Most economists would have us believe that the free market is the best form of social organization. Each individual is the best judge of his or her own needs and should be free to negotiate every economic transaction with minimal public regulation or interference. People are rational and knowledgeable; they are capable of calculating costs and benefits with relatively little error, maximizing their well-being. A just wage or price is the one that the market dictates. Economic growth entails economic inequality. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Governments serve society best by doing least.

Then there’s Anthony Annett. In Cathonomics – How Catholic Tradition Can Create a More Just Economy, he sets out to show that the world doesn’t work that way. And the way the world DOES work is much closer to the principles of Catholic Social Teaching than libertarian free market ideals.

Annett, who spent two decades at the International Monetary Fund, must have heard the case for small government and free markets hundreds of times as IMF economists demanded developing countries adopt neoliberal reforms as the price of a bailout. Today he’s in more congenial environs as a senior adviser for the Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

In his book, published last year by Georgetown University Press, Annett begins by reviewing the roots of Catholic Social Teaching in Scripture and the encyclicals before comparing its assumptions with those of neoclassical economics. “Homo Economicus,” the rational utility-maximizing individual that powers economic models, is found to be less than universal, to say the least. Annett argues that Catholic Social Teaching – which suggests that sometimes solidarity must take precedence over competition, that there are limits to accumulating goods, that individuals ought to defer to the common good – is a better fit for the world we live in.

Annett gives only limited attention to labor unions. He notes that “Catholic social teaching also strongly supports the rights of workers to form and join unions and to bargain collectively, one of the strongest and most consistent elements of its labor market ethics (165),” and goes on to cite Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis on the topic of labor unions. But it’s clear that his heart is with the developing world. Annett devotes much of his effort to identifying parallels between Catholic Social Thought and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Thanks to Pope Francis and Laudato Si, Catholic Social Teaching today is also heavily focused on environmental protection in general and global warming in particular. Annett picks up this theme as well. No other topic better illustrates the dangers of free-market fundamentalism. After all, for two centuries firms have been collecting profits from their activities while “externalizing” the costs of global warming by pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“My basic contention is that neoliberalism inculcates and amplifies the wrong values. It is time to try something different,” Annett concludes (284). He’s not wrong.

courtesy of CLN Treasurer Joseph A. McCartin, Georgetown University

On February 18, 2023, former AFL-CIO president and long-time board member of the Catholic Labor Network, Thomas Reilly Donahue Jr., went to his heavenly reward.  If the pantheon of prominent U.S. Catholic labor leaders is filled with a multitude of revered names, from Mother Jones to Cesar Chavez, Tom Donahue’s name surely ranks among the most honored—especially in the hearts of the many CLN members who knew him.

Tom was born into a working-class family in the Bronx in 1928.  His father was a janitor, who later became a union deckhand on the Staten Island Ferry, which nurtured young Tom’s interest in unions.  Tom was the product of Catholic education through and through, graduating from the Marist Brothers’ high school, Mount St. Michael Academy, in 1944, from the Christian Brothers’ Manhattan College in 1949 (after a stint in the Navy), and from the Jesuits’ Fordham Law School (which he put himself through at night, while working as a doorman and bus driver) in 1957.  After a post-law school stint in Paris working for Radio Free Europe and the Free Europe Committee, he returned home to a job with Local 32B of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in New York, where he became a protégé of its leader, the Irish immigrant David Sullivan.  After Sullivan ascended to the presidency of SEIU, Donahue moved to Washington in 1963 to become his top aide.

Thereafter, Donahue’s rise within the labor movement was meteoric. He became a favorite of AFL-CIO president George Meany, who pushed for his appointment as Undersecretary of Labor under W. Willard Wirtz in the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson.  When his term at the Labor Department ended, Donahue returned to SEIU before being tapped in 1973 to serve as Meany’s top aide.  By the age of 45, he had already held a wide range of top positions in the labor movement and developed a reputation as one of labor’s most widely-read, strategic, and diplomatic leaders.  When Lane Kirkland succeeded Meany in 1979, Donahue was elected as the federation’s secretary-treasurer, labor’s number two post, and was widely seen as Kirkland’s ultimate successor.

Yet Donahue’s rise coincided with the onset of the Reagan era.  As unions fell into a deepening crisis in the 1980s, Donahue spearheaded the effort to revive them.  He led the AFL-CIO’s Committee on the Evolution of Work, and shaped its 1985 report, The Changing Situation of Workers and their Unions, which called on unions to devise new organizing methods and proposed that unions create associate memberships to recruit workers in difficult to organize sectors.  As Kirkland’s right hand, he also led the AFL-CIO’s unsuccessful effort to block the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993-94.

Unfortunately for Donahue, the defeats of the 1980s and early 1990s destroyed Kirkland’s presidency and undermined his own chance to ascend to labor’s top post.  Following the takeover of Congress by Republicans in the 1994 midterm elections, Kirkland lost the confidence of most AFL-CIO unions.  When dissidents approached Donahue, asking him to challenge Kirkland, he demurred.  Although he agreed with most of the dissidents’ vision he did not want to be disloyal to Kirkland.  Donahue’s refusal in turn led his onetime colleague, President John Sweeney of SEIU, to declare his candidacy as leader of the forces demanding change.  Realizing that Sweeney would defeat him, Kirkland ultimately decided to resign, elevating Donahue to the presidency AFL-CIO as his interim successor in hopes that this move would cause Sweeney to withdraw his candidacy.  Having already built his campaign, however, Sweeney refused to back down.

As a result, Sweeney and Donahue, two Irish Catholics from the Bronx with deep roots in both SEIU and Catholic social teaching, found themselves as opponents in a hard-fought election at the 1995 AFL-CIO convention.  Deepening the irony—and the hard feelings that resulted—was the fact that Donahue had hired Sweeney to his first job at SEIU and the two had been friends for more than 30 years.  Sweeney defeated Donahue at that convention, effectively halting the rise of a man who many believed was the most talented union leader of his generation, one who had been poised to lead organized labor into the 21^st century.

Although he was deeply hurt by his 1995 loss, that event did not overshadow Donahue’s many accomplishments or define his later years.  He remained active with labor, democracy, and human rights causes into his 90s, ably carrying on the tradition of Catholic labor activism exemplified by his close friend, the great labor priest, Msgr. George G. Higgins.  And among the most important of Donahue’s many commitments was to the Catholic Labor Network, on whose board he served several terms.

Donahue’s marriage to Natalie Kiernan ended in divorce and his son from that marriage, Thomas R. Donahue III, died in 2018.  He is survived by his daughter Nancy Donahue, six grandchildren, and his wife of more than 43 years, longtime political activist and organizer, Rachelle Horowitz.  We join with them in celebrating a rich life offered unstintingly in service to a noble cause.  May his memory inspire us to keep alive this tradition he valued so dearly and embodied so fully.

Study finds Unfair Labor Practice Charges in 4 out of 10 of Union Elections

Until 1935, workers who wanted a union usually had to strike to get it. It was a recipe for perpetual industrial conflict. That’s why legislators passed the Wagner Act, providing an orderly way to adjust workplace disputes. Employers were forbidden to retaliate against workers for exercising their right to organize. When a group of workers wanted union representation, they could file for a workplace election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). If a majority vote in favor of joining a union, the employer was legally required bargain in good faith with the union the workers had chosen. In theory, the Wagner Act vindicated the rights of workers while offering a path to industrial peace.

In theory, that is. The system only workers if management, which runs the workplace, adheres to the law.

When management violates the law – for instance, by firing or punishing a worker for supporting the union, or for failing to bargain in good faith with a union representing a majority of workers – the workers and their union file an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge with the NLRB. The Economic Policy Institute recently examined NLRB election data and ULP charges for the past few years. In a shocking but not surprising finding, they discovered that a ULP was filed in nearly 4 out of 10 NLRB elections.

What’s gone wrong? The short answer is that the penalties for violating the Wagner Act are negligible. One would hope that civic duty alone would oblige all employers to honor the law, but for a substantial minority, that’s not the case. Too many corporations are prepared to break the law in order to break a union organizing drive. They look at firing a union supporter not as criminal behavior but as an investment in remaining union-free. It’s hardly surprising that union membership has dropped from about one in three American workers in the 1950s to one in ten today.

Barring an unlikely civic reform among American business leaders, the only way to restore the balance between labor and management is a thorough reform of American labor law – starting with punitive damages for employers who retaliate against union supporters.

 

In January, after 8 grueling months on the picket line, UAW members in Burlington IA (and Racine WI) settled their strike against Case New Holland (CNH), a manufacturer of agricultural and construction equipment. Deacon Kent Ferris, Director of Social Action in the Diocese of Davenport, accompanied the workers in their long struggle for a fair contract. Ferris recently explained to CLN how he got involved:

On the afternoon of Sunday, December 18, 2022, my son and I traveled to Burlington, Iowa, at the invitation of a local parishioner labor leader. I was asked to share briefly my reason for supporting striking workers and to provide an invocation for the rally. Over 1000 United Auto Workers at the Burlington factory and one in Racine, Wisconsin, had been on strike since May when their six year contract expired. I cited salient points from the USCCB document, Economic Justice for All. The invocation included reference to the inherent dignity of each person and acknowledging the importance workers have for their families and in turn a strong community.  Following the gathering at the labor hall, we joined with supporters in walking to the plant where workers had been since the beginning of the months long strike. It was a cold, blustery December afternoon, but the spirits were high amongst the supporters.

Generations have known of the strong Church commitment to supporting workers by way of the Catholic labor movement, one that stresses that the economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy. I was attempting to convey that message to the striking workers that day. I was also attempting to model the commitment to that teaching to the next generation that day as well.

Thanks for your witness, Deacon Kent!

A guest contribution from CLN member Stephen McMurtry

On Friday, 20 January, Google parent company Alphabet announced that it would cut 6% of its workforce, or 12,000 employees. Alphabet was one of the last of the big tech corporations to do so: Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon had already fired over 10,000 workers each, and tech companies broadly have cut almost 250,000 positions since the start of 2022. Thousands of now-former Google employees in the United States woke up to find that they could not log into their corporate laptops—access had been cut in the middle of the night. The workers were promised generous severance, but they were not allowed to say goodbye to coworkers or even enter their offices for at least 60 days.

Alphabet is the only large tech company that has a company-wide union for corporate workers, the pre-majority Alphabet Workers Union—Communications Workers of America (AWU—CWA). The union does not represent most workers—with some exceptions—as it has chosen a pre-majority organizing model, in which workers publicly form a union and commit to building power to win over majorities of their coworkers.

The week after the layoffs were announced, our union sprang into action: we hosted a mass Zoom meeting with over 1,500 attendees and then followed up with in-person actions at Google offices around the country. Workers—many for the first time—tabled, held information sessions, and even threw a 500-person goodbye party for their fired coworkers at the Cambridge, MA office.

The following week, union members kept up the pressure by rallying outside of Google’s New York City office while executives were touting the layoffs in their Q4 earnings call. In conjunction with the layoff response at Google proper, groups of Alphabet subcontractors organizing with AWU—CWA conducted their own actions. “Raters” who tune Google’s search algorithm delivered a petition to Google’s Mountain View headquarters demanding that they be paid the $15/hr that Google promises to its subcontracted “extended workforce” but which these workers do not receive. At the end of the week, workers who help run the YouTube Music service went on ULP strike after their contractor, Cognizant, ordered them to return to the office after they filed for recognition with AWU—CWA.

There is a lot of work to be done before every Alphabet worker has adequate layoff protections, just wages, and a voice on the job, and we the workers of AWU—CWA will keep fighting to show our coworkers why they need to stand together in their union.