"It was the first successful labor union for farmworkers,” says author Miriam Pawel. “It was very much the civil rights movement of the West,". But fifty years after its founding by the late Cesar Chavez, the UFW is struggling to retain membership and influence.

Activist groups should bring about a greater awareness of worker rights issues and add a moral voice to global economic matters, says David Schilling of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.

“When we say grace we are grateful for the food on our plates. But where did that food travel? Who picked it? How did it get to us? As people of faith we are called to think about that.”

"Something like happiness, it sound frivolous, but it’s not frivolous. The purpose of society is to create a better quality of life for all the people. It’s not to create the highest amount of aggregate wealth," says international business consultant and author David Rothkopf.

"We are here to provide a religious presence. We are here to listen to people, to hear what’s on their hearts. And we’re here to pray with people...because people are in crisis and that’s why we are all here." says protest chaplain Erica Richmond.

Watch excerpts of interviews with people of faith who are supporting the Occupy Wall Street protests.

"This is a new wave of activism through what one eats, that what we eat and what we buy is a vote of confidence in our highest values," says Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz.

“We were building million-dollar vacation town homes, and we were displacing people,” says Nancy Murray, founder and CEO of Builders of Hope, and then “I started getting a conscience.”

As states wrestle over workers' rights, union organizing, and difficult budget and deficit debates, religious leaders and organizations are joining the battle.

There was a time when a labor strike like this one against the Catholic Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania, would have been difficult to imagine. The Church, after all, has always been the champion of workers rights.