Few U.S. workers face more challenging circumstances than farmworkers. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), passed in 1935 to guarantee workers the right to organize and bargain collectively without retaliation, excluded agricultural workers from its coverage – so these workers enjoy no protection from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) if disciplined or fired for […]
In the summer, Ascension Health Care announced plans to close the Northeast DC’s Providence Hospital, leaving a single ER serving the city’s largely African-American eastern wards. National Nurses United and the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees organized a community meeting at the Plymouth Congregational Church in September so that residents could air […]
In a dramatic win for workers’ rights, Missouri voters rejected a law aimed at crippling labor unions by a lopsided 2-1 margin in an August referendum. Though called “right-to-work” by supporters, these laws do not in fact create a right to a job. Rather, they create a “right” to be a free rider, to enjoy […]
“The plight of our brothers and sisters who work hard but struggle to make ends meet calls us all to reflect in a special way this Labor Day.” So begins Just Wages and Human Flourishing, the Bishops’ annual Labor Day Statement. Bishop Dewane of Venice, who chairs the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human […]
This July, Fordham adjunct faculty and other non-tenure track instructors ratified a landmark first contract. SEIU Local 200, which represents about 800 instructors, secured a three-year deal that giving most adjuncts between $7,000 and $8,000 per course by the end of the contract. Both the administration and the union expressed pride in the resulting contract, […]
BONUS CONTENT: Where’s Mark Janus Now? This June the Supreme Court dealt unions a severe blow in 5-4 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, making the entire public sector “right-to-work.” The decision that Illinois social worker Mark Janus had a “right” to be a free rider, enjoying the wages and benefits of a union contract without […]
What’s Past Is Prologue? by Bill Droel Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati was the setting for a recent conference about young adult Catholics. It was a positive conference because no one complained about bishops, priests or Vatican policy. And no one faulted young adults for disaffection from worship or for their lifestyle. By design, […]
5-4 court majority ignores appeals from USCCB, unions in Janus v AFSCME In a dramatic decision announced June 27, a narrow supreme court majority overturned decades of law and found that workers represented by public sector unions have a new constitutional right – the right not to pay union dues or fees.
When the College Theology Society gathered for its annual convention at Minnesota’s St. Catherine University, the role of adjunct and contingent faculty was on the agenda. A plenary session on “The Crisis of Contingent Faculty in U.S. Higher Education” looked at how universities have increasingly shifted teaching responsibilities away from career employees to “adjuncts” who […]
Catholic institutions, ranging from vast hospital chains to small parochial schools, employ approximately one million workers in the United States. When such institutions recognize and bargain with unions representing their employees, they model the principles of Catholic Social Teaching for lay business leaders and workers and alike. These institutions are a true source of Joy […]