The recent accident in the Suez canal drew attention to an industry most people don’t think much about – the shipping industry. Even though some 90% of the world’s products and commodities arrive by sea, and tens of thousands of Americans are employed on board a variety of oceangoing and inland vessels, few of us […]
What a workplace is like when you don’t have a union Why do workers need unions? Ask the faculty at John Carroll University. According to Inside Higher Ed, “John Carroll now says it can fire individual tenured faculty members without cause in cases of ‘budgetary hardship.’” Faculty members object that this obviates tenure altogether; after […]
This month marks the 130th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, the foundational text of modern Catholic Social Teaching. After careful study of the industrial era economy and its impact on workers, in light of the Good News, Pope Leo XIII shared his new encyclical letter with the world on May 15, 1891. The document made the […]
Governments exist to serve the common good, not to make a profit. Our federal government can serve the common good by passing legislation, such as increasing the minimum wage, but can also do so by acting as a model employer. That’s what President Joe Biden accomplished the other day with an executive order: henceforth, firms […]
700,000 Hospitality workers throughout the state of California have just won the right to return to work by seniority following massive pandemic layoffs! With Gov. Newsom’s signature on SB 93 (previously AB 3216), hospitality workers can now rest assured that owners won’t be permitted to take advantage of the pandemic by replacing longtime loyal employees […]
In an exhaustively-researched report released Wednesday morning, the Catholic Labor Network documented extensive wage theft at Washington DC’s largest construction sites. For most of one year, CLN field representative Ernesto Galeas visited major DC construction sites and interviewed 79 workers from various construction trades. Analyzing the data we found that: Eight workers in the sample […]
Tobacco farm workers face sub-minimum wages, human trafficking, pesticide poisoning, inadequate housing, nicotine poisoning, COVID, unscrupulous labor contractors, and laws that make it difficult to form unions. For years, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) has organized among these farm workers, but gains in one location are often undermined by losses in another.
On March 31, President Joe Biden announced his American Jobs Plan from the Carpenters’ union training center in Pittsburgh, PA, and it wasn’t by accident. The president’s $2 trillion proposed infrastructure build-out is informed by two assumptions: first, that investing in modernizing America’s roads, bridges, and utilities will pay off in economic growth and public […]
The Catholic Labor Network marked March 31, Cesar Chavez’s Birthday, with a program on the state of the farm labor movement. The highlight was a presentation by Julie Taylor, leader of the National Farm Worker Ministry (NFWM), the interfaith solidarity organization that accompanies farm labor organizations in their campaigns and struggles. (CLN is a member […]
“Right to Work” laws don’t give anyone the right to a job – they weaken unions by giving workers the “right” to opt out of paying dues when a majority of their co-workers have voted for union representation and are paying their fair share. New Hampshire legislators are considering SB61, a “right to work” law, […]