Virginia Passes Minimum Wage Increase

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On January 21, several labor unions representing workers in low-wage occupations – notably Northern Virginia’s SEIU Local 32BJ, representing janitors, and UNITE HERE Local 25, representing hotel workers – organized busloads of union workers to travel to the state capital in Richmond to visit their legislators. Accompanying them was Father Bob Cilinski, Chair of the Arlington Diocese Peace and Justice Commission and Pastor of Nativity Church in Burke. It didn’t hurt that Fr. Bob’s parish is located in the district represented by Assembly Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, who was very interested in what Catholic Social Teaching had to offer on the issue! The day ended with a “Raise the Wage” rally where Fr. Bob offered a prayer and Rachel Laustrup of the Diocese of Richmond Office of Social Ministries, joined the group. Read more

CLN project targets wage theft in construction

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The construction industry has a problem, and the problem is wage theft. At this year’s Catholic Labor Network annual meeting – held at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in January — CLN field organizer Ernesto Galeas reported on seven months of visiting construction sites in Washington DC and Maryland, and his findings were grim. Galeas, an immigrant from El Salvador with long experience in the construction industry, reported that on fully half the sites he visited, construction workers were misrepresented as “independent contractors,” allowing their employers to duck required social security contributions, workers compensation coverage, unemployment insurance payments, and workers’ required overtime pay.

In the DC Metro area, the problem typically relies on the use of “labor brokers,” intermediaries used by major construction contractors to enjoy the benefits of payroll fraud while preserving a level of legal deniability. Under this system a labor broker recruits the workers and leases them to the contractor, as if he were running a temp agency. However, the broker in turn tells the IRS that these workers are independent contractors (or simply pays them in cash and tells the IRS nothing at all). Unfair competition from these scofflaw contractors is driving legitimate businesses to the wall. A study commissioned by the Washington DC Attorney General found that this fraud allows employers to evade between 16.7% and 40% of labor costs. Workers lose out on overtime pay and potentially much more – if they are injured on the job they have no way to claim workers’ compensation benefits.

The problem, once confined to residential construction, has penetrated the commercial construction market and escalated to astonishing levels. In two major cases recently settled by DC Attorney General Karl Racine drywall installer Rock Spring and electrical contractor Power Design paid more than $3 million in lost wages and penalties.

Galeas’ testimony moved the listeners deeply and has been covered by the Catholic press (see Wage Theft, an Underreported Crime). In the months to come, CLN will be moving beyond researching the problem and assisting workers in filing complaints for lost wages. To see Galeas’ report at the CLN meeting, CLICK HERE.

The Catholic Labor Network Annual Meeting: Video Available!

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The Catholic Labor Network annual meeting, held Saturday January 25 in conjunction with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, featured some great panelists and discussions. And this year, for the first time, we can share some of them with you! On our YouTube channel, you can check out the addresses from USCCB Labor Policy Advisor Michael O’Rourke, National Farm Worker Ministry Executive Director Julie Taylor, UNITE HERE’s Chuck Hendricks on the airline food service workers’ campaign, and Ernesto Galeas on wage theft in construction…

  • Michael O’Rourke works for the USCCB Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development, serving as Labor Policy Advisor. He reviewed his past year promoting Catholic Social Teaching in the nation’s capital. CLICK HERE to see O’Rourke’s address.
  • Julie Taylor leads the National Farm Workers’ Ministry (NWFM), an ecumenical organization supporting farm worker unions and alt-labor organizations. This year the CLN affiliated with NWFM. Taylor reviewed the different farm labor groups active in the United States and their current campaigns. CLICK HERE to see Taylor’s remarks.
  • Chuck Hendricks is a national leader in UNITE HERE, the hotel and food service union. He has been helping direct a national campaign of airline food service workers who are seeking a living wage and affordable health care. (The Catholic Labor Network has been organizing solidarity with these workers among Catholic audiences.) CLICK HERE to see Hendricks’s talk.
  • Ernesto Galeas is the CLN’s field representative leading our Mid-Atlantic Construction Wage Theft project. He has been visiting job sites and counseling workers denied proper wages. CLICK HERE to see Galeas’s report.

Workers in New York

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The Working Catholic: Exhibit about Workers
by Bill Droel

Museum of the City of New York (1220 Fifth St., New York, NY 10029) just ended an exhibit about the history of workers in its city. It’s not too late, however, to enjoy the exhibit. It is the basis for City of Workers, City of Struggle edited by Joshua Freeman (Museum of City of NY, 2019; $40). Our Chicago Public Library has a copy, as do other libraries.
The book’s introduction notes that working people help define politics, culture and the public sphere. In struggles between employees and employers, in struggles among groups of workers and in struggles within unions, people determine “what makes a good and livable city.” The book is about labor movements (plural), the introduction explains. That’s because the marketplace is fluid with new labor sectors replacing the old, with new immigrant groups arriving with new skills, with new wage arrangements and more. The book’s contributors devote chapters to colonial New York, slave labor, housework, sailors and dockhands, garment workers, labor relations and race, Puerto Rican contributions, civil servants and others. The book is richly illustrated with old pictures, news articles, posters and the like. A recurring theme is the rise, fall and renewal of several unions. There are more union workers in New York City, by the way, than anywhere else in our country.
Any story about New York City, particularly a story about workers, must treat the fire of March 1911 in the Asch Building (now known as Brown Building, owned by N.Y. University). Within 18 minutes, 144 workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were dead and two more died subsequently. It happened that Frances Perkins (1880-1965) was in a nearby café. She witnessed the horror. If you have ever drawn overtime pay, ever collected an unemployment check, ever benefited from Social Security, ever been thankful for safety features at your job site, it is because of the tireless efforts of Perkins—first with the Consumers League, then as a New York State official and finally as the first woman cabinet member, serving as Secretary of Labor through all of President Franklin Roosevelt’s (1882-1945) terms. She often said that the imprint of the Triangle Company tragedy compelled her to improve conditions for working families.
City of Workers, City of Struggle details how the CIO grew during the late 1930s in New York City, borrowing the sit down tactic from John L Lewis (1880-1969). The tactic was effective at a public transportation powerhouse, at Woolworths and other dry goods stores and more. Although the CIO is associated with steel in Pittsburgh and automobiles in Detroit, many CIO unions had their national headquarters in New York City.
The book’s chapter on health care features Local 1199, a union for which I briefly worked in the early 1970s. Led by Leon Davis (1905-1992), this union began among pharmacists and other drugstore workers. Davis hired Elliott Godoff (1905-1975) to organize hospital workers. For 40 years after the National Labor Relations Act (aka the Wagner Act) voluntary hospitals remained outside of labor relations jurisdiction. Also many nurses felt that as professionals they did not need a union. And, concerns about public safety limit a union’s tactics in a hospital setting. Nonetheless in December 1958 a Bronx hospital recognized Local 1199 as “sole and exclusive bargaining agent” for its workers. There were lots of ups and downs for Local 1199 and other health care unions for several years. At critical moments, Cardinal John O’Connor (1920-2000) assisted the union with dramatic testimony and action. In 1995 an on-again-off-again merger between Local 1199 and Service Employees International was ratified.
Near its conclusion, City of Workers, City of Struggle considers the new worker centers. These centers do not engage in collective bargaining. They are a combination of social service and successful advocacy for workers.
Domestic workers have since 1938 been excluded from federal labor standards, though recently some federal policies have been extended to “direct care workers.” The remarkable Ai-Jen Poo is U.S. born of Taiwanese heritage. As a college student, Poo volunteered with an Asian-American service agency. Still in her 20s, she began systematic visits to many New York City playgrounds where she built relationships with nannies and other care workers who frequented the parks. She organized small meetings and by 2002 her groups were pressuring city entities for improved oversight of their occupation. In 2007 she launched National Domestic Workers Alliance (www.domesticworkers.org). NDWA successfully lobbied for labor standards that exceed federal minimums in nine states and in Seattle. NDWA is now pushing for a National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights to include paid overtime, safe working conditions, meal and rest breaks, earned sick time and fair scheduling.
Bhairavi Desal is another remarkable woman who has spent years visiting garages and airport lots talking with taxi drivers. Her Taxi Workers Alliance (www.nytwa.org) lobbies for precarious workers. Fekkak Mamdouh, a leader with Restaurant Opportunities Center (www.rocunited.org), does the same with food service workers. In particular, ROC campaigns to end harassment, to improve scheduling and to establish a fair wage structure. These centers must rely on public attention gained through rallies, education materials, and individual meetings with decision makers.
City of Workers, City of Struggle is a history book. But it is inspiring. It reminds the reader that although there are setbacks, social improvement is possible. The essential ingredients are always dedicated people and focused action over many years.

Droel edits a print newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (P O Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

Church in Virginia pushes for minimum wage increase

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Clergy and activists from Arlington, Richmond join Virginia workers on lobby day

The federal minimum wage remains mired at $7.25 per hour – less than $15,000 per year for a full-time worker. That’s not a living wage in any part of the country, and certainly not in fast-growing Virginia. That’s why workers are calling on the state legislature to increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour over the coming years, and why the Church in Virginia is supporting their campaign.

Fr. Bob Cilinski joins members of SEIU 32BJ, the building custodians’ union, urging their legislators to increase Virginia’s minimum wage.

Since Pope Leo XIII wrote his encyclical letter Rerum Novarum in 1891, the Church has affirmed that every worker deserves a living wage – and that if the labor market doesn’t provide this on its own, society must intervene. That led Monsignor John Ryan, the US Bishops’ first Social Action Director, to help lead the charge for minimum wage laws in the United States. And it’s what has led the American Church to become one of the most persistent supporters of efforts to make the minimum wage a living wage. Read more

DC union workers share job, life experiences at Georgetown event

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Jesus Salazar and Tenae Stover talk about job, union activities; John Carr offers CST commentary

Labor unions are foundational institutions in modern Catholic Social Teaching on the economy and society, and in his 2009 letter Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI told us that Catholic teaching regarding unions must be honored today “even more than in the past.” Yet in America today fewer than one in ten workers belongs to a labor union, and many Catholics are unfamiliar with what unions do and why. To address this, the Catholic Labor Network and Georgetown’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor invited two workers who belong to area unions to talk about their work life and their union activities. Afterward, John Carr from the university’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life offered commentary and perspective.

Jesus Salazar addresses Georgetown audience

Jesus Salazar, a custodian employed by building services contractor EMI, addressed the university audience with help from an interpreter. An immigrant from Peru, Salazar recalled the recent round of bargaining between the union (Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ) and about 60 commercial cleaning contractors. As a union “brigade leader” Salazar visits his co-workers on other worksites to organize support actions and to communicate about contract negotiations. Through such member-to-member organizing the union has won substantial wage increases (Salazar earns more than $16 per hour) and protections against sexual harassment – important because women frequently work alone in buildings after hours. (CLICK HERE for video of Mr. Salazar’s remarks)

Tenae Stover works at LSG Sky Chefs, a contractor who prepares meals for American Airlines, Delta and other airlines. Although the airlines are highly profitable, this occupation is one of the lowest-paid in the air transportation industry – and the family health insurance offered by the employers is so costly that fewer than 5% of the workers elect to accept it, many going entirely unprotected. That’s why some 20,000 of these workers across the country have organized, mostly with UNITE HERE, the hotel and food service union. Stover serves on the union’s bargaining committee, and has participated in activities to alert airport passengers to the issue. (CLICK HERE for Ms. Stover’s remarks)

Carr stressed how extensively Catholic social teaching focuses on the dignity of the human person and in particular on the dignity of work, and how the two speakers had offered a lesson in what solidarity looks and sounds like. “I mostly think about [papal] encyclicals,” Carr observed. “What we just heard was a walking, talking encyclical. This is our tradition at work. This is the Gospel in action.” (CLICK HERE for Mr. Carr’s remarks)

The program concluded with a lively discussion, and was covered in CRUX and other Catholic media outlets.

Formation through Action

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The Working Catholic: Action Is Necessary
by Bill Droel

“Consuming and participating in politics by obsessive news-following [and] by arguing and debating” is not politics, says Eitan Hersh in Politics Is for Power (Simon & Schuster [2020]; $27). To binge on MSNBC, devour Fox News or constantly share one’s opinions with friends and family on social media or in phone calls, is “to satisfy our own emotional needs and intellectual curiosities” but in itself serves no “serious purpose.”
Hersh calls the trap political hobbyism: Instead of electoral engagement (canvassing, participating in meetings, etc.), citizens pay lots of attention to political comings-and-goings. By one survey, 83% of those who spend an hour or more daily on news consumption (TV, mobile devices, reading) spend no time on political activity. Nor does the majority ever act on a community problem. Hersh does not suggest that citizens abandon the news. Genuine activists are well-informed. However, it does not work in the opposite direction: News junkies are not active.
Genuine politics is when people volunteer in order to acquire power. They build relationships, win supporters and broker their power for some social improvement. Hersh, a young professor at Tufts University, is sympathetic toward students and other young adults who support causes. However, he supplies several cautions. Genuine politics might entail spirited protest, but protest in itself is not enough. Though one-off events appeal to young adults, genuine politics means a longer-term commitment to others.
Hersh’s term for shallow participation is slacktivism. This is any symbolic on-line activity or token action that conveys support but only fulfills an altruistic need. These shallow gestures put off the necessity to learn how to vote, how to canvass, how to build relationships. He furnishes fascinating studies about how wearing a button or T-shirt subjectively removes the obligation to do something.
Political hobbyism is not neutral; it “hinders the pursuit of political power.” It puts attention on entertainment and melodrama. Similarly, it favors “short-term emotional highs,” pushing away the often boring process of real social change. It also favors ideological struggles in which all manner of policies become moral convictions over which there can be no compromise. Both citizens and electoral officials buy into this made-for-TV culture.
Hersh profiles several competent organizers. They are people of empathy who know that whining and yelling only narrow the base. They have no set script but are open to dialogue with anyone. They do not campaign around policy issues so much as they are disciplined about winning and holding power. They have “generous hearts” and exhibit patience.
Hersh’s examples come from electoral politics. He does though apply his theory to the withering of religious organizations, labor unions and civic groups. The phrase spiritual but not religious can typify a hobbyist. Whereas the word religion means to bind together, the hobbyist occasionally tries out spiritual practices like yoga or solitary meditation.

Specialized Catholic Action (capital A) was a worldwide movement in 1940s and 1950s. Its key insight was that faith formation must include action. Discussion groups, theology on tap speakers in the parish hall and Scripture reflections in the bulletin are fine. But adults do not grow in wisdom without action. The Catholic Action method was summarized in the slogan: observe, judge act. In particular Catholic Action said that young adults will be disposed toward Christianity through disciplined action around their concerns about work and relationships. It trained young adults to steadily organize like-to-like, student-to-student, worker-to-worker. Specialized Catholic Action used no gimmicks and promised no quick fix. It is difficult. Several formation programs (Renew, Christ Renews His Church, etc.) have solid content but nearly all stumble on the necessity for action.

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a print newsletter about faith and work.

Why Unions? DC Area Workers Speak, Catholics Respond

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Why Unions? Area Workers Speak Out

Workers and the Church in the Washington DC Area

 

  • Clayton Sinyai, Catholic Labor Network
  • Tenae Stover, LSG Sky Chefs Cook at National Airport and UNITE HERE Local 23 Bargaining Committee Member
  • Jesus Salazar, EMI Custodial Services and SEIU Local 32BJ Contract Action Team
  • John Carr, Georgetown Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life

Recently, Washington DC custodians represented by the union SEIU 32BJ won major improvements in their wages and working conditions when they settled a new contract for servicing DC-area commercial office buildings. Meanwhile, airline food service workers across the country, including at Washington National Airport, have joined the union UNITE HERE and are fighting for a living wage and affordable health care. Join us Wednesday January 22, 5pm, at Georgetown University to hear from the workers themselves about their work and their unions. Afterward, commentary from Clayton Sinyai of the Catholic Labor Network and John Carr of the Georgetown Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life will reflect on how the workers’ testimony reflects Catholic Social Teaching on work and the economy.

Wednesday, January 22
5pm
Georgetown University
Mortara Building
3600 N Street, NW
Washington, DC 20057

Catholic Charities Delegation Tours DC Sheet Metal Workers’ Training Center

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The construction sector was the original “gig economy” where every job was temporary, lasting the duration of a building project. But construction unions figured out more than a century ago how turn these temporary jobs into family-supporting careers. Unions and contractors agreed to pool resources to train and maintain a skilled workforce, dispatched on request from a hiring hall. It’s still a great path to the middle class, and that’s why a delegation from the Archdiocese of Washington’s Catholic Charities recently visited the Sheet Metal Workers’ training center for a tour.

Carlos Gutierrez, Bridget Maley, and Melida Chacon toured the facility, from the welding lab outfitted with Local Exhaust Ventilation to protect students from exposure to welding fumes to the AutoCAD (Computer Aided Design) computer lab. They also learned how the union recruits apprentices and provides health insurance coverage and pension benefits for those entering the trade.

Construction unions bargain agreements with an entire group of construction companies at a time who commit to use union labor, calling the hiring hall for additional workers when necessary. For each hour they employ a union construction worker they make a per capita contribution to a series of trust funds – one to run the training program, another to purchase health insurance for employees, and yet another into a pension fund for the workers’ retirement. Each trust fund is managed by a joint board of contractor and union representatives. With this system, every contractor has access to workers when needed, while workers can move from one employer to another with portable benefits.

Applicants take a written test and interview for available openings (each construction trade has its own calendar). The trust fund will be investing tens of thousands of dollars per apprentice to train them, so they want to be sure that incoming candidates are committed and have good prospects of completion. Those accepted will spend a few weeks per year in the classroom, while spending the bulk of their time on the job working under the supervision of experienced tradesmen and tradeswomen. Rather than accumulating student debt, the apprentices earn while they learn, paid on a scale that climbs toward the full rate as they accumulate experience.

The trades are interested in diversifying their ranks, actively seeking to recruit more women and people of color. They look forward to working with Catholic Charities to identify candidates for tomorrow’s construction workforce.

Catholic Labor Network Delegation Visits JFK Airport Food Service Workers

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Regular readers of this newsletter know that across the country, airline food service workers – who are among the lowest paid workers in the airline industry – have organized in unions and are campaigning for a living wage and affordable health care. A few weeks ago, Fr. Gene Pocernich of the Association of US Catholic Priests, Dr. Meghan Clark of St. John’s University, and I visited with workers in Queens who prepare meals for flights departing from New York City’s JFK airport to learn why they had voted to strike.

We talked to Jose Dias, Margarita Segura, and Genara Vargas in their union hall, the UNITE HERE Local 100 office. They work for a contractor called LSG Sky Chefs, which services major airlines such as Delta, United, and American. All three were immigrants from the Dominican Republic. They were proud of the work they do, but told us that the hours were long and, like the airlines, the kitchens operated seven days a week.

In many cities, Sky Chefs workers earn only $8 or $9 dollars per hour, less than $20,000 per year for a full-time worker. The JFK workers counted themselves fortunate that the union and community group effort known as the “fight for $15” had won a $15 minimum wage in the city and the airport, though few would count $15 per hour/$30,000 per year a princely sum in the Big Apple! Housing ate up much of their wages. As a result, like more than 95% of their colleagues, they could not afford the high premiums for family health care coverage.

Fr. Gene observed,

I was moved to see that there so many workers struggling in this work, mostly immigrants, yet maintaining hope and a trust in God. Catholic Social Teaching, going back to Pope Leo Xlll’s encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891, has constantly affirmed the dignity of labor – and challenged employers to provide decent working conditions and an opportunity to be involved in the decisionmaking processes around work life. It’s pleasing to see that membership in the UNITE HERE union has empowered these workers to stand up to injustice.

Today, Delta, United and American Airlines are performing strongly, earning billions of dollars per year. They can afford to take responsibility for ensuring their contract employees earn family-supporting wages and have access to affordable family health care coverage. The Catholic Labor Network will continue to organize support for these workers until they win a fair settlement.

For more information visit Airport Strike Alert.

 

Airline Food Service Workers Speak Out at Georgetown January 22

John Carr, Georgetown, to offer Catholic Social Teaching commentary

Would you like to hear firsthand from the airport food service workers on their campaign? If you are in the Washington DC area, you are in luck! On January 22 at 5pm, the Catholic Labor Network will host a panel of DMV workers who are organizing to fight for living wages, affordable access to health care, and decent working conditions – including Tenae Stover, a UNITE HERE Local 23 activist working in the kitchens at Washington National Airport. Afterward, John Carr (Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, Georgetown University) will offer reflections on the workers’ presentations based on Catholic Social Teaching. The event will be held in the Mortara Building at 3600 N St., NW in Washington DC. For more information or to RSVP, email [email protected].