Supreme Court decision opposed by Bishops, unions impacting labor movement

Last year, in a narrow 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court struck a critical blow against social solidarity in Janus v. AFSCME. The conventional practice of American labor relations holds that workers in a particular place of employment are a community with shared concerns, so they choose as a group whether they wish to form a union and engage in collective bargaining. If a majority of the workers vote yes, the union represents everyone in the shop in bargaining and grievance handling, and everyone may be required to pay dues for its support. If the workers become dissatisfied with their union, they may vote to dissolve it – again, by majority rule. The workers go in together, and out together. Besides fostering social solidarity, this method addresses a practical issue that economists call the “free rider” problem: the union contract benefits everyone in the shop, whether they pay dues or not.

Mark Janus didn’t much care about social solidarity or the desires of his co-workers. An Illinois state employee covered by a union contract, he argued that his personal freedom of speech was violated if he had to pay any fees for the union’s services and maintenance. Naturally, the AFL-CIO and AFSCME (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) opposed Janus. Moreover, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) filed an “amicus brief” reviewing the history of Catholic Social Teaching on labor unions and supporting the union. The brief even compared the case to the notorious Roe v. Wade ruling, in that a decision for the plaintiff would in essence rule Catholic teaching unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the Court sided with Janus, and overnight so-called “right-to-work” policies were imposed on every public workplace.

Predictably, the year saw the number of “free riders” multiply. AFSCME and other unions representing public employees vowed to redouble their efforts to persuade “free riders” to join the union, with some success. A recent Politico story indicates that these “internal organizing” efforts, combined with (member-authorized) dues increases, prevented expected financial losses for the affected unions, at least in the early running.

Nevertheless, the spirit of individualism — the spirit of the “free rider” — is abroad in the land, and we are the poorer for losing one of our remaining frameworks for social solidarity.

In May, Connecticut became the latest state to move toward making the minimum wage a living wage. Legislators passed a bill phasing in a $15 minimum wage by 2023. Commonweal editor Rand Richards Cooper, a Connecticut resident, reviews the debate and explains why this issue is important to Catholics in Why the Fight for Fifteen Must Succeed:

The Catholic Church has provided a strong voice in support of a living wage for well over a century. Since Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum (“Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor”), popes have called for wages sufficient to sustain working families… John Paul II asserted in Laborem exercens (On Human Work) (1981) that the fundamental soundness of any economic system—and indeed its legitimacy—depends in large part on its ability to provide a living wage. “[A] just wage is the concrete means of verifying the whole socioeconomic system and, in any case, of checking that it is functioning justly,” John Paul wrote. “It is not the only means of checking, but it is a particularly important one and in a sense the key means.”

In much of the United States, hotel and food service work is not just grueling but poorly paid. But thanks to decades of worker organizing through Culinary Workers Union Local 266 (an affiliate of UNITE HERE) tens of thousands of workers in hotels on the famous Strip and downtown enjoy family-supporting wages and benefits. The less fortunate workers employed in the ten Station casinos scattered around the city and suburbs are determined to secure the same for themselves and their families, and the Church is Las Vegas has been accompanying them.

In 2016, when Boulder Station Casino managers pressured employees to vote “no” on union membership, UNITE HERE’s Father Clete Kiley and a delegation of “labor priests” visited the workers to hear their story and express solidarity. The workers voted 2-1 to form a union with Culinary Workers. Today workers at four of the station casinos have voted for the union – although management is refusing to recognize the election results at two of them and using endless legal appeals to delay the process further.

While visiting Las Vegas for the Church-Labor Partnership Project (CLPP), I was able to meet with workers discussing organizing strategy at two additional Station Casinos. The workers told me that high premiums made the employer-offered health care unaffordable, relaying stories of ill family members or children who went without care. They also said that management was laying off food service employees, then expecting the survivors to pick up the work of their colleagues with no increase in pay.

Far larger than a typical local union, Local 226 (and its sister bartenders’ unit, Local 155) is a critical player both in the industry and the community. In a practice more familiar in the construction unions, Local 226 and its signatory employers operate a Culinary Academy where those interested in a career in hospitality can take preparatory classes – and current members who want to pursue a better-paying job in the hotels can get training for a move up. The center trains nearly 1,000 per year.

On May 8, the Diocese of Las Vegas hosted CLUE NV (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice – NV), an interfaith group of clergy supporting worker justice. Dave Love, who does faith outreach for Local 226, helped build strong turnout for the event, at which some Station Casino workers shared their stories with the assembled religious leaders.

Deacon Tim O’Callaghan, Social Action Ministry Director for the Diocese of Las Vegas, was very generous with his time during my visit, and connected me with both the impressive Diocesan Catholic Charities facility and a young Las Vegas workers’ center, Arriba. Along with running a homeless shelter and SROs, Catholic Charities works with both the homeless and with refugees in order to teach them work skills and habits and place them in jobs. (It didn’t surprise me to learn that they send a fair number of students to the Culinary Academy.) Arriba organizes among the hundreds of day laborers in the Las Vegas area, who too often fall victim of wage theft by unscrupulous employers, and is under review for a possible CCHD grant.

I rounded out my time in Las Vegas with a visit to the Southern Nevada AFL-CIO, whose leaders expressed enthusiasm for the CLPP and are looking forward to new initiatives in the area.

Please pray for the Station Casino workers and for the Church in Las Vegas!

There’s been a lot of news this Spring at the intersection of Church and Labor! Here are some highlights….

1. Georgetown Professor (and CLN Board Member) joined colleagues to write about the need for Bargaining for the Common Good. McCartin is promoting union bargaining that incorporates community member input in this CCHD-supported initiative. Check out Why the Labor Movement Has Failed—And How to Fix It in the Boston Review.

2. It’s been a bad month for Uber. My Kalmanovitz Initiative colleague Katie Wells released a report based on interviews with DC-area Uber drivers. The report found that the formula for driver reimbursement was so complicated that drivers couldn’t figure out what they were making; that many lived in poverty; and that many fell into a “debt trap” to lease or service their vehicles. Meanwhile, documents filed for Uber’s IPO shined light on the fact that even with an army underpaid drivers Uber is losing money and this is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. No wonder many Uber drivers went on strike on May 8. UPDATE: Life just got even harder for Uber drivers and other “gig workers.” The National Labor Relations Board has just decided that these workers are independent contractors rather than employees, meaning that they have no legally protected right to join a union.

3. At Mercy St. Vincent Hospital in Toledo, nearly two thousand nurses and techs represented by the UAW have been on strike for more than a week. The two sides are stuck on employee health care premiums and the amount of time hospital workers are expected to be available for “on-call” work assignments.

4. Once again, a bill is before the New York state legislature to give farmworkers the right to organize in unions and bargain collectively. Once again, the Church in New York is supporting the move. Will it finally happen?

5. Did they really say that? Ramp workers at Delta – one of America’s most stubbornly anti-union airlines — are getting ready to vote on union membership in the International Association of Machinists (IAM). Delta’s communication team has posted signs saying “Union dues cost around $700 a year. A new video game system with the latest hits sounds like fun. Put your money towards that instead of paying dues to the union.” Now I’m no HR expert, but I suspect that talking to your employees as if they were children may be counterproductive here.

6. Meanwhile in the Vatican, Pope Francis spoke out on unemployment for the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker (May 1)

7. Workers at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel voted 70-51 to form a union and join UNITE HERE Local 7. Marriott management kept union supporters under strict surveillance and held mandatory employee meetings to intimidate union supporters, but they held out. Church solidarity may have helped. The Catholic Labor Network organized a prayer service for the workers and addressed a letter to the hotel’s general manager expressing concern about the workers’ charges. More importantly, Auxiliary Bishop Denis Madden and Fr. Ty Hullinger visited with the workers to hear their stories.

8. Did they really do that? Volkswagen workers in Tennessee have filed for a union election. This would be a big deal; while the domestic auto plants of the West Coast, Midwest, and Northeast are union, none of the foreign transplants building Hondas, BMWs and Toyotas in the South are organized. Volkswagen was famous – until now – for its cooperative labor relations worldwide. Volkswagen is not just telling workers they shouldn’t form a union – they brought in Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to tell workers they shouldn’t join a union!

9. Did you know that one of the founders of the anarchist IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) was a rabble-rousing Catholic priest? To learn about the life and career of Fr Thomas Hagerty, check out Dean Detloff’s story in Commonweal.

10. Health care workers’ right to religious liberty means they cannot be required to provide services that violate their conscience, such as birth control or sterilization. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued the long-awaited rule on May 2.

April 28 is observed across much of the world as Workers’ Memorial Day. On this day we pause to remember the millions of workers who give their lives each day planting and harvesting our food, building our homes and cars, paving our roads and shipping our goods. In a terrible reminder of the hazards many endure at work, April 27 witnessed a horrible accident when a tower crane in Seattle was toppled by high winds. The two operators, who were building a new facility for Google, were killed, as were two bystanders.

More than 5,000 workers die from traumatic injuries on the job each year, and some 50,000 are killed by occupational diseases such as black lung, asbestosis and cancers caused by exposure to hazardous chemicals. And yet, the number of OSHA inspectors has remained flat even as our population and workforce grows, leaving each inspector responsible for protecting more workers. Today there is one OSHA inspector for every 79,000 workers. Put another way, at current staffing levels it would take OSHA 165 years simply to inspect each workplace once. And despite all, the White House is calling for cutting workplace safety and health regulations, not increasing them.

To learn more about workplace safety and health in the United States, check out the AFL-CIO Report Death on the Job: 2019.