Placing Legitimacy: Organising Religious Support In A Hospital Workers’ Contract Campaign1

Religion‐labour alliances, like other faith‐based and religious organisations, raise questions about the invocation of religion to establish moral authority and political legitimacy in Western democracies. This paper argues that legitimacy should be understood as produced through spatio‐temporally contingent practices. The question of legitimacy is explored through a case study of the activities of a religion‐labour alliance in an urban hospital workers’ contract campaign. The paper traces the work of religion‐labour organising through the multiple space‐times of the campaign. As religion‐labour organising negotiates various habituses, attempting to legitimate itself as well as the union's struggle, it draws on not only religious discourses, but discourses of human rights, democratic deliberation, and social scientific evidence. The analysis is based on participant observation throughout the campaign, interviews with coalition members and other union staff, and internal documents and public reports from the campaign.