Its adherents took on the exploitation of workers and unethical business practices of robber barons like oil magnate John D. The Social Gospel was a Christian movement that emerged in late 19th-century America as a response to the obscene levels of inequality in a rapidly industrializing country. Members of the Writers Guild of America join UPS Teamsters during a rally ahead of a possible UPS strike on July 19, 2023, in Los Angeles. Fain’s decision to blend scripture with a strike is straight out of the Social Gospel playbook. The victory (it still has to be ratified by UAW members) not only reinvigorated an emboldened labor movement in the US, it also marked the revival of another movement in America: the Social Gospel.įain’s sermonette was remarkable because labor leaders don’t typically cite the Bible in such detail to justify a strike. After a six-week campaign of strikes, the UAW reached a historic agreement with General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Chrysler-owner Stellantis that would give workers their biggest pay raise in decades.

It was a fearful, desperate, band of believers that were backed into a corner.”įain’s faith did move a corporate mountain - three, to be exact. And it wasn’t a confident committee that prayed in a small room in Jerusalem for Peter’s release from prison. It wasn’t common sense that caused Paul to abandon the law and embrace grace. “It wasn’t logic that caused Moses to raise his staff on the bank of the Red Sea. “Great acts of faith are seldom born out of calm calculation,” added Fain, who often carries his grandmother’s Bible.

He cited scripture, including Matthew 17:20–21, where Jesus told his disciples that if they have faith the size of a mustard seed they can move mountains because “nothing will be impossible for you.” He said that for UAW members, organizing and making bold demands of automakers was “an act of faith in each other.”

He then paused before saying, “Now I’m going to get personal.”įain started talking about his Christian faith. Just days before he would lead an unprecedented strike against the Big Three automakers, Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers, did something extraordinary.įain, a middle-aged, bespectacled man who could pass for a high school science teacher, was warning auto workers they would probably have to strike, citing resistance by automaker CEOs whose companies he said made “a quarter of a trillion dollars” in profits while they “nickel and dime our members every day.”

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