Happy Feast of St. Joseph, the Worker
by Michael Sean Winters | May. 1, 2014
Today is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. It is a time to reflect on the long, profound relationship between Catholicism and workers and specifically organized labor. That relationship remains robust, but not central, to the self-identity of Catholicism in America today. It is time to make that relationship central again.
May 1 was also the day on which communist countries celebrated the worker. The two celebrations, at least in this country, have precisely nothing in common except the date. Why? Because the Catholic Church allied itself with organized labor in the late nineteenth century and both served as bulwarks against any communist encroachments into the labor movement. Those who, like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, think there is a binary choice between being pro-laissez faire and being a Marxist may not know of the historic relationship between the Church and organized labor, but that is just one more thing that they do not know.
This morning, the Holy Father sent out a tweet that read: “I ask everyone with political responsibility to remember two things: human dignity and the common good.” I can think of no two organizations that have done more to advance human dignity and the common good than the Catholic Church and organized labor. Who pushed for workers’ compensation plans and an end to child labor during the Progressive era at the first decades of the twentieth century? Who pushed for what we now know as Social Security and for a forty-hour work week? Who supported a minimum wage? Who backed workplace safety efforts to protect workers’ from unsafe working conditions? The Church and labor.
Look at Washington today. The city is teeming with special interest groups, some of whom hold positions I support, others which hold positions I abhor, but very few of which even think about the common good. But, there is organized labor, standing for the rights of workers who do not belong to their unions, and for the rights of immigrants who do not belong to any union, and for universal health care for all, not just for union members. (On this last point, shame on the Obama administration for bending over backwards not to offend NARAL and Planned Parenthood while failing to protect the Taft-Hartley insurance plans that organized labor has had for more than fifty years.) And, on all these issues – minimum wage, workers’ rights, immigration reform, the Church has stood with labor, advocating for the rights of those who might not be Catholic but whose human dignity would be enhanced by these reforms. The bishops got it wrong in opposing the Affordable Care Act, for reasons I have explained before and need not revisit today. But, let us note that even in the midst of this brouhaha over the contraception mandate, the bishops have never once advocated repealing the ACA.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/happy-feast-st-joseph-worker
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