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A Theological Ethic for Renewing Church-Labor Alliance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Abstract
The contemporary American labor movement is in a state of crisis. Not only is the membership base at a low-point, but a host of negative factors and obstacles to growth present enormous challenges for its future viability. In the past, organized labor has been most effective when there was a strong alliance with the Catholic community. Since the middle of the twentieth century, however, this association has weakened, and in some cases has turned to opposition. The premise of this article is that a renewed church-labor alliance could provide needed assistance to reinvigorate the labor movement while also advancing the social concerns of the Catholic Church in this nation.
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References
1 The percentage of American workers belonging to unions fell in 2000 to 13.5 percent, its lowest point in six decades. See Bureau of Labor Statistics, ftp://146.142.4.23/pub/news.relcase/union2.txt, January 2000. See also Neuman, George R. and Rissman, Ellen, “Where Have All the Union Members Gone?” Journal of Labor Economics 2 (April 1984); 175–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Troy, Leo, “Twilight for Organized Labor,” Journal of Labor Research 22/2 (Spring 2001): 245–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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5 In this essay, I use the terms “organized labor” or “labor” to mean the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), a voluntary federation of labor unions currently composed of sixty-three unions representing about thirteen million members in the United States and Canada. The “labor movement” is generally considered a more encompassing term, including social activists, community and religious groups.
6 The exception was for the rights of women wage earners. The Program of Social Reconstruction, written by John A. Ryan, went even further than the encyclicals in their view of the male breadwinner and women's role as homemakers. The Program insisted that the number of women in industry be kept at a minimum and it encouraged employers to hire men rather than women who demanded equal pay for equal work.
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12 I am indebted to Douglas Sturm for the insight into this view of labor (“The Labor Question and Energetic Democracy: On Moving toward a Larger Selfhood,” Soundings 82/3–4 [Fall/Winter 1999]: 425–33, at 427).
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43 Laborem Exercens, no. 25.
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73 The author wishes to thank the Association of Theological Schools for supporting the research and writing of this essay with a Lilly Theological Research Grant. Gratitude is also extended to St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore MD for providing research assistance, especially with the help of Thomas Servatius and Matthew Frisoni.