It began five years ago in Buffalo, New York and would become the nation’s most audacious contemporary union organizing campaign: Starbucks baristas demanded a voice at work. Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) swept from one store to the next, despite fierce management opposition. To date more than 12,000 Starbucks employees at nearly 700 stores have voted […]
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 […]
After a grueling three-year battle with Ascension health care, the nurses of Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland won their first contract on September 19, 2026. The Nurses spent much of 2023 enduring a harsh anti-union campaign from hospital management. Maryland members of the Catholic Labor Network stood with them and in November 2023 […]
For more than two decades, America’s labor unions and the Church have collaborated to promote justice for immigrant workers. This work has become more urgent in the past year, as ICE has scaled up its efforts at mass deportations – a process that has too often ended in the death of our immigrant brothers and […]
When workers at a hospital, university, or school start talking about forming a union, many employers hire outside “experts” to squash the effort. An industry of “union avoidance” consultants and law firms, worth an estimated $1.7 billion a year in the United States, exists to serve them. These specialists, paid hundreds of dollars an hour, […]
In November, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is commemorating the 40th Anniversary of their landmark pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All. In it the Bishops taught, “All church institutions must fully recognize the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively with the institution through whatever association or organization they freely choose.” Unfortunately a […]
Labor Day Mass 2026 St. Matthew’s Cathedral Washington, D.C. Cardinal McElroy Homily It’s wonderful to be with you here today, and to welcome all our regular parishioners, at the Cathedral, and all those who are visiting here. And especially on this day, to welcome on this Labor Day weekend, representatives of workers and workers themselves, […]
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.