Seeking Justice In The Workplace

Written by Cheryl Wilding

Recently I have spent time considering what it means to act justly in my workplace. It is a familiar tale within many care settings. The team I work with have increased knowledge and skills to keep up with the changing needs and complexities of our clients. However, the pay and grading of the job has not changed, leaving a discrepancy between the responsibilities we are taking on and the grade and pay we are receiving,

We know that it’s a tough climate to be working in care at the minute, with budget cuts, job freezes, and NHS trusts even offering out voluntary redundancies. We have asked to have our job evaluated and matched in the hope it will be appropriately banded but have been met with unhelpful apathy because, ‘There isn’t any money.’

I have found myself easily frustrated and angered by the lack of understanding from those in management. The rest of the team has been struggling, we are working hard to provide the excellent care to our clients, but the work environment has been more difficult as we have all felt demoralised and undervalued. I have wrestled with how to be a good example within this situation.

Micah 6:8 has been a help and a challenge as I have been thinking and praying through this situation:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

Act Justly

God is a just God and cares about the undervalued and downtrodden. For many of us this is one of the reasons that we work within the care sector, we care about justice. I have felt it is right to work with my colleagues and our managers to ask for recognition for the work we are doing and for our pay to be reflective of that. There is nothing wrong with me doing that, but the challenge has been to do it in a way that I am not acting out of bitterness or selfish ambition. That is why the next two parts of the verse have been so helpful.

Love Mercy

The word mercy in this verse can also be translated as kindness or steadfast love. I recently read a devotional on this whole verse that helped me think what loving kindness looks like. The writer talks about the challenge of loving mercy, not just doing mercy, and the impact that will have.

“And we can’t love kindness without loving people. We might be able to get away with telling others we love justice without doing much justice. But it’s very difficult to get away with saying we love kindness if others know us to often be harsh, defensive, self-centred, impatient, irritable, critical, or willing to step on people to get our way.”

Even when fighting for justice we still need to love the people we work with and for. We need to remember they are still image bearers of God too. Remembering this can help you and me not to get angry and bitter, even as we seek justice.

Walk Humbly with your God

Work is just one aspect of our lives but walking with God is the whole of our lives. Even in our workplace we should be walking humbly with God. This means reading his Word to gain His perspective on our lives and work, praying to Him about the things we are doing, thinking, and saying, and coming to Him humbly for forgiveness when we don’t walk in step with him and his ways and attitudes.

“Work is just one aspect of our lives but walking with God is the whole of our lives.”

As I have prayed through this verse it has helped me to put my work situation into perspective. There is injustice that I must speak up about, I can’t stay silent. As I speak up though I must remember to be merciful to those around me, my colleagues, my managers, my government.  I must remember to put God first in the situation and ask for his grace and forgiveness when I get things wrong.

Never forgetting that, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9).

As we face a work full of injustice, we can rely on the faithful character of our just and merciful God.