Ky Council of Churches Prayer in Action Day: Workers Rights

Litany from PRAYER IN ACTION – Workers’ Rights/Fair WageLitany

We pray today for all those who are seeking employment, those facing a very difficult and uncertain future whether they are experiencing joblessness for the first time today or are among the millions of the long-term unemployed.   God of justice, hear our prayer

We pray today for those who are working in low-wage jobs yet remain trapped in poverty -- workers who need fair wages, respect and dignity in their workplace. God of justice, hear our prayer

We pray for children whose parents must work long hours in hard jobs just to afford shelter, food and clothing. And we pray for the moms, dads and family members who struggle with the difficult choice of working long hours and making long commutes, or spending more time with their children, to be able to tuck them into bed each night and see them off to school in the morning.   God of justice, hear our prayer

We pray for those who labor in the fields to provide us food each day.  For the farm workers who too often work beneath the hot sun without shade and in the deadly heat without water and who do not even make sufficient wages to buy the food they are harvesting.  God of justice, hear our prayer

We pray today for our brothers and sisters who work in the shadow of a broken and unjustand racist system – workers who face discrimination and exploitation and whose rights are too often denied through rejection, intimidation and threatened deportation.   God of justice, hear our prayer

We pray for all those who labor in restaurants and earn as little as $2.13 per hour – the ‘tipped wage’ which has not been raised in twenty-two years.   God of justice, hear our prayer

We pray for ethical employers who share fairly the earnings of their businesses with all their workers; we pray for those who pay living wages and provide benefits sufficient for workers to support themselves and their families.  God of justice, hear our prayer

We pray for those employers who have not yet learned to value their workers or recognize their inherent dignity. We pray for CEOs and managers who have hoarded riches and yet denied fair wages to their employees. We pray, God, that you might turn their hearts of stone into hearts of compassion.   God of justice, hear our prayer

We pray for the elected leaders of Kentucky that they might place our brothers and sisters struggling on the margins at the very center of their deliberations. We lament the actions of the General Assembly this past week. Forgive those who have voted for laws and policies that hurt working people. We pray that they will support policies that create good jobs with living wages.

We pray that you will turn the hearts of our elected officials. That they will reconsider their actions and that they will seek ways to better support Kentuckians; that there will be an increase the minimum wage so that no one will be forced to work full-time and still live in poverty.   God of justice, hear our prayer

And finally, we pray that we, members of faith communities, might use our voices and our resources to build a just economy: an economy of shared prosperity where workers earn living wages and all people live lives of dignity.  God of justice, hear our prayer.

God of Justice – we lift up all these prayers to you in the knowledge that you are already at work amid the brokenness of our economic system and that you invite each of us to be a part of your holy work of justice. God we offer to you these prayers today – both spoken aloud and those in our hearts – in the hope that together we might be the people you have called us to be, reflecting your compassion, mercy and justice in all that we do.  In your many holy names we pray – Amen.

(Adapted from http://www.ucc.org/justice_worker-justice_labor-sunday_worship-resources...)