Georgetown steps up for service workers displaced by COVID-19

Will other Catholic colleges follow suit?

COVID-19 shutdowns in the food service industry are devastating working families across the country. As Catholics, we believe that we will be judged on whether we have fed, clothed and sheltered “one of these least brothers of mine” (Matthew 25:31-46). That’s why we are pleased to share that Georgetown University has performed a special act of witness and charity in this time of fear, intervening to protect the livelihood of displaced campus food service workers.

When the university closed the campus to prevent the spread of coronavirus among students and staff, Aramark and Bon Appetit, the food service contractors who staff the campus cafeterias and restaurants, began laying off employees. However, the union and the students informed Georgetown administrators what was happening — and the university’s leadership took action. They met with the contractors and hammered out an agreement ensuring that these workers would be paid through the scheduled end of the semester.

This is an act of evangelization that every Jesuit, and indeed Catholic, university and college can readily follow. Unlike airlines, restaurants and sports and entertainment venues, colleges and universities have not yet suffered a catastrophic loss of revenue limiting their capacity to provide succor for their employees, whether direct or indirect.

The Catholic Labor Network has addressed letters to Catholic university presidents across the country, sharing Georgetown’s powerful example and urging them to follow suit. Would you like to help us get the word out by contacting Catholic colleges and universities in your area? Email me at [email protected] to take part in this effort.

 

Maryland pastors, parishes call on state to expand sick leave eligibility during COVID-19 crisis

The terrible COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting the lives of Americans across the nation, but falling with special severity on low-income workers. According to the 2018 Federal Reserve Board Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making, four in ten Americans lack the savings to cover an unexpected $400 expense – yet millions of these workers stand to lose much more as COVID-19 shutters shops and restaurants, darkens casinos and stadiums, grounds airplanes, and closes offices.

While most Maryland workers enjoy paid sick leave under state law, some workers are excluded from coverage, and countless state residents who are not ill are facing an economic crisis due to emergency closures. As Catholic Christians, we know we will be judged on whether we have fed, clothed and sheltered “one of these least brothers of mine” (Matthew 25:31-46). That’s why a growing number of Maryland parishes are joining other worker and community organizations and calling for the state to adopt the following emergency measures:

  • Employees covered by the Healthy Working Families Act (HWFA), Maryland’s earned sick leave law, should be allowed to use their earned leave where they cannot work due to school closures, business closure, or because they or a family member has been quarantined by a public health official.
  • Coverage under the HWFA should extend to all temporary workers.
  • All workers whose jobs require significant public contact and those working with vulnerable populations should be immediately covered.
  • The waiting period to use sick leave under the HWFA should be eliminated, and the maximum number of days employees can use leave should be extended to 14 days.

Thanks to Fr. Ty Hullinger and the community at Baltimore’s St. Anthony of Padua Parish for leading the way with this letter addressed to Governor Larry Hogan and the parish’s state legislative delegation. We congratulate all the Maryland parishes that have taken these steps and urge others to follow their lead!

CLN Calls on Congress to Replace Lost Income for Workers Affected by Illness or Social Distancing

Next Step: National Paid Sick Leave Policy

Legislators have proposed a growing number of legislative initiatives in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, many of them good. In this fast-moving situation, the Catholic Labor Network is mailing a special appeal to Catholic US Senators and Representatives enunciating two basic principles. First, that workers — especially low-income workers — must be made whole, whether they have lost income due to personal illness, that of a family member, or through social distancing policies to prevent spread of the virus Read more

Virginia Passes Minimum Wage Increase

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.