Scoffing at those imagining potential Sunday laws everywhere is a recommended pastime. While not increasing your cardio fitness, it will improve your mental health.
At the same time, a rational evaluation of political developments is always wise. In my recent article Wrestling With Recipes While The Kitchen is Burning, I highlighted the on-going vicious attacks against Jewish and pro-Israel students at top American universities.
These attacks on Jewish students are closely tied to organized labor and directly raise serious prophetic concerns for Adventists. Here are two statements from Ellen White on organized labor.
The trade unions will be one of the agencies that will bring upon this earth a time of trouble such as has not been since the world began. — Selected Messages, Vol. 2, p. 142.
The time is fast coming when the controlling power of the labor unions will be very oppressive. … [I]n the future the problem of buying and selling will be a very serious one. — Selected Messages, Vol. 2, p. 141.
In this context, Ellen White quotes Luke 10:27 (love your neighbor as yourself) and writes:
“How can men obey these words, and at the same time pledge themselves to support that which deprives their neighbors of freedom of action?” Selected Messages Vol. 2, p. 143.
This is the core problem with organized labor. It sacrifices individual freedom for the supposed “benefit” of the collective.
For forty years I have worked with attorney Glenn Taubman to defend employee freedom against labor union compulsion. Our litigation has been fully funded by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Today Glenn and I work together to defend Jewish graduate student-employees against attacks on their faith and their religious homeland. We also help Christian students whose faith prohibits aiding attacks on Jews. Our graduate student clients oppose joining or funding the labor union that serves as their mandatory workplace representative. Glenn is an observant Jew and defending against these attacks on fellow Jews is deeply personal to him.
Glenn and Eran Shayshon, founder of an Israeli think tank called Atchalta, recently penned an editorial article[1] that I have condensed in the following paragraphs to inform Adventists of the peril that is currently threatening all of us regarding our religious freedoms. Glenn worked with me on the following condensation which contains many unmodified sentences.
British Trade Unions and the Antisemitism Flip
The 1960s and early 1970s were a positive period in British trade union relations with Israel. The collective communities in the young Israeli nation (called “kibbutzim”), which identified with the Zionist movement, were a symbol of a socialist-leaning democracy embraced by Britain’s political left.
This began to change after the 1967 Six-Day War. The British Trades Union Congress adopted a motion supporting Palestinian statehood, which marked a pronounced shift in union positions. By 2005, major British unions began supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS is intended to destroy Israel’s economy and undermine its legitimacy and right to exist.
The Trade Union Congress, encompassing 58 affiliated unions representing nearly seven million members, has been instrumental in a broader trend within European radical left-wing politics, where blatant antisemitism masquerades under rubrics such as anti-imperialism or anti-Zionism.
Part of this shift is the creation of the “Red-Green Alliance.” This informal alliance between far-left elements in Europe and fundamentalist Islamist groups serves as the hardcore ideological opposition to Israel. This alliance became especially pronounced in Britain since the large-scale entry of Muslim immigrants into Europe and, later, the 2003 Iraq War. The number of unionized blue-collar Jews gradually decreased as the British Jewish community rose in affluence, thus marginalizing any remaining Jewish voices within trade unions. Muslims are increasingly viewed on the socialist and “intersectional” left as the new proletariat deserving solidarity.
The former head of the Labour Party who almost became Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn, is an acknowledged leader against Israel and Jews within the Red-Green Alliance and British trade unions.
American Union Antisemitism
Like the British labor unions’ misguided foray into world politics, many American labor union leaders have embraced the politics of the far left and strayed far from their ostensible role as protectors of employees’ workplace rights. While many American labor unions were founded by Jews and were once staunchly pro-Israel and pro-American, this has changed. In many workplaces, such as college campuses, teaching hospitals, government offices, and K-12 schools, unions are campaigning for the anti-Israel BDS movement and are taking pro-Hamas and anti-American positions.
For example, in July 2024, leaders of a coalition of unions representing millions of employees signed an open letter to President Biden demanding a cessation of all military aid to Israel, without which, the letter contended, “the Israeli government will continue to pursue its vicious response” to the October 7th terror attacks. The signers included some of the largest American unions: the National Education Association, the United Auto Workers, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
These attacks on Israel have crept into the healing professions at the nation’s teaching hospitals. An SEIU medical affiliate put out statements accusing Israel of genocide and apartheid, and called for boycotts, divestment, and cutoffs of military aid. One statement notes that the union resolves to provide “legal and logistical support” to its members who face discipline for the anti-Israel actions they take (which presumably includes rioting, campus takeovers, harassment of Jews, etc.).
Another example of this is the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) filing unfair labor practice charges against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after the university suspended pro-Hamas rioters who blocked access to campus buildings and threatened Israeli and Jewish students. Instead of siding with the victims of Hamas’ terror and the crude antisemitism of the “protesters,” the UE is using compulsory union dues and union lawyers to support the perpetrators of these hateful actions.
A group of member-activists in an Oakland, CA, teachers' union distributed sample lesson plans advocating for the “liberation of the Palestinian people,” with titles such as “Gaza Fights for Freedom” and “Art as Resistance.”
An Adventist Perspective
The reader might simply conclude from this condensation of the Taubman/Shayshon article that Ellen White is once again proven correct. Labor unions continue to be a threat to everyone’s individual freedom. What has not been answered is what does this have to do with Sunday laws? The connection is considerably stronger than the Project 2025 proposal to encourage employers to accommodate employees who worship on either Sunday or Saturday.
If you were to plot how to eliminate Sabbath worship, what would be your first obstacle? What is the largest interest group in the United States invested in worshipping on Saturday? According to recent estimates, Jews account for about 7.5 million of the overall American population. Adventists constitute only 1.2 million. While Adventists occasionally produce nationally recognized thought leaders, Jews account for an extraordinary number of American thought leaders. Even secular Jews would likely be concerned about a national law requiring Sunday worship, or laws that fail to protect Saturday worship.
The obvious conclusion is that no limit on Sabbath worship, or compelled Sunday worship, can take place without first neutralizing the voices of Jews in the United States. As this article demonstrates, organized labor is at the forefront of this nefarious activity. It has turned from supporting the Jewish population in the U.S. and Israel to supporting those who would destroy the Jewish homeland and savage their religion. The trend is ominous for Jews and Adventists alike.
****
Bruce N. Cameron is the Reed Larson Professor of Labor Law at Regent University School of Law and is on the litigation staff of the National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation.
