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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The office manager pressed forward, glowering, his muscles straining the seams of his pinstriped suit. "I'm asking you to step outside," he said.

The nine men and women who had taken over the lobby of AlliedBarton Security Services did not budge.

Rabbinical student clasped hands with Islamic scholar and Methodist seminarian. Heads bowed, eyes closed, they sang "Amazing Grace." And prayed that the security guards employed here would join the Service Employees International Union.

Struggling to regain power and prestige for the sagging labor movement, the AFL-CIO has hired more than three dozen aspiring ministers, imams, priests and rabbis to spread the gospel of union organizing across the nation this summer.

The program seeks to recreate the historic partnership between faith and labor, an alliance that for nearly a century gave union leaders an aura of moral authority — and their cause the stamp of divine righteousness.

"We're showing up in their office, telling them that God does not want them to act the way they're acting toward their workers," said rabbinical student Margie Klein, 26. "They're going to get the message."

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Read the rest: Stephanie Simon, "Labor and Religion Reunite," LA Times 07/17/05

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[ 19 July 2005: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]