Gaudium et Spes: More than 600 Catholic Institutions with Labor Unions

One of the interestig annual reports on labor that I get comes from the Catholic Labor Network and lists those Roman Catholic institutions that are unionized by state. Oregon has a good number, but of course we will all benefit with more. Here is the introduction to the report and the relevant link from the Network.  

Gaudium et Spes: More than 600 Catholic Institutions with Labor Unions Happy Labor Day! During the year periodically we have to devote our newsletter to Catholic institutions engaged in union-busting behavior out of line with Catholic Social Teaching from Rerum Novarum to today. Happily these employers are not the last word. The Catholic Labor Network has identified more than 600 Catholic institutions that instead demonstrate Catholic Social Teaching by bargaining with unions representing some or most of their employees. In accordance with our tradition, each Labor Day the CLN offers its Gaudium et Spes report listing these institutions by State and Diocese. New entries this year include Catholic Cemetery workers in Youngstown OH who organized with the Machinists; nurses at Ascension St Agnes in Baltimore MD who joined National Nurses United; and Non-Tenure Track Faculty at two California Catholic Universities, University of San Diego and Loyola Marymount, who joined the SEIU. Most of these workers are still negotiating a first contract so please keep them in your prayers! Unfortunately, the list of unionized Catholic schools has shrunk a bit as organized schools in some urban cores closed. To find out what’s up in your state, check out the report: Gaudium et Spes 2024 If you know of additional Catholic employers with collective bargaining please report them to clayton@catholiclabor.org

Religion & Trade Unions

How many of us think about religion and unions or about religion and labor? This Zoom event looks interesting and I hope to attend. 

Here are some other great related resources to consider: the Catholic Labor Network, this recent article from the National Catholic Reporter, this statement from the United Church of Christ, this statement from AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, the Faith & Labor Committee of Portland Jobs with Justice, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, religioussocialism.org, and the AFL-CIO has produced a series of papers on unions and Islam and The Qur'an and worker justice that can be found with an internet search. The Progressive National Baptist Convention and the AFL-CIO have revived their partnership. 

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