Since Pope Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum in 1891, the Church has endorsed the right of workers to form trade unions and bargain collectively. In their 1986 Pastoral letter on the economy, Economic Justice for All, the US Bishops were explicit in stating that those employed by Catholic institutions, including Catholic schools, enjoy the right […]
During the last week of February, a delegation of members of the Catholic Labor Network, non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty from Loyola Marymount University, LMU students, and partners from Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) gathered in prayerful solidarity to deliver a printed copy of the petition to the Jesuit leadership at LMU. They were […]
The Catholic Labor Network responds to St. John’s University’s decision to end collective bargaining, reaffirming the dignity of workers and the right to organize.
It’s a sad reality that too often Catholic institutions deny their employees their just rights, and do so with impunity because our cherished First Amendment freedoms prevent the federal government from sanctioning them. We hear about this most often when Catholic schoolteachers or adjunct faculty seek to organize in unions. Employees of Catholic hospitals enjoy […]
For decades, St John’s University in New York City stood as an almost unique example of a private sector university whose tenured faculty enjoyed collective bargaining rights. Today it appears that this shining example of labor relations on the model of Catholic Social Teaching is in danger, and the consequences could threaten the union rights […]
On December 11, a bipartisan majority of House members voted to approve the Protect America’s Workforce Act, a bill that would restore the union rights of hundreds of thousands of federal government employees. The vote was 231-195, with 20 Republicans joining all the House Democrats to pass the legislation. The bill was necessary because in […]
In an election held December 9th and 10th, registered nurses at St. Joseph Health in Texas’s Brazos Valley voted to join National Nurses United. The union reports that it will now represent “some 750 registered nurses who are part of St. Joseph Health Regional, with hospitals in Bryan and College Station, and three critical access […]
Low wages. Grievous working conditions. Few workers in the United States face greater exploitation than migrant farm workers. In the 1970s, Cesar Chavez, motivated by his deep Catholic faith and his commitment to trade unionism, led the United Farm Workers in multiple organizing campaigns in California supported by consumer boycotts. Many Catholic social justice activists […]
On Tuesday December 9, 2025, hundreds of Loyola Marymount University non-tenured faculty and their supporters rallied to demand that the university resume collective bargaining with their chosen union, SEIU Local 721. For more than a century, Catholic Social Teaching has expressly held that workers have the right to organize in unions and bargain collectively. That’s […]
The USCCB Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth coordinated a consultation for a new national pastoral document on the laity. The Catholic Labor Network hosted three synodal listening sessions in October, 2025. This is a summary of what CLN submitted to the USCCB. Across all consultations, participants discerned a common movement of the […]