Of all America’s workers, farmworkers are among the most poorly treated. That’s why the Catholic Labor Network, the Diocese of Columbus and Ohio Faith in Public Life organized a letter from faith leaders across the Buckeye state urging Wendy’s to clean up its supply chain by joining the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food Program.

For two decades the CIW has urged fast food chains to take responsibility for the workers who harvest their tomatoes by signing up for the Fair Food Program. One by one, giants like Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Burger King have joined the program, which ensures that they purchase tomatoes from growers who have signed on to a fair labor code of conduct and provides a supplement to workers’ wages. Only Wendy’s refuses to participate.

For that reason, the CIW has sponsored a boycott of Wendy’s and urges consumers to avoid the Ohio-based fast food chain. Each year in November, the CIW organizes a week of action targeting the hamburger giant.

For this year’s week of action, the Catholic Labor Network joined with several other organizations, including the Diocese of Columbus and the National Farm Worker Ministry, in collecting signatures from Ohio faith leaders on a letter to Wendy’s CEO Todd Penegor. The letter was delivered on Friday, Nov. 19. (CLICK HERE to read the letter and see the signatories.)

Google’s old corporate slogan was “Don’t be evil.” And in recent conversations with two Catholic Labor Network members – Stephen McMurty of the Alphabet Workers Union and Chuck Hendricks of UNITE HERE – who have firsthand knowledge, I’ve been pleased to learn that Google’s labor relations practices seem more enlightened than some other companies I’ve heard about. Unfortunately, in a time where union-busting has become ubiquitous, the bar that other companies have set is pretty low. Workers at every company need a union – even companies that proclaim “Do the Right Thing” as their current motto.

Direct employees of Alphabet, the parent company, often enjoy good salaries – recent college grads earning six digits are not unusual. They are less likely than workers at Amazon and other tech companies to complain of long hours and a high-pressure work environment. So why do they need a union? Even well-paid workers want a voice on the job – that’s why a number of them, including CLN member Stephen McMurtry, banded together in the Alphabet Workers Union, affiliated with the Communication Workers of America.

McMurtry says that workers at Google want, in short, to hold Google to its slogans – they want to know that they are creating socially useful products. In recent years, Google has seen workers organize a petition opposing Google contracts with ICE and the Customs and Border Patrol – and has engaged in unlawful retaliation against ringleaders. Others have objected to military contracts, both foreign and domestic. Joining together in a union would help protect workers engaged in such advocacy.

That doesn’t mean there are no economic issues in play at Google. Some employees who have relocated from the Bay Area are now facing pay cuts from a company saying that their pay packet assumed a Bay Area cost of living. And many workers on a Google campus are in fact temps or contractors, who generally are paid less, even when performing similar work.

McMurtry describes AWU as “open and experimental.” In most cases, a union rushes to a union election (or sometimes a “card check”) to be certified as THE representative of employees in a bargaining unit, compelling the employer to bargain a contract with them covering wages and benefits for all employees. AWU is content, at least for now, to operate as a “minority union” which represents the workers who join and delving into issues that are outside the usual scope of American collective bargaining. (Although many people don’t realize it, the National Labor Relations Act protects “concerted activity” by workers whether or not they claim to represent a majority of the employees.)

The future of unions in the tech sector is still being written, and part of it is being written by the pioneering members of the AWU.

The right of workers to organize and bargain collectively has been fundamental to Catholic Social Teaching since Pope Leo XIII issued his Encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891. But in Virginia, public employees have long lacked that right. The Catholic Labor Network is supporting workers in Virginia’s Fairfax and Loudoun Counties who are fighting to change that.

Workers in both counties who have organized with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have recently held rallies calling on these county boards to pass an ordinance permitting collective bargaining. This would have been impossible until recently: in 2019, the state legislature overturned a long-established law forbidding cities and counties from bargaining with unions representing their employees. But that was just the first step – now the employees need to persuade the county boards and city councils to take that step.

Arlington County and the City of Alexandria have done this; now, workers in Loudoun and Fairfax are fighting for these same rights. For county workers at these rallies, pay is only one of many issues that brought them out. For many workers, dignity at work, staffing levels, and a voice in county services are equally important. Loudoun County psychiatric nurse Patti Nelson (pictured) talked about taking home less pay, working longer hours, and having less staff. She said for years she would take home work without overtime and little appreciation from management.

For Nelson, collective bargaining would give workers a voice in how Loudoun County delivers services, saying:

“This has been a long time coming and now we have a board who shares our values for healthy families, and good services, and increasing our staffing rate so that we can provide the work that we are called to provide for the least among us, and every other citizen of Loudoun County.”

Based on the response of county board members, the workers are optimistic. They expect to see an ordinance passed sometime next month.

by Fr. Sinclair Oubre, JCL, Spiritual Moderator of the Catholic Labor Network

Earlier this month, Robert Kambic called me with the sad news that his loving wife of 51 years and life-long workers and union advocate had passed away. Mary Kambic’s life was one of total commitment to her Catholic Faith and our Catholic Social Teaching regarding workers and unions.

There are so many labor stories that it would take a book to list them all. However, she and I worked together on one labor struggle that connected Pasadena, Texas and Baltimore Maryland. In 1996, Crown Petroleum lockedout their 252 Local 4-227 Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE) workers (now USW workers). The lockout lasted 5 years, and while I joined workers on the picket line in Pasedena, Mary lobbied the Jesuit priest, Fr. Hap Ridley, who sat on the Crown Petroleum Board of Directors. Sadly, she was not able to move him.

Mary and Robert always came to our CLN meeting during the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in D.C., and on a number of occasions, they showed me hospitality and warm Baltimore welcomes.

Even when Mary was struggling her health, she continued to work to organize adjunct professors at local Baltimore community colleges.

Mother Jones and Dorothy Day, you have a new heavenly sister.

Fr. Sinclair Oubre, J.C.L.

CLN Spiritual Moderator

At Buffalo’s Mercy Hospital, a strike by some 2,500 nurses and other health care workers is dragging into its second week. The workers, represented by CWA Local 1133, began their strike on Oct. 1.

Nurses at the hospital say that inadequate staffing is causing enormous stress on the existing workforce and is damaging the quality of patient care.

Catholic Health told the Buffalo News that they are prepared to add 258 positions and give raises of 2-3% per year in the coming years, but the workers don’t think that’s enough – they are calling for staff-to-patient ratios to be written into the contract.

In an unusual development, Catholic workers employed at the hospital have formed a committee and have been conducting outreach in the Catholic community. The committee contends that under current management Mercy Hospital is falling short of the requirements for worker justice laid out in Catholic social teaching.

“There are people in the walls of Mercy Hospital who are making $13 an hour – that’s not a living wage,” said committee member Linda Bain (pictured), a Mercy Hospital RN and St. Teresa’s parishioner. “Mercy Hospital is a very different place than it was when the Sisters ran it.”