Both the Church and the US labor movement have expressed concern that today’s global economy and trade relationships allow the owners of capital to escape obligations to workers and the poor. So the Catholic Labor Network is pleased to learn that — under pressure from the AFL-CIO — the renegotiation of NAFTA has yielded new […]
Fr. Sinclair Oubre, JCL The Archdiocese of Washington has recognized the Catholic Labor Network as an Association of the Faithful under Church law. So, what does that mean? The Code of Canon Law, promulgated in 1983, was the product of the document of Vatican II. The theology contained in the concilliar documents like the Lumen […]
Senator Marco Rubio made quite an impression this month with a speech at Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business – one that questioned the wisdom of the market and invoked Catholic Social Teaching as a corrective. “On the political right, where I come from,” he explained, “we’ve become defenders of the right of […]
Across the country, workers picket airports calling for living wage and affordable health care Some 20,000 workers across the United States toil in kitchens preparing food and beverages for the nation’s major airlines, but fewer than 5% can afford the family health care insurance offered by their employers. That’s one reason workers rallied and picketed […]
In many cities in the United States, the building trades unions are experiencing an acute shortage of candidates, particularly women and minorities, for their apprenticeship schools. For low-income workers, entering a union apprenticeship program can be life changing for them and their family. These trades offer excellent wages, healthcare, retirement and most importantly a stable […]
January 25-28, 2020 Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington DC Every year, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops invites Catholic social ministry leaders and social justice activists from across the country to Washington DC for several days of fellowship, learning, prayer, and activism – and the Catholic Labor Network, as a partner in the Catholic Social Ministry […]
In 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued the Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum, endorsing the right of workers to organize in unions to secure just wages under modern economic conditions. Citing the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, he noted that “Two are better than one: They get a good wage for their toil…. Where one alone may be overcome, […]
Guest Column by Aimee Shelide Mayer When I began my role as a liaison for the Catholic Labor Network in Nashville, I did not know about the newly-formed Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt. After meeting a Divinity School student at a Gamaliel-affiliated community task force on economic inequality, I got connected to […]
This summer nurses at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, PA organized to seek collective bargaining. This might have been an opportunity for bearing witness to Catholic Social Teaching: Church teaching on the right of workers to organize is clear and consistent, and in their 1986 Pastoral letter Economic Justice for All our nation’s bishops […]
American workers have certain legal protections, such as the minimum wage, the right to overtime pay, and the right to organize in unions – plus their employers must make social security contributions on their behalf, and purchase workers’ compensation insurance to protect them in case of injury. The self-employed lack all of these rights. “Gig […]