The Catholic - Labor Network

Documents & Articles which concern Catholic and Labor Issues Papal Social Encyclicals Other Catholic Social Teachings Msgr. George Higgins Catholic Worker Connection General Articles of Interest  Home Page  The Catholic-Labor Network E-Mail List  The Catholic-Labor Network is dependent on interested persons sharing their activities struggles, victories and prayers with other like minded men and women of faith. We strongly invite all those who visit this page, and who share  a common interest in issues effecting the Catholic Church and the Labor Movement to subscribe.  Occasionally, notices will be sent when this page is updated.  When important events happen, we will pass on the information through the e-mail list, and most of all, the e-mail list is a means by which we can pray and support each other. Some Catholic and Labor Links The Holy See  The National Conference of Catholic Bishops  Human Rights for Workers  The Catholic Social Doctrine Page  The Houston Catholic Worker  Catholic Online  National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice  The Seamless Garment Network  The International Labour Organization  The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations  The International Transport Workers Federation Union Web

The Ongoing Debate About Labor's Decline Msgr. George G. Higgins June 7, 1999  It is no secret that the American labor movement has been in sharp decline since the 1960s. Although it is beginning to show signs of a comeback, it is still in a state of serious crisis.  I have complained more than once in this column that the silence of the conservative and neoconservative communities about this crisis has been thunderous. Many of my conservative and neoconservative interlocutors politely -- sometimes condescendingly -- have told me, in effect, that this is much ado about nothing.  Be that as it may, when they do address the issue seriously, they tend to argue, sometimes in so many words, that while unions may have been a constructive force in earlier generations, they have outlived their usefulness and that, in any event, their current decline is largely of their own making.  In recent years scores of scholarly books and monographs have tried to explain the decline of the labor movement. While they differ in their diagnoses and prescriptions, they almost unanimously agree on one thing, namely, that employer opposition is a major cause of labor's decline since the '60s.  Catholic social teaching is decidedly countercultural in this respect. It holds that unions are not only legitimate but indispensable, especially in modern industrial societies. In developing this point, the pastoral letter of the U.S. bishops on Catholic social teaching and the U.S. economy noted that "the church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions. This is a specific application of the more general right to associate.... Therefore we firmly oppose organized efforts, such as those regrettably now seen in (the United States), to break existing unions and prevent workers from organizing.''  The logic behind this position is that in modern life, the structure of society is such that the individual must ordinarily act through organized groups to secure his or her rights. So great is the power of the civil state and the size of industry that the unorganized worker is left without an effective voice in matters of vital concern.  Only through the existence of organized buffer groups close enough to the individual to be held responsible to him, but powerful enough to be recognized by government and industry, can we hope to safeguard the ordinary worker from the excesses of entrenched power. He cannot normally achieve his rights acting merely as an individual.  There is nothing new about this argument. It is a standard part of traditional Catholic social teaching. But, unless I am badly mistaken, it goes against the grain of conservative and neoconservative thinking in the United States.        Papal Social Encyclicals   Other Catholic Social Teachings General Articles of Interest  Catholic Worker Connection Msgr. George Higgins  Home Page E-Mail: Fr. Sinclair Oubre