550
Read and share our brochure.

Upcoming Events

Background

News articles/flyers/statements

Our partners

Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition

Resources

“The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.”

— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speech to the State Convention of the llinois AFL-CIO, Oct. 7, 1965