On May 1, 2020 — the Feast of St Joseph the Worker — Fr. Sinclair Oubre presented A Personal & Brief History of the Founding of the Catholic Labor Network to a national audience via Zoom. In response to requests by listeners, here is the text of his address: The personal roots of the […]
The Catholic Labor Network observed Workers’ Memorial Day on April 28, 2020 with a Mass remembering the thousands of workers who die on the job each year — including, this year, so many felled by covid-19. Fr. Sinclair Oubre (Seafarers) was our celebrant, while Fr. Clete Kiley (UNITE HERE) offered the homily. You can view […]
Labor historian Kim Baker submits his reflections fifty years after the untimely death of Walter Reuther, pioneering leader of the United Auto Workers (UAW). A half-century ago, on May 9, 1970, America lost one of its greatest heroes, United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther, in the crash of a plane whose engine, according to the […]
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 […]