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Labor unions and Catholic social teaching

Dave Borowski | Catholic Herald

Union members march and rally for jobs in Lansing, Mich., last year. When Pope Benedict XVI released his third encyclical in early July, “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”), he stressed that the voice of workers must be heard as heads of state, industry moguls, labor union leaders and environmentalists develop long-term solutions for the ailing global economy.

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It’s been a tough half-century for labor unions. Membership
has dropped significantly, and right-to-work laws have eroded
union power. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported
that in 2011, union membership for wage and salaried workers
was 11.8 percent. In 1983, the first year BLS gathered data,
the rate was 20.1 percent. Both those numbers are a far cry
from the heyday of union membership in the 1950s when,
according to the Associated Press, 32 percent of workers were
union members.

Right-to-work laws have passed in 23 states, the latest being
Michigan in December. Michigan is a heavily unionized state,
the home to the United Auto Workers union founded in Detroit
in 1935. Events do not bode well for labor.

A right-to-work law prohibits an established union from
requiring an employee to join the union or to pay union dues
or fees as a condition of employment.

Proponents of these laws argue that the right to work is a
basic human right of freedom of association.

“No one should be forced to pay tribute to a union in order
to get or keep a job” is the motto of the National Right to
Work Committee, headquartered in Springfield, Va. The group
was founded in 1955 to fight compulsory unionism.

Opponents of right-to-work, like Glenmary Father John S.
Rausch, call the laws “right-to-work for less.” They say that
these laws basically give people who do not pay dues a free
ride. They get union benefits without paying for them.

Catholic social teaching

The Catholic Church has a history of support for the rights
of unions and union members beginning in the 1800s.

The 19th century was a period of great social upheaval. The
Industrial Revolution was in full force and the increased
industrialization sometimes pitted workers against owners.

Socialism, as proposed by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in
the 1848 treatise The Communist Manifesto, called for an
uprising of oppressed workers – the proletariat – against the
owners of the means of production – the bourgeois. It was
class warfare and it sometimes turned violent.

In 1891, in response to the plight of the worker and the
spread of socialism, Pope Leo XIII wrote the church’s seminal
social justice encyclical, “Rerum Novarum” (on capital and
labor).

The encyclical addressed the “misery and wretchedness
pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class.”
It also spoke out against the socialist tide sweeping the
globe, calling it “manifestly against justice.” Pope Leo said
that socialism’s belief in a community of goods can only hurt
workers and is against the natural rights of man.

Since 1891, the church has reinforced continually its support
of unions and the right of workers to organize. In 1931, on
the 40th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum,” Pope Pius XI issued
“Quadragesimo Anno” (on reconstructing the social order),
reinforcing the issues presented by Pope Leo and using the
term “social justice” for the first time.

Pope Paul VI released an apostolic letter, “Octogesima
Adveniens” (“The Coming Eightieth”), on the 80th anniversary
of “Rerum Novarum” that said that Pope Leo’s encyclical was
the message “that continues to inspire action for social
justice.”

Blessed John Paul II authored “Laborem Exercens” (“On Human
Work”) and “Centesimus Annus” (“The Hundredth Year”), both
emphasizing the importance of labor unions. In “Laborem
Exercens,” Blessed John Paul calls unions “a mouthpiece for
the struggle for social justice.”

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI issued “Caritas in Veritate”
(“Charity in Truth”), which reiterated the right of workers
to associate in labor unions.

There have been pastoral letters by U.S. bishops including,
“Economic Justice for All:

Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S.
Economy” in 1986 that stated, “Labor unions help workers
resist exploitation.”

Differing Catholic views

For more than 120 years, the church has been a proponent of a
worker’s right to organize for better pay and working
conditions, but there are diverse opinions on what that means
in the 21st century.

Father Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for
the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Mich.,
said that, yes, the church works for the right of people to
organize and join unions, but it is not carte blanche.

He said that sometimes unions, especially public-service
unions, support positions that are contrary to Catholic
teaching on issues such as contraceptives, abortion and even
gay marriage.

Father Sirico also said that workers attitudes toward unions
have changed.

“The worker says ‘We are better served outside of unions,'”
he said, adding that it comes down to the right of the worker
to associate freely.

“It’s the worker competing against the worker,” he said. The
worker is selling his services.

Father Sirico added that “Rerum Novarum” must be viewed in
context and understood in relation to the times – the
Industrial Revolution.

Retired AFL-CIO economist Greg Woodhead said that
right-to-work laws are designed to weaken unions. He said
right-to-work laws give people a free ride like negotiated
benefits and wages.

“If you get the benefits, you should pay,” he said. “It’s an
issue of fairness.”

Woodhead said that the church has supported unions in the
past and that it should continue.

“I don’t think you can possibly do enough,” he said of the
church’s stand for worker rights.

Father Rausch, who lives and works in rural Kentucky and has
been an active union organizer and supporter, knows the
positive influence a union can have on the lives of workers.

He said that unions work for the common good, and he echoed
the sentiment that right-to-work means work for less. He said
it gives workers less power.

“(Unions) represent a structure that has the ability to put
in place the basic human rights of workers,” he said.

Father Rausch said unions helped create Social Security and
the eight-hour day.

“Wage justice cannot be left to the free market,” he said.
“We have diminished the worker and exalted the stockholder.”

Work, he said, is part of being a human being, and all work
is dignified.

Martin Luther King Jr. expressed that sentiment in 1968 when
he addressed strikers in Memphis, Tenn.: “For the person who
picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as
significant as the physician. All labor has worth.”

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