What is the Catholic Labor Network?

LEADERSHIP

Chuck Hendricks — President

Chuck Hendricks is Director of National Contracts and Internal Support for UNITEHERE International Union.  Chuck grew up in Baltimore and was 19 when his daughter was born. He struggled as a painter to make ends meet and decided to form a union. This gave him a passion for organizing and he became a full-time organizer with the Unite Here union. Chuck converted to Catholicism after attending mass at St. Ignatius in Chicago. He is a member of St. Vincent de Paul where he and his wife, Amber, are active in parish life.

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Hannah Petersen — Vice President

Hannah Petersen serves as an organizer with Unite HERE Local 11. Growing up in Los Angeles, CA participating in picket lines with her family was as much of a frequent activity as going to mass or getting ice cream. After learning that the dignity of work is as core a tradition as any other life issue in high school, she has been on a quest to understand and fight for how our work and workers cannot only be viewed as sacred and just but treated as so. Motivated by her coworkers at a hotel in Santa Monica and her neighbors in Peru as a Jesuit Volunteer, she continues to put her faith into action by inviting community and workers to the same table of transformative justice. Right now she is an active parishioner at Dolores Mission Church and resides at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker.

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Joseph McCartin – Treasurer/Financial Secretary

Joseph A McCartin is a Professor of History at Georgetown University and the Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Joe grew up in the Catholic working-class milieu of Troy, NY. His Catholic education led him to the Jesuit-run College of Holy Cross where he studied history under David J. O’Brien. His college studies led him to an interest in Catholic social teaching, the Catholic Worker movement, and the economic injustices in our society. After spending a short time doing community and labor organizing, he went to graduate school to study labor history. After teaching at the University of Rhode Island and the State University of New York at Geneseo, he returned to his roots in Jesuit higher education at Georgetown. In 2009, Joe formed the Kalmanovitz Initiative, the purpose of which is to direct student and faculty energy towards engaging with the problems workers face today and understanding the long history of those problems.

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Catherine Orr – Recording Secretary

Catherine Orr began actively working in ministry in 2011 and has been serving as the Program Coordinator for the Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors since September 2016.  Catherine previously sat on the Roundtable board from 2012-2016 when she was working as the diocesan director for the Department of Living Justice in the Diocese of Green Bay. Her family relocated to Youngstown, Ohio, in August 2016, and while living there, she worked in the Social Action Office for Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Cleveland. Two years later, her family returned to southeastern Wisconsin, and she began ministering as the Pastoral Associate at Lumen Christi Parish in Mequon, a position she continues to hold today.

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Fr. Sinclair Oubre – Spiritual Moderator

Fr. Sinclair K. Oubre, J.C.L. is the pastor of St. Francis of Assisi in Orange, TX in the Diocese of Beaumont and a member of the Seafarers International Union. Fr. Sinclair knew from about the 4th grade that he wanted to be a priest and entered the seminary immediately after high school. As a seminarian, he would spend summers on merchant marine ships running Cameron, Louisiana to Gulf drilling rigs on workboats, and between Texas and Florida. After priestly ordination, he joined the Seafarers Union, with which he continues to maintain his membership. For more than 30 years, Fr. Sinclair has been active in labor movement. During the famed Staley lockout in Decatur IL., He organized a conference of other labor priests, deacons, and laity which led to the formation of the Catholic Labor Network in 1996. He continues to serve as Spiritual Moderator for the group. He is also Chaplain to the Sabine Area Central Labor Council, Diocesan Director of the Apostleship of the Sea in the Diocese of Beaumont, and member of the United States Merchant Marine.

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Tammie DeVooght-Blaney – Board Member

Tammie serves as the executive secretary of the Higher Education Aids Board in Wisconsin and is a consultant for the International Association of Structural Movers. She has been a longtime advocate for both students and construction workers and has been involved in advocacy work at both the state and national levels. She recently ended a 13-year term on the board of trustees at Fox Valley Technical College.

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Vincent Alvarez – Board Member

Vincent Alvarez is President of the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest regional labor federation, bringing together 300 local unions and 1.3 million workers from every trade, occupation, public and private sectors of the New York City economy. A member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) since 1990, Vinny began his career with IBEW Local 3 in Flushing, New York, serving on numerous political campaigns, grassroots initiatives, and negotiating committees.  He is a Class C Director and Deputy Chair of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and serves on numerous other advisory boards. He is an active member of St. Mary, Mother of God parish and Knights of Columbus Council 6552 in Middletown, NJ.

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Fr. Ty Hullinger — Board Member

Bio forthcoming

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Dan Graff — Board Member

Dan is director of the Higgins Labor Program at the Institute for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also a professor of the practice in the Department of History. He founded and leads the Just Wage Research Lab and publishes regularly on contemporary labor questions. Dan is an active member of the Vatican-led research and education project, The Future of Work: Labour After Laudato Si, and he recently served on the response team of the Catholic Labor Network. The son of two union members (IOE and AFSCME), he is a former member of the UFCW and prior president of AFT #3220.

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Br. Ken Homan, SJ — Board Member

Br. Ken is a Jesuit from the Midwest Province. He recently completed his doctorate at Georgetown University where he studied the history of the Jesuits and the labor movement. Br. Ken will be joining the history faculty at Saint Louis University this fall. In addition to his academic work and writing, Br. Ken is involved with Ignatian Solidarity Network, Collaborative for Catholic Organizing, and frequently consults with a variety of unions.

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Tessa Pulaski — Board Member

Tessa Pulaski is a staff attorney at Southern Migrant Legal Services (SMLS) in Nashville, Tennessee.  Prior to coming to SMLS, Tessa served as the legal fellow at Farmworker Justice. During law school, she interned for Human Rights First’s Refugee Representation Program, the Center for Agricultural and Food Systems at Vermont Law School and Jesuit Refugee Services.

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Don Villar — Board Member

Don is the Secretary-Treasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labor and currently serves as the President of the CWA Illinois Unified Council, and is on the Campaign Cabinet of United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. During his nearly 25-year broadcast journalism career at WLS-TV (ABC) Chicago, Don won an Emmy Award for breaking news coverage. During tense bargaining with his employer, ABC, in 2007, he was inspired to go to Law School to be a better advocate for his coworkers and earned his Juris Doctorate at Loyola Law School.