Catholic Labor Network Card Checks bring Union Representation

In the United States, unions are certified when a majority of workers demonstrates support for union representation. Usually this is done through a hotly-contested election sponsored by the National Labor Relations Board, but some employers who are respectful of workers’ rights agree instead to a simpler “card check” by a third party. The third party receives a list of employees from the employer and a stack of signed union authorization cards from the union, then checks to make sure a majority of the workers on the list have submitted cards expressing their intent to join. The Catholic Labor Network periodically gets requests for a priest to serve as a neutral third party arbitrator and conduct a card check. In recent months, we have received a series of these requests.

Our spiritual moderator Fr. Sinclair Oubre conducted two of the card checks. First, in July, 53 employees of a solar energy nonprofit voted to join their local union. Through another card check process, another 80 gas utility workers in New Orleans became members of their local union.

Most interestingly, CLN trained a priest friend in Georgia in the card check process and he willingly assisted with his first ever card-check to create an independent staff union at their international legacy union. Not only was the union declared, CLN gained a new labor priest who is eager to uphold the dignity of work in concrete ways moving forward.