Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice and author of Wage Theft in America, urges us to put the meaning of Thanksgiving into action.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It is an official day to give thanks for all we have and all we can do. It is a time to relax with friends and family. Unlike some other holidays, there are few shopping expectations, house decorating requirements or religious service responsibilities. And aside from my butter-laden cooking, Thanksgiving is a day of relaxing, giving thanks and reflecting.

But the opportunity to relax, give thanks and reflect upon all we’ve been given helps us discern how we can do more or be more effective in our work for justice. Giving thanks is not a meaningless gesture. Giving thanks stops our complaining about things we want while others lack things they need. Giving thanks compels us to figure out how we can use the gifts and resources we’ve been given to help those most in need.

This Thanksgiving season, we are cognizant of how many U.S. families are unemployed, underemployed, employed but not paid living wages—perhaps even having some wages stolen—and anxious about the future in these turbulent economic times. It is indeed ironic that those whose hands allow us to have food for our Thanksgiving tables—farm workers, turkey catchers, canning and food-processing workers, grocery store workers and restaurant cooks and servers—are all workers who struggle to make ends meet, unless they are among the lucky ones who are represented by unions.

If you are looking for a way to help your friends and family give thanks for the food and to those who produced, processed and sold it, you can find a selection of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and interfaith thanksgiving prayers and reflections at Interfaith Worker Justice here.

As we relax, give thanks and reflect, let us plan how each of us can do more or be more effective in our efforts to help our fellow workers. Let me suggest four things we all can do to help America’s workers this Thanksgiving weekend and in the coming weeks:

• Contact your elected leaders and urge them to support the Employee Free Choice Act. This important piece of legislation will make it easier for workers to form unions and get first contracts and will increase penalties for those who intimidate and harass workers who are trying to organize. Unions are critical for ensuring that all workers share the nation’s prosperity.
• Educate friends and neighbors about the need for comprehensive immigration reform that protects workers’ rights. So many workers who pick and process our food are immigrants who are easily exploited by unethical employers because they are without a path to citizenship. Every day we eat food picked and prepared by immigrants.
• Stand in solidarity with autoworkers. The auto industry is in a crisis. Despite what some congressional leaders might suggest, the auto industry crisis is not caused by the fact that autoworkers earn living wages with family benefits. As the nation grapples with how best to help the auto industry, we must stand in solidarity with the autoworkers. Check regularly with the UAW here to learn what you can do.
• Pray daily for our nation’s leadership. Our nation has elected new leadership, but it is inheriting unprecedented economic challenges. The leadership needs our daily prayers. And because prayer and action go together, when we pray, we must then act in ways to help our nation move forward.

Thanksgiving gives us a day or a few days to eat good food, enjoy good company and reflect on what we have been given. Let us give thanks today, in order to take action tomorrow.

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