Christianity and organized labor

Michael Sean Winters has a pretty good piece in the December 8-11 edition of the National Catholic Reporter under the headline "Christianity and organized labor continue to march together." It is a good response to a CNN story about Shawn Fain, the President of the United Auto Workers, and the Social Gospel movement and is written from a progressive Roman Catholic perspective.

The subject at hand is so complex and so deeply rooted in United States history that Winters could only touch on a few basics in a short newspaper article. He may have stepped past some of the shortcomings of Catholic social teaching in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, but Winters nails it when he talks about how progressive and pro-labor Biblical values continue to shape union activism. "There is no group in American society with whom it is easier to share a conversation about Catholic social teaching than the leaders of the American labor movement," Winters says. I think that he's right, but I also think that we should talk about Jewish, Muslim, Protestant and other religious- and ethically-based social teachings, both where they find a home in our labor movement and where and why those values do not resonate with us sometimes.

Please give the article a read and let us know what you think.

Photo by Chardonnay Beaver and found at The South Seattle Emerald