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 […]
Construction is a dangerous industry. Nearly one thousand construction workers lose their lives each year in workplace injuries. That’s why for ten years Father Patrick Jordan (chaplain to the New York building trades, and a Catholic Labor Network member) has celebrated an annual Memorial Mass for a congregation of construction workers in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. […]
Also: Loyola University Chicago, Adjuncts Settle First Contract For some time, it has looked like the Georgetown University administration and its graduate student teaching and research assistants were headed for a legal showdown at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The students said they were university employees and wanted to vote on union representation in […]
Dignity Health – the hospital group formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West – has been preparing for a merger with another major Catholic healthcare system, Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI). Dignity is largely union; CHI isn’t. SEIU-UHW, representing about 15,000 health techs and support personnel at Dignity, has been pressing Dignity for a contract in order […]
If there is a signal collaboration between Church and labor in the past half-century it is their shared advocacy for America’s migrant farmworkers. And if there is a single figure who symbolized the collaboration between Church and labor, it is Cesar Chavez, leader of the United Farmworkers. Chavez combined his Catholic faith with his union […]
In an interesting March story, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano published a thoughtful article on the work of women religious in the church. “The (almost) free work of sisters” posed difficult questions about the wages, working conditions and respect given those who perform so much of the church’s labor. Reporter Marie-Lucile Kubacki interviewed some of […]
This March marked the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ 2013 election. The Holy Father has won the respect and affection of Catholics and non-Catholics alike with his message of love, his humble example, and not least, his advocacy for social justice. Pope Francis has inspired our Church to recommit ourselves to the promise of the […]
On February 26 oral arguments began in Janus v AFSCME, the most important Supreme Court case in decades for American labor unions. A majority of employees in the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services have voted for union representation by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the AFSCME contract […]
Last month we reported in this space how Georgetown’s response to research and teaching assistants seeking union representative had generated a crisis in campus labor relations. Georgetown’s much-admired Just Employment Policy provides for living wages for campus employees and defends all workers’ right to organize, as established in Catholic Social Teaching. But when the graduate […]