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A Thought for Labor Day
“Do not oppress the hired laborer who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your people or one of the sojourners in your land within your gates. Give him his wages in the daytime, and do not let the sun set on them, for he is poor, and his life depends on them, lest he cry out to G-d about you, for this will be counted as a sin for you.”
-Deuteronomy 24:14-15
“His life depends on them.”
For a worker who lives paycheck to paycheck, his life and the life of his family most certainly does depend on wages given in a prompt fashion.
But the rabbis of the Talmud were not content to leave fair treatment of workers confined to just ensuring timely wages.
They read the Hebrew more literally: “his very life is carried on those wages.”
They felt that workers often put themselves in dangerous situations that their employers would never do.
The rabbis elaborate:
“Why does a worker climb a ladder or hang from a tree or risk death? Is it not for his wages?”
His very life is carried on those wages.
All to feed his family.
All to be able to live a life with dignity and create a better future for the next generation.
Ask a miner in West Virginia.
Ask a person who is right now working on replacing a roof or repairing a road in the scorching heat.
Ask a mover covered in sweat climbing up difficult stairs to bring a couch to a family or a person changing a transformer during a storm to provide electricity to a neighborhood.
Ask an officer of the law at 2:00 AM responding to gunfire.
Their lives are carried on those wages.
And to withhold wages, deny benefits or affordable health care, or provide as safe a working environment as possible is to take their lives that are in those wages from them.
And Heaven help an employer whose workers cry out to G-d.
The just treatment of workers is an issue of life and death in the eyes of G-d.
Workers give their very lives and are to be treated with dignity, respect, and honor.
Thank G-d for workers and labor unions on this Labor Day.
-Rabbi Victor Urecki
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