The terrible COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting the lives of Americans across the nation, but falling with special severity on low-income workers. According to the 2018 Federal Reserve Board Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making, four in ten Americans lack the savings to cover an unexpected $400 expense – yet millions of these workers stand […]
Next Step: National Paid Sick Leave Policy Legislators have proposed a growing number of legislative initiatives in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, many of them good. In this fast-moving situation, the Catholic Labor Network is mailing a special appeal to Catholic US Senators and Representatives enunciating two basic principles. First, that workers — especially low-income […]
On January 21, several labor unions representing workers in low-wage occupations – notably Northern Virginia’s SEIU Local 32BJ, representing janitors, and UNITE HERE Local 25, representing hotel workers – organized busloads of union workers to travel to the state capital in Richmond to visit their legislators. Accompanying them was Father Bob Cilinski, Chair of the […]
The construction industry has a problem, and the problem is wage theft. At this year’s Catholic Labor Network annual meeting – held at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in January — CLN field organizer Ernesto Galeas reported on seven months of visiting construction sites in Washington DC and Maryland, and his findings were grim. Galeas, […]
The Catholic Labor Network annual meeting, held Saturday January 25 in conjunction with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, featured some great panelists and discussions. And this year, for the first time, we can share some of them with you! On our YouTube channel, you can check out the addresses […]
Clergy and activists from Arlington, Richmond join Virginia workers on lobby day The federal minimum wage remains mired at $7.25 per hour – less than $15,000 per year for a full-time worker. That’s not a living wage in any part of the country, and certainly not in fast-growing Virginia. That’s why workers are calling on […]
Jesus Salazar and Tenae Stover talk about job, union activities; John Carr offers CST commentary Labor unions are foundational institutions in modern Catholic Social Teaching on the economy and society, and in his 2009 letter Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI told us that Catholic teaching regarding unions must be honored today “even more than […]
Why Unions? Area Workers Speak Out Workers and the Church in the Washington DC Area Clayton Sinyai, Catholic Labor Network Tenae Stover, LSG Sky Chefs Cook at National Airport and UNITE HERE Local 23 Bargaining Committee Member Jesus Salazar, EMI Custodial Services and SEIU Local 32BJ Contract Action Team John Carr, Georgetown Initiative on […]
The construction sector was the original “gig economy” where every job was temporary, lasting the duration of a building project. But construction unions figured out more than a century ago how turn these temporary jobs into family-supporting careers. Unions and contractors agreed to pool resources to train and maintain a skilled workforce, dispatched on request […]
Regular readers of this newsletter know that across the country, airline food service workers – who are among the lowest paid workers in the airline industry – have organized in unions and are campaigning for a living wage and affordable health care. A few weeks ago, Fr. Gene Pocernich of the Association of US Catholic […]