God Takes Delight

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The Working Catholic: God’s Pleasure
by Bill Droel

Ben Cross died last week. He was an actor best known for his portrayal of Harold Abrahams, an Olympic runner, in Chariots of Fire (Warner Brothers, 1924). Abrahams is a Jewish student at University of Cambridge. He has to deal with anti-Semitism on his way to the 1924 games in Paris. The film, based on a true story, won four Academy Awards including best picture.
The plot around Abrahams has a parallel story line. Ian Charleson, who died in 1990, plays Eric Liddell, another young runner. Liddell is supposed to go to China to engage in Christian missionary activity. His sister, touching a part of his conscience, says that training for the Olympics distracts him from God’s calling. Liddell is torn but makes peace with his plan. In the film’s famous line, he says: “I believe God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”
The Lord takes delight in endeavors well done. Once upon a time a prominent church hereabout commissioned an artist to paint the figure of God the Father. The artist was so thrilled by the greatness of her subject that she vowed to do the painting on her knees. Well, this went on for a few days until God appeared to her and thundered: “You are not supposed to paint me on your knees. You are supposed to paint me well.”
The notion persists that for work to be holy it either must occur under church auspice or it must get an additional coating of piety or sacredness.

What is the proper definition of holy work? It is the thing one does to live and/or the thing one lives to do. Volunteering and homemaking can be good work presuming the worker receives sufficient financial resources from elsewhere. If the good work is the way one supports oneself and a family, the pay must be just. Without a family wage, the endeavor is objectively damaged. The paternalism of the employer and the desperation or generous heart of the employee is irrelevant in calculating a family wage.
Good work is how a person fulfills his or her human nature. Each of us has a God-given nature that came with a work impulse already installed. Good work is how a person participates in the on-going creation and redemption of society.
Good work is a primary way that a person exercises the virtue of solidarity by cooperating with fellow workers for improvements in the product, the service, the delivery or even the culture of the industry or sector. This impulse to associate for improvement is another built-in feature of human nature.
All types of jobs qualify as good work, excluding only those that violate God’s plan: a predatory lender, a trafficker of teenage girls, or a gang leader. Good work is any endeavor that upon a worker’s contemplation she or he sees God’s perfection reflected. This does not mean that the medical procedure has to always be a total success. The class on obtuse angles or the one on dangling participles can flop. The anticipated lauds for the play or the concert do not occur. The courtroom defense does not impress the jury. The day or the week or the month of child rearing can be total frustration. At a certain time, however, a worker can look back upon an endeavor and know that given the challenges of the job she or he did their best.

Unfortunately, Christians do not—for whatever reason—get the message that their work matters to God; that work in itself contributes to the spiritual life. Yet all Christians, as St. John Paul II (1920-2005) said, are called to a spirituality of work.
Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957), playwright, essayist and creator of the fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey, says that Christians will have only a pro forma adherence to the faith as long as they do not hear or feel that Christianity has anything to do with the meaning of work—on the job, around the home and in the community. An intelligent carpenter, she says, hears that religion means “not to be drunk and disorderly in leisure hours and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him [or her] is this: The very first demand that religion makes…is that he [or she] should make good tables.”
To be clear: God wants catechists and preachers in the mission field and around the parish. God wants those teachers and preachers to be compassionate. But a tender heart and willingness to volunteer are not sufficient. God feels pleasure when preachers, catechists and all workers do it well. For example, God expects preachers and catechists to critically study Scripture. God expects them to stay current, using magazines like Commonweal, America or Christianity Today, just as God expects doctors to read medical journals carefully, engineers to keep up with safety manuals and to read about new materials or chemical compounds.

God made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure, said Olympian Eric Liddell. The Lord takes delight in all endeavors well done.

Droel edits a free newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

Thoughts on the Postal Crisis from a Letter Carrier

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As a former Letter Carrier for the US Postal Service, I have been paying particular attention to recent events in the news – especially the shocking decision by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to slow down mail delivery in order to save the postal service money.

As a carrier, I would arrive at the post office at 6am each weekday and Saturday and find several feet of mail on my “case,” a sorting cabinet. The mail had arrived overnight from sorting facilities and was destined for homes and businesses on my delivery route. The cardinal rule of operations was that no first class mail that arrived on my case in the morning could be left behind. On an especially busy day, we might leave bulk mail advertisements for delivery the next day, but all first class letters had to be sorted, packed in the mailbag and delivered to the addressee. If that required overtime for the carrier some days, that was a necessary cost of providing quality service. Fast and secure delivery of the mail is why the US Postal Service is the most popular agency of the US Government.

For this reason, I was suprised to hear that DeJoy had given orders to remove high-speed sorting machines in the sorting facilities and to delay first class mail delivery if necessary to curtail overtime. As you probably have, I have seen delivery of my own mail delayed by these practices in recent weeks.

These measures have now at least temporarily been put on hold. For this we can largely thank the vigorous organizing activity by unions representing postal workers such as the American Postal Workers’ Union (APWU), the National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU), and my old union, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC). They have spoken out to inform the public what is happening and and fighting to preserve delivery standards for the mail. This is a reminder of the role of unions in Catholic Social Teaching: not simply to win better wages and benefits for their members but to promote the common good.

It’s not for nothing that Pope Leo XIII, in the foundational document of Catholic Social Teaching – his Encyclical Rerum Novarum – compared unions to the medieval guilds and said such associations “were the means of affording not only many advantages to the workmen, but in no small degree of promoting the advancement of art [49].” Most workers are committed to their craft and their contribution to society, and want to do a good job, even when their supervisors may be more focused on short-term profit margins.

Recent decades have witnessed an alarming decline in union membership. This trend does not only threaten the livelihood of workers but the quality of our public services and private products alike. Unions, in the postal service and elsewhere, make a vital contribution to the common good.

In Praise of Collective Bargaining

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A Guest Column for Labor Day from CLN Spiritual Moderator Fr. Sinclair Oubre, JCL

For a number of years, cries have arisen for greater equity. As we celebrate Labor Day, one of these cries of inequity surrounds pay.

“Are men and women, who do the same work, and work the same number of hours receiving the same pay?”

There are many anecdotal stories of women moving into work positions, and later finding out that their male predecessor was paid significantly more than they were. There are also stories where women supervisors have learned that their male underlings were receiving larger compensations.

Now, the general practice is to complain to the supervisor about this injustice, and if that does not get satisfaction, either litigate or file a complaint with a governmental agency like the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.

An individual employee’s action may bring equity for her, but unless her case evolves to a class action, her sisters in the same company, who may be in the same situation will not benefit from her victory.

I am a member of the Seafarers International Union, and if one is an Able Bodied Seafarer, whether one is a man or woman, an African American, Hispanic, Arab, or Caucasian, we all will make the same wages for the same work.

What makes the executives at US-flagged shipping companies different from the executives that I described above? Are they more moral? Are they more altruistic or magnanimous? Not really. The difference is the collective bargaining agreement between the company and the mariners’ union that sets wages, work hours, overtime, and benefits for all workers covered under that classification.

With a collective bargaining agreement, the supervisor cannot play employees off by telling one that she or he makes more than another employee, and that is why they have to work harder, or longer, or be held to a higher standard.

Since compensation packages are considered confidential private information, the employee really does not know if he or she does make more, and whether it is 10¢ or $10.

As a Catholic priest, we have such a wonderful treasure, Catholic Social Teachings. These teachings are 129 years old, and reflect on the moral values in the work world. Part of the CST covers collective bargaining.

In 1891, Pope Leo XIII first raised the issue of a just employment bargaining between the worker and the employer in the encyclical Rerum Novarum:

“45. Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accept harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice.”

In 2005, Pope Benedict continued the CST tradition that had been promoted by his predecessors when he expressed concern over attacks on collective bargaining in his encyclical Caritas in Varitate:

“25. Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labour unions. Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome.”

In 1986, the United States Catholic Bishops picked up this theme of collective bargaining and applied it to their own religious institutions in their pastoral letter Economic Justice for all:

“All church institutions must also fully recognize the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively with the institution through whatever association or organization they freely choose. In the light of new creative models of collaboration between labor and management described earlier in this letter, we challenge our church institutions to adopt new fruitful modes of cooperation.”

On this Labor Day, I wish to thank all our unions for providing collective bargaining agreements for their members. The agreements guarantee equity in pay and benefits. If we had more collective bargaining agreements, we would have greater economic equity in the workplace.

Gaudium et Spes Labor Report 2020: 600+ Catholic Institutions with Unions

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If you add up all the Churches, schools, hospitals, universities, cemeteries, publications and other institutions, the Catholic Church employs more than one million American workers! That’s a lot of opportunities to evangelize the world by treating our employees in accordance with Catholic Social Teaching — or to scandalize the faithful by failing to do so.

Just in time for Labor Day, the Catholic Labor Network likes to celebrate those institutions that have demonstrated their CST commitment by bargaining with the union chosen by their employees. In our 2020 Gaudium et Spes Labor Report you will find more than 600 such Catholic institutions sorted by sector, state and Diocese. Check out yours and see what you find!

Gaudium et Spes Labor Report 2020: Catholic Institutions with Employee Unions

CLN Hosts First Annual Online Labor Day Mass: Sept 7, 2pm ET

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                    Bishop John Stowe, OFM

When Kentucky legislators proposed anti-union “right to work” legislation in 2017, Bishop John Stowe of Lexington Diocese spoke out boldly in defense of Catholic Social Teaching on unions and worker justice. Please join us Monday September 7 at 2pm ET for the Catholic Labor Network’s first annual livestreamed Labor Day Mass, celebrated by Bishop Stowe!

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Tuesday, August 11: Day of Prayer and Fasting for Workers Impacted by the Pandemic

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Today some thirty million American workers displaced from their jobs by the pandemic have lost their lifelines, because the supplemental unemployment benefits provided by the CARES Act have expired and most have lost their employer-paid health care. Millions of other workers in hospitals and nursing homes, supermarkets and meatpacking plants, buses and metro trains – to name a few – continue to work while exposed to infection, but OSHA has failed to issue a workplace standard protecting them. The U.S. Senate has before it legislative proposals that would help both groups, but has refused to act, citing fears that the unemployment benefits will discourage workers from returning to low-wage jobs.

This is a matter of life and death for tens of millions of workers, and we who worship a God who cares for “the least of these brothers and sisters” cannot stand by.

Next Tuesday, Aug. 11, will see a national day of action calling on legislators to act on these critical needs. The Catholic Labor Network invites our members to join in this effort with a day of prayer and fasting. The fast, a spiritual discipline from our tradition, will never be more appropriate than in a time when millions face hunger due to extended pandemic unemployment – these men and women are abstaining from work to protect us all from a deadly coronavirus. Let us too come together in a day of prayer, a prayer calling on legislators to remember their obligations to our nation’s working people in need and act quickly to provide economic security for the displaced and workplace safety for those exposed on the job.

We also invite you to join us for a 30-minute Virtual Prayer Service at 3pm ET. We will come together to pray for the welfare of these workers and for wisdom and compassion from our elected representatives.

CLICK TO REGISTER for the virtual prayer service.

As OSHA dithers, Virginia and DC move to protect workers from Covid

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Workers in supermarkets, transit systems, farms and especially health care facilities continue to serve under high risk of exposure to covid infection, yet OSHA refuses to issue a workplace safety and health standard to protect workers on the job. Thanks to dedicated coalitions in Virginia and Washington DC, however, some state and local authorities are stepping up to the plate. Responding to appeals from the Virginia AFL-CIO and the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy (and many others, including the Catholic Labor Network), on July 15 the Virginia Safety and Health Codes Board adopted an emergency temporary standard setting out what employers must do to protect employees from covid infection on the job. Doris Crouse-Mays, President of the Virginia AFL-CIO stated, “Finally, Virginia has demonstrated that it values workers. We now have standards that will protect workers, families, and communities by keeping them as safe as possible during this unprecedented time.”

For the Catholic Labor Network, the fight now shifts to the District of Columbia, where Council Member Elissa Sliverman has introduced the Protecting Businesses and Workers from Covid-19 Emergency Amendment Act of 2020. We are part of a coalition of labor and community organizations urging the DC Council to adopt the legislation and ensure safer working conditions for those employed in the District.

Catholic Labor Network Statement on Police Unions and Racism

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Recent events have reminded all of the deep wounds of racism that continue to afflict the United States, and of the particular problem of racist violence in our systems of policing and criminal justice. The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police has inspired wide-ranging discussions of this issue and possible remedies, including discussion of the role of police unions — whether unions of police officers contribute to the problem by protecting those who abuse their authority.

The Catholic Labor Network has struggled with this question and considered it in light of Catholic Social Teaching. Pope Leo XIII’s groundbreaking social encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) established the right of workers to organize in unions as a basic element of Catholic social doctrine in the modern age. Eight decades later, reflecting on Rerum Novarum, Pope Paul VI elaborated on the role of unions in society in his encyclical, Octogesima Adveniens (1971), observing that “The important role of union organizations must be admitted: their object is the representation of the various categories of workers, their lawful collaboration in the economic advance of society, and the development of the sense of their responsibility for the realization of the common good.” (14).

Informed by these two points — the right of workers to organize in unions, and the obligation of unions (like other associations) to serve the common good — the Catholic Labor Network concludes that 1) law enforcement personnel, like other workers, have a natural right to form unions and associations, but 2) these unions are obligated to go beyond serving their members and to actively participate in the fight to root out the evil of racism, especially in the criminal justice system and within their own ranks.

Some commentators have been quick to invoke the killing of Mr. Floyd to challenge the right of police to organize in unions at all, arguing that collectively bargained disciplinary procedures make it difficult to fire problem employees. However, the Catholic Labor Network notes that some of the most prominent advocates of this viewpoint have long sought to weaken or eliminate unions for other categories of public employees as well (e.g. Daniel DeSalvo, “Tired of Bad Cops? First, Look at Their Labor Unions”, Washington Post, 6/3/2020). The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World instructs us that “Among the basic rights of the human person is to be numbered the right of freely founding unions for working people,” (Gaudium et Spes 68) and that indeed Pope St John Paul II has called labor unions “an indispensable element of social life” (Laborem Exercens, 20) in the modern era. The right of workers, including police department personnel, to form unions is sacred and inviolable. Replacing unilateral management fiat with a just grievance procedure is one of the goods that all workers seek when they organize.

Nevertheless, along with that right comes a duty to serve the common good. In a world where all of us are wounded by sin, we face a perpetual temptation to use our powers for selfish ends. This is a special challenge for those granted authority over others. We have witnessed with sorrow how a clerical culture, protective of its members at the expense of those the Church is commissioned to serve, enabled the scandal of clerical sexual abuse to fester for decades. In a similar way, we have seen how many police unions have come to occupy a role where they protect officers who abuse their authority. This has come spectacularly to light in the role and activities of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis under its current leadership. Significant structural racism plays a key and harmful role in our current policing practices. Rather than justifying this, police unions have an obligation to listen to the voices of the community and take up the fight against racism in our system of policing.

Some voices in the labor movement have called upon the AFL-CIO and its state labor federations to expel all affiliated police unions from their ranks. This is a legitimate position, many of whose advocates rightly contend that the labor movement must actively commit itself to antiracism. The Catholic Labor Network prefers the historic approach of the labor movement to addressing unions whose actions have reflected poorly on the broader movement: when unions have been found to be compromised by organized crime, for example, their participation in labor bodies was made contingent on reforms. The Catholic Labor Network believes instead that the labor movement should remain open to those police labor organizations that commit to working to end systemic racism in policing and who are willing to join in solidarity with broader efforts to move from mass incarceration toward greater amelioration of the needs of the communities of color. We call upon our brothers and sisters in the police unions to join a dialogue with the community and human services agencies on the future of policing and public order and to envision a future worthy of the call we have received.

 

CLN ONLINE EVENT! Workers Speak Out: Public Services and the Pandemic

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The pandemic’s economic freeze has cut deep into city, county and state revenues. Unless the federal government acts to fill this gap, Fall will see massive layoffs among state and local government employees and major public service cuts. The workers who staff our clinics, provide our drinking water and haul our trash are at risk of furloughs and layoffs.

As the US Senate weighs its response to this crisis, the Catholic Labor Network invites you to join us for Workers Speak Out: Public Services and the Pandemic. You’ll hear from some of the frontline workers whose lives and work remain in the balance, and their union, explaining what you can do to help.

Speakers to include:

  • Phil Cisneros, Office of the Cook County Public Guardian
  • Stephen Mittons, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services
  • Becky Levine, AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees)
  • Clayton Sinyai, Catholic Labor Network

3pm ET

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

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How can we reconcile religious freedom and the rights of workers at Catholic institutions?

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In an important legal decision at the intersection of worker rights and religious freedom, the Supreme Court has ruled that Catholic school teachers are not protected from employment discrimination due to age or disability, because the first amendment forbids the US government from interfering in religious institutions.

The decision addressed two cases at different schools in the Los Angeles area. The late Kristen Biel, a teacher at St. James School was let go after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Agnes Morrissey-Berru, a teacher at Our Lady of Guadalupe School, sued for age discrimination after her contract was not renewed. A 7-2 majority of the court ruled that both teachers qualified for the “ministerial exemption” from discrimination laws because religious instruction is among their duties.

These are difficult cases. The USCCB understandably hailed the ruling as a vindication of religious freedom principles, but it’s unfortunate their statement didn’t acknowledge the rights of workers in any fashion at all. The legal right of Catholic institutions to discriminate according to age or disability may be an undesired consequence of a zealous defense of religious freedom, but it should temper our celebration of the outcome. Although I can’t speak to the merits of either teacher’s claim, all of us should be wary of a system that makes the employer judge in his own cause, as this decision does.

The Bishop’s 1986 Pastoral Letter Economic Justice for All includes a section on “The Church as Economic Actor” with specific reference to the Church’s practices as an employer. The Bishops observe that “All the moral principles that govern the just operation of any economic endeavor apply to the Church and its agencies and institutions; indeed the Church should be exemplary [347].”

The current situation is far from exemplary. The Bishops state that Church employees have the right to organize in unions [353], but employers such as St. Xavier University in Chicago bust faculty unions at will. The Bishops oppose discrimination in employment, but those with a claim of discrimination have no place to turn for a fair hearing. If we are to reconcile our religious freedom with our social doctrine, it is beyond time for the Church to establish a bill of rights for employees of Catholic institutions and a forum where those whose rights have been violated can press their claims.