Thursday, February 1, 2018

Bishops stand with Labor

The U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is backing public sector unions in an upcoming Supreme Court case.
They have filed an amicus brief in support of the union in the Janus v AFSCME case which challenges the union’s right to collect money from non members for collective bargaining.

In so doing, they stand against the Trump administration and conservatives in a legal battle over how organized labor is financed.
Because the Catholic Bishops are a conservative group on most issues, this might seem perplexing.

However, the Catholic Church has long opposed “right to work” legislation, which doesn’t allow employees to be charged for union representation they didn’t ask for, even if they might benefit from it.
The bishops point to various papal statements and encyclicals in support of labor rights dating back to Pope Leo in 1891, opposition to the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act and Pope Francis in 2017, when he said in an address to the Confederation of Trade Unions in Italy, “There is no good society without a good union, and there is no good union that is not reborn every day in the peripheries, that does not transform the discarded stones of the economy into its cornerstones.”

As a practicing Catholic I thank the bishops for standing on the core belief that all work has dignity and that all workers deserve respect.

http://www.sj-r.com/entertainmentlife/20180127/catholic-bishops-side-with-afscme-in-supreme-court-case 

Editors note: This case and so callled “right to work” laws are an attempt to strip unions of financing and thereby strip workers of a voice in the workplace.

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