Adrienne Alexander, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in Illinois, serves as Vice President of the Catholic Labor Network. Adrienne’s union activism and Catholic faith share a thread in her family’s history as both are a source of pride and dignity for her family. Her great-grandfather […]
Congratulations to our friends at the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) for their successful push to reopen Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, outside Chicago. This intriguing organization does leadership development training and community organizing rooted in a Catholic model. Based in Chicago’s blue-collar Western suburbs, CSPL offers parish-based training for community activists. CSPL […]
For more than a century, America’s building trades unions have prepared workers for skilled, family-supporting jobs in the construction industry. Today these unions are preparing for a wave of retirements, and are recruiting a new generation of workers through a pre-apprenticeship program aimed at diversifying their ranks. In Nashville, the Catholic Labor Network has been […]
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 Union. Fr. Sinclair grew up in Beaumont and knew from about the 4th grade that he wanted to be a priest and entered the seminary immediately after high […]
Did you know that St. Joseph is the patron saint of all who labor – and that the Church celebrates this holiday on May 1? Join us this Friday, May 1, at 5pm ET for a Happy Hour as Catholic Labor Network Executive Director Clayton Sinyai (LiUNA) recounts the story of May 1 as the […]
COVID has shined a harsh light on worker health and safety in the United States: nurses, supermarket clerks, warehouse workers and bus drivers who continue to work through the pandemic continue to face infection, illness and death as they labor to meet the needs of the rest of us. But even in a good year, […]
A guest contribution from Rosemary Sokas, MD, MOH As Catholics, we believe that working is a sacred act of co-creation. We believe in the intrinsic dignity of the person performing work. The covid-19 pandemic circles the globe like a crown of thorns, amplifying the need to put our beliefs into action. First, it sickens and […]
The Covid-19 epidemic has impacted everyone in the United States in some way or another, but its impact on many categories of workers has been especially brutal. Some sectors, such as air transportation, hotels and restaurants, are virtually shut down, leaving workers without a paycheck. Meanwhile, workers employed in mass transit, grocery stores and especially […]
I’ve received a lot of messages recently from furloughed employees of Catholic institutions asking if they are eligible for Unemployment Compensation. This is a more complicated question than it should be, but if you are furloughed because of the pandemic the answer is yes. My correspondents are confused because they have suddenly learned that their […]
A remarkable story in the Buffalo News caught my eye a couple of weeks back, featuring the selfless union workforce of the city’s Catholic Health System hospitals. When Catholic Health asked employees last week if they would volunteer to work with Covid-19 patients, 150 employees quickly said yes. That number jumped to 500 on Friday […]