Columbia, MD Hotel Workers Fighting to Save Their Jobs

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Sandra Mendoza (center), a parishioner at St John the Evangelist, worked at the hotel for 29 years before the pandemic temporarily closed the facility. When it reopens she hopes to resume her work, but but the owner is seeking to replace the entire workforce.

With the pandemic receding, most hotels are resuming operations and beginning to call back their idled employees. Many report struggling to find workers. But one hotel is promising NOT to call back its 80 longtime employees: the Merriweather Lake House Hotel in Columbia, Maryland. Last week the Catholic Labor Network joined the workers and a host of faith and community organizations in calling on the owner, Costello Construction, to recall the long-serving staff to their jobs.

Before the pandemic the hotel was known as the Sheraton Columbia, and its employees – some of whom had worked there for decades – were represented by UNITE HERE Local 7. Costello closed and renovated the hotel during the pandemic and apparently hopes to reopen the hotel under its new name with a new, non-union workforce.

Catholic Social Teaching regards a properly formed business enterprise as a partnership between capital and labor. The labor of these hotel workers created the hotel’s value in the first place, and they have already suffered great economic hardship during the pandemic. They are depending on a return to work for their livelihood and economic future, and deserve to be recalled to service.

Please keep these workers in your prayers and stay tuned for opportunities to support their campaign for just employment.

Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act advances to Senate floor

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US Bishops endorse PWFA

On August 3, in a bipartisan 19-2 Health, Employment and Labor Committee vote, the Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act (PWFA) was sent to the floor of the US Senate. On August 9, the US Bishops’ Committees on Domestic Justice and Human Development, Pro-Life, and Defense of Marriage sent an unusual joint letter of support to Congress urging passage of PWFA.

Too often, women workers must choose between the demands of their jobs and the health of their unborn babies. The Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act would require employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant women in the workplace – for instance, assigning light duty to women in later stages of pregnancy if available. It’s a commonsense pro-life, pro-worker and pro-family measure. The measure passed the House in May but remained bottled up in committee on the Senate side until just a few days ago.

For much of the year, the Catholic Labor Network has been organizing its members and friends to conduct zoom calls with US Senate staffs in support of PWFA.

The Bishops’ letter begins:

On behalf of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), we write in support of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, S. 1486, which will make the workplace a safer environment for nursing mothers, pregnant women, and their unborn children.

Catholic teaching is clear that policy choices around work should be made to support the family because “family life and work mutually affect one another.” The Catholic bishops of the United States have repeatedly called for circumstances of employment that better support family life, especially in the challenges associated with having children…

To read the Bishops’ letter in its entirety CLICK HERE

Remembering Rich Trumka, AFL-CIO President

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The Catholic Labor Network mourns the loss of AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka last week.

Trumka was a champion of working families and a friend of the Network. As a Catholic union leader, his faith and his vocation pointed in the same direction: solidarity, the key concept bridging the world of labor and Church.

A third-generation mineworker from Western Pennsylvania, Trumka rose to become president of the United Mineworkers of America, a legendary labor organization, leading the union through the bitter 1989 Pittston strike. In 1995 he teamed up with another union leader motivated by his Catholic faith, John Sweeney of the Service Employees International Union to win the leadership of the AFL-CIO Read more

Catholic Labor Schools

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Readers of this newsletter probably know that the Catholic Church endorsed the right of workers to organize as a basic element of Catholic Social Teaching in 1891, when Pope Leo XIII issued his Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum. But did you know that the Church in the United States played an active role in preparing workers to exercise that right?

In 1935 the U.S. Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, guaranteeing workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, leading to a burst of organizing activity by workers in factories, shops and warehouses. New unions like the United Auto Workers and the United Steel Workers sprung up – and so did a network of Catholic “labor schools.” In these labor schools housed in Catholic colleges and universities and even Parish social halls, Catholic workers learned the basic skills of union organizing and administration – parliamentary procedure, handling grievances, negotiating contracts. Through the 1940s and 1950s thousands of Catholic working men and women were formed in these labor schools and became active in the labor movement.

It happens that one of these labor schools is still in existence: the Labor Guild of the Archdiocese of Boston. The late Fr. Ed Boyle, SJ, Executive Secretary of the Guild in the 1980s and 1990s, was one of the founding members of the Catholic Labor Network. Today the Guild continues to offer courses in union skills and administration to working men and women in the Boston Area under the leadership of Executive Director Dave Kowalski of the Utility Workers Union of America.

400 Faith Leaders Say: PRO Act Now!

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This week faith activists delivered a letter to all 50 U.S. Senators calling on them to pass the PRO Act, making it easier for workers to form a union. The letter, signed by 400 faith leaders nationwide representing dozens of denominations and traditions — including Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv, of Lexington KY — urges Senators to pass the Act and protect the dignity of workers.

“Because we believe in the sacred worth of both work and workers, we support the “Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO)” Act, which will strengthen and expand the right of workers to form unions, bargain collectively, and engage in collective action without fear of retaliation by their employers,” the letter states. Read more

Social Doctrine Part II

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The Working Catholic: Social Doctrine Part II
BY BILL DROEL

Modern Catholic social doctrine dates from May 1891 with the publication of On the Condition of Labor by Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903). Customarily, social encyclicals are subsequently released on significant anniversaries of On the Condition of Labor.
In May 1981 Mehmet Ali Agca, a criminal from Turkey, shot Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) in St. Peter’s Square. Thus John Paul II’s anniversary encyclical was delayed until September 1981. It is titled On Human Work.
Every worker is equal in dignity, says John Paul II. That’s because the dignity of work originates with the person doing the work; the person who raises children, instructs students, assists homebuyers, manages portfolios, takes orders at the drive-through window, crafts legislation, develops affordable housing or supervises a manufacturing plant. A boss cannot confer dignity. An executive secretary is no more dignified than the night janitor. Every worker is equal—not necessarily in pay or expertise, but equal in dignity prior to, during and after the job or task.
The word work, according to John Paul II, is any activity that comports with God’s on-going creation and redemption. A homemaker is a worker. Unemployed workers, volunteer tutors and chief executives are all workers. A gun trafficker is not a worker because she or he detracts from the plan of God. A predatory lender is not a worker. An adult who abuses children is not a worker.
The design of an economy, the policies of a specific business, or the management style of a boss or the level of cooperation among fellow workers make it easier or harder to experience holiness through work. On Human Work says that the first purpose of any economy or business is the fulfillment of its workers. Fulfilling work is some combination of putting bread on the family table, benefitting society with a needed service or product, participating in a team effort and growing in self-knowledge. If a company first has regard for its workers, it will likely also respect its suppliers and customers or clients. (Remember, its workers include the shop hands, janitors, executives, nurses, top partners, drivers, public relations personnel, sales force and more.) That company with competent management and a needed product or service will likely be profitable.
The best test of whether a company respects its workers is its wage structure. “In every case a just wage is the concrete means of verifying the justice of the whole socioeconomic system” and each business within it, writes John Paul II. “It is not the only means of checking but it is…the key means.” Get wage structure right, the company and society will be right. Wage structure, by the way, includes the top (not paid too much) and the bottom (not paid too little).
On Human Work names other considerations for a whole, holy economy or business. John Paul II warns against an authoritarian business or a collectivist economy. No surprise coming from a champion of anti-communism. He likewise warns against neo-liberal individualism. No surprise coming from a Catholic. Instead, he favors businesses that value subsidiarity (bottom-up decision making), participation and solidarity (solidarność).
John Paul II devotes a section to the “importance of unions,” and he affirms “the right to strike.” He reminds employers and employees that the disabled have “ideas and resources” and can be offered a job “according to their capabilities.”
On Human Work concludes with an intriguing section titled Elements for a Spirituality of Work. John Paul II, in a totally neglected injunction, says that the whole church has “a particular duty to form a spirituality of work…which will help all people come closer, through work, to God.” Such spirituality is “a heritage shared by all.”

Next up: Pope Francis’ contributions to social doctrine. For now, obtain John Paul II’s Gospel of Work edited by Bill Droel (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $7 discount price).

Catholic Labor Network hosts Priest-Labor Colloquium at annual assembly of the Association of US Catholic Priests

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Pictured, left to right: Fr. Neil Pezzulo (Glenmary), Fr. Tuck Grinell (Diocese of Arlington), Fr. Randy Phillips (Archdiocese of Detroit), Fr. Jim Murphy (Diocese of Madison), UNITE HERE union members Jose Maquin and Uriel Perez-Espinoza, and Fr. Eugene Pocernich (Archdiocese of Milwaukee).

Last week the Catholic Labor Network was pleased to join the Association of US Catholic Priests (AUSCP) in Minneapolis for their annual assembly, and to offer a colloquium on Ministering to Workers in the Wake of COVID.

The colloquium featured testimony from two members of UNITE HERE Local 17, the union representing hotel workers in the Twin Cities. Jose Maquin, a worker represented by the union, and Uriel Perez-Espinoza, a former hotel worker now on the union’s staff, shared the devastating impact of the pandemic on hotel workers: the industry largely shut down at the beginning of the pandemic, leaving workers without a source of income or their employer-provided health insurance coverage. Mr. Maquin and Mr. Perez-Espinoza then took questions from the participants and the group enjoyed a lively discussion of the place of unions in Catholic Social Teaching.

Members of the AUSCP are deeply committed to the Church’s social doctrine; the organization intentionally picked a union hotel where they knew workers’ rights would be respected. Another highlight from the event was a group visit to the location where George Floyd was killed by a former Minneapolis police officer to listen to local voices, to pray and to reflect on racism in America.

Would you like to work with the Catholic Labor Network to organize a labor colloquium for priests or lay leaders in your community? Contact [email protected]

Tackling Crew Change Crisis One Jab at a Time

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Readers of this newsletter should be familiar with the pandemic-driven crew change crisis that had some 400,000 mariners confined onboard ship for up to a year without relief. As nations shut their borders to prevent the spread of the virus, they disrupted the system by which fresh crews are transported by air to a port to relieve their peers after their tour of duty. By the end of the year it was clear that only widespread vaccination of mariners could ease the logjam, but how do you get the shots to men and women who are usually at sea?

That’s where Catholic Labor Network Spiritual Moderator Fr Sinclair Oubre and CLN member Doreen Badeaux come in. A seafarer himself, Oubre directs Stella Maris-Diocese of Beaumont, and Doreen is the Secretary General for the Apostleship of the Sea-USA in busy Port Arthur, Texas. They track the arrival of ships in the port. Working with the Port Arthur International Seafarers’ Center, Port Arthur Health Department and the National Guard, they formed rapid response teams that would vaccinate the mariners during their brief shore leave – or even onboard the ship if they were not granted leave.

“It’s ironic,” said Doreen Badeaux, who works for AOS-USA. “On shore, people were worried that these men and women might infect us with COVID. In reality, THEY should be afraid of US.” The mariners had boarded their ships before the pandemic peaked and, isolated at sea, were generally safe from infection. They needed a vaccine to safely disembark and mingle with those of us on shore who might carry the virus – especially if they intend to head for an airport and fly home, their tour of duty complete.

The vaccination effort has been especially welcomed by the many mariners from the global South, where the shots are in short supply. A large number of seafarers served by Stella Maris in Port Arthur hail from India or the Philippines.

Into Catholic Social Teaching? Come to the Social Action Summer Institute!

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In most Catholic Diocesan offices, you’ll find someone – perhaps a priest, more often a Deacon or a member of the laity – responsible for promoting Catholic Social Teaching. These men and women report to the local Bishop and are a critical resource for those doing the work of justice. And there’s a professional association that brings them together: the Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors. The Roundtable has partnered with the Catholic Labor Network on a number of projects and events over the past three years.

Each July the Roundtable hosts a Social Action Summer Institute (SASI) featuring workshops on different dimensions of Catholic Social Teaching. It’s not restricted to members of the Roundtable, and in fact is open to any Catholic interested in social justice or social ministry. And this year, due to the pandemic, SASI will be virtual – making it accessible to those who can’t travel.

Want to learn more about Catholic Social Teaching, and meet like-minded friends and contacts? SASI will be held July 14 and 15 this year. To learn more about the event, and to register, CLICK HERE.

Immigration Judges’ Union Rights Under Attack

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When men and women facing persecution abroad seek asylum in the United States, who evaluates their claims? More than 500 immigration judges, represented by the National Association of Immigration Judges, an affiliate of IFPTE (the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers). But they may not be represented for long: former Attorney General Bill Barr moved to decertify the judges’ union, and alarmingly, new AG Merrick Garland has not taken any action to stop the decertification.

The NAIJ mounted a strong defense of immigrants’ due process rights in the face of political pressure, drawing the ire of the former administration. So it was probably no coincidence that AG Barr began arguing that the judges were “managers” and not entitled to union representation. The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) – which plays a similar role for federal employees to that played by the NLRB for private sector workers – accepted this argument but at the union’s request is reconsidering.

The Catholic Labor Network has joined with dozens of other labor and immigrant organizations – from the AFL-CIO to the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc (CLINIC) – to address a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to join their side and vindicate the union rights of the nation’s immigration judges. CLN will keep you posted as the situation develops.