A New Protestant Labor Ethic at Work (review)

A New Protestant Labor Ethic at Work is an interesting mix of labor history and theology. It covers the range of literature within the Protestant tradition and looks at both current and historical discussions about covenantal business ethics. Estey provides an interesting overview of the General Motors/UAW Saturn experiment, reviewing both its promise and its pitfalls.

Estey does an excellent job explaining the key points of major theologians who look at covenantal business ethics. He clearly outlines the major flaw as the failure to address power imbalances inherent in the work place between managers and workers. He says, "The managerial bias and the lack of attention to the day-to-day conditions of the working class do not suggest that most covenantal business ethicists will have the resources to resist the deficiencies of the employee participation workplace paradigm."

Estey's historical overview through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries introduces readers to some of the most contentious labor-management battles and demonstrates how most Protestant theologians of the time advocated a balancing of interest, mutual respect and understanding, and arbitration over strikes and conflict. Estey draws from some interesting documents, such as "The Church and Modern Industry," a 1908 treatise by the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, which certainly attest to this focus. Estey sums up his response by saying, "The call for mutual accountability of unions and corporations is a fine ideal but does not speak to the unparalleled strength and brutality of successful corporate efforts to keep workforces docile and unaware of their rights."

Estey's book has great relevance for today. Given the dramatic rise in business ethics programs in seminaries aimed at managers, the upsurge of management-controlled chaplains in poultry plants and other low-wage sweatshops, and the explosion of fancy business ethics conferences that never talk about such mundane things as wages and benefits, it would be good if all involved in this new business ethics movement would read Estey's book. Easily ninety percent of the business ethics discussions appear meaningless for large groups of low-wage workers, such as farm workers, poultry workers, restaurant workers, garment workers, laundry workers, and landscapers. Given the clear Christian mandate to judge our work by how it affects the "least of these," it is ironic that Christian business ethics does not speak to the conditions of most low-wage and immigrant workers.

Luckily, there is a new move afoot among seminaries, driven in large part by seminary students, to engage more with workers and to study religious perspectives on work that deal with low-wage workers' struggles. Over one hundred seminary and rabbinical students have participated in summer internships with labor unions, jointly sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Interfaith Worker Justice. Three new Seminarians for Worker Justice groups have emerged in Chicago, the Bay Area, and New York City that actively engage seminarians in local worker struggles. These seminary activists are challenging faculty to teach courses that are relevant to the real-life experiences of low-wage workers.

Estey ends his book by proposing to change "business ethics" to "labor ethics" as a means of getting more focus on workers and what is truly best for working people. He proposes "a work ethic that is not about work but about workers—a labor ethic that is about possibility for resistance, not rationales for acquiescence." Estey believes that labor ethics should not use the word "Protestant," but rather "protesting."

Although at times Estey's book reads a bit like a doctoral dissertation trying to review all the relevant literature, his points are significant and an important historical reminder to the current business ethics conversations.