Here’s a story that amuses me no end. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Patrick J. Reilly, the president of the Cardinal Newman Society, complains about two recent decisions by regional offices of the National Labor Relations Board allowing certain professors at Catholic colleges to form unions. The colleges, St. Xavier University in Chicago and Manhattan College in New York, had argued that such unions would interfere with their autonomy as religious institutions and thus that application to them of the relevant provisions of the National Labor Relations Act would violate their religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment. Having lost at the NLRB’s regional offices, the colleges are appealing.
Mr. Reilly agrees with the colleges and thinks that the NLRB’s action is a “serious overreach by the government,” but he recognizes one of the ironies here: “Colleges that have deliberately watered down their Catholic identity, in part to help themselves compete for governmental aid” are now arguing that their religious mission is so critical to what they do that a faculty union would disrupt it. Mr. Reilly is more charitable than I am, so I will say what he doesn’t: Given the extremely meager religious content of much of Catholic higher education nowadays, the colleges’ position is going to be a tough sell.
There is another irony here, however, that Mr. Reilly doesn’t mention, and this is the one I really like. To wit, one part of Catholic doctrine that most Catholic colleges and universities like to play up is Catholic Social Thought, which is readily hijacked to support left-wing political and economic causes congenial to many in academia. One of the key tenets of Catholic Social Thought, however, is the right of workers to form unions. Thus, in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, there is a whole section entitled “The importance of unions” in which we read such sage pronouncements as, “The Magisterium recognizes the fundamental role played by labor unions, whose existence is connected with the right to form associations or unions to defend the vital interests of workers employed in various professions” (no. 305), and “unions are promoters of the struggle for social justice” (no. 306). At least according to St. Xavier University, Manhattan College, and Mr. Reilly, however, this is apparently not the case when the Catholic Church or one of its affiliated organizations is the employer.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no love for the unions. I think that, under current conditions in developed economies, unions are almost always destructive, harming consumers and low-skilled workers a good deal more than they benefit their unionized members. In a fight between self-interested and self-righteous labor cartels and Catholic colleges that have effectively abandoned the Catholic religion but now wish to hide behind it to protect themselves financially from such cartels, I say, may they both lose.
June 25th, 2011 | 1:56 pm
There is nothing new about a writer for First Things writing a piece antagonistic to both unions and Catholic colleges. That is as predictable as the tides.
When I read such pieces, I continue to be reinforced in the reflexive belief that these right wing blogs are large syllable propaganda machines for conservative causes. There is no other reason to write something that is so predictable and to an audience that will only universally applaud this writing. (I didn’t even get to the gratuitous dismissal of Communist hijacking of the Social Compendium and the display of the words “Peace and Justice” in the same sentence as an attempt to throw blood in the shark tank…)
Seriously, the opinions on a vast array of topics are so predictable in all of us anymore. Maybe that is a sign of a problem
June 25th, 2011 | 3:37 pm
“There is nothing new about a writer for First Things writing a piece antagonistic to both unions and Catholic colleges.”
Indeed. And its predictability actually lessens FT’s influence rather than extends it. FT and their writers play to a small and loyal audience. But you know: the more someone whets appetites for blood and lust, the greater the possibility the audience will one day overturn the soapbox when the speaker’s line is incongruent to the mob opinion.
“Large syllable propaganda machines:” LSPM–have to love it.
June 25th, 2011 | 3:51 pm
Following up somewhat on what Dan has said, since Robert T. Miller is presumably Catholic (on the faculty of Villanova and President of the St. Thomas More Society of Philadelphia), and since he says, “One of the key tenets of Catholic Social Thought, however, is the right of workers to form unions,” I am wondering how he reconciles his apparent anti-union stance with CST, which, although I suppose it can be “hijacked,” does indeed support the right of workers to form unions no matter how you read it. Is it the case that CST only supports the right of workers to form unions under conditions other than those that exist today, and in underdeveloped economies? If so, shouldn’t this be clearly spelled out by the Church so that workers in the developed countries don’t presume the Church backs their right to form unions?
June 25th, 2011 | 5:37 pm
I’m not sure that unions are destructive any more. It’s not like the non-unionized jobs have better pay and benefits, or that the management has a better rapport with workers and listens to them.
Dan, almost all blogs these days espouse a point of view. People self-sort into groups that align with what they belief in. It’s not like he can write an article against what he personally believes.
June 25th, 2011 | 6:11 pm
Let me get this right. You want me to ignore opinions that are predictable. OK…
June 25th, 2011 | 6:23 pm
@Dan
Perhaps you have some new thoughts about unions, Catholic colleges, Catholic identity at Catholic colleges, etc., and could share them so as to further the discussion rather than keep it in the stall pattern you so dislike.
June 26th, 2011 | 6:59 am
It does sound like the very definition of chutzpah….the man who murders his parents and asks the court for sympathy since he is an orphan…. here we have a Catholic college asserting a right to prevent its workers from forming a union on the grounds that they are a religious institution….when their very religion asserts a right for workers to unionize!!!!
But as grating as that self-serving reasoning is, it might have a point. The Catholic College might technically have to answer to the Vatican and not the US about how it handles its employee relations. If the union laws do allow a religious exemption, this college might have a right to exploit it!
June 26th, 2011 | 7:19 am
To allow religion to be used as a cloak for evading the general laws of society is to turn faith into faction and to encourage a form of communitarianism, with ethnic and religious solidarities and allegiances threatening to override republican unity. If the rights of citizens are to vary in accordance with their religious affiliations, how is the republic one and indivisible?
June 26th, 2011 | 9:59 am
The professors at Manhattan College are unionized. It is the adjuncts that are attempting to unionize. Manhattan is a Catholic College that requires all students to take a theology course each year. Is the NLRB attempting to redefine what a Catholic College is?
June 26th, 2011 | 12:27 pm
And what, pray tell, Dan, are the blogs which are above the sort of thing that you bemoan?
I will make a bold prediction here and say that the blogs that you love ape everything you believe, even though you think them nuanced.
June 26th, 2011 | 10:37 pm
Michael PS writes: “If the rights of citizens are to vary in accordance with their religious affiliations, how is the republic one and indivisible?”
So much for diversity. Maybe the idea that everything we prefer should be a “right” is rather a problem. Maybe the idea that religious freedom is a right should be taken more seriously. Maybe we all should study history more closely so we can distinguish freedom from the will to power. It would be nice if we humans could prove Santayana wrong by our actions for once.
Professor Miller throws his hands up in frustration as legalisms dishonor a dispute that should be centered on freedom. I can’t say as I find fault in that.
June 27th, 2011 | 6:19 am
“May they both lose.” You make a profound mistake in seeing this as an institutional fight between the college and union. The rights being defended are those of the workers — seriously underpaid adjunct faculty — to have a collective voice at work.
June 27th, 2011 | 9:51 am
Two thoughts about Catholic Social Teaching and unions. The Church has consistently taught that employers and employees each have rights and responsibilities. The employer has a responsibility to provide, among other things, a just wage, and I’m not aware of a single university, Catholic or otherwise, that pays adjuncts a just wage. If adjuncts were paid in porportion to the value they provide, I daresay most adjuncts would not feel a need to unionize. (Full disclosure: I have been adjunct faculty at three Catholic institutions.)
Employees wish to unionize and union organizers, have a responsibility to play fair. Intimidation and coercion of workers limits the employees’ ability to make a free decision about unionization. The employer does not violate CST by objecting to coercive and unfair organizing practices. If the union is playing fair, the Catholic employer is bound to negotiate in good faith. Catholic higher ed, it’s time to swallow this bitter pill. Pay adjuncts a just wage whether unionized or not.
June 27th, 2011 | 1:43 pm
I’m not sure that unions are destructive any more. It’s not like the non-unionized jobs have better pay and benefits, or that the management has a better rapport with workers and listens to them.
The basic problem is twofold. One, unions need to be reformed, because the resources are being allocated in ways that don’t benefit the workers. Certain lucky individuals get rich while coal mining safety standards are allowed to erode, and go unenforced anyway.
The second, more serious problem is that the real reason jobs are fleeing is because we are globalizing. New technology has made it possible to “outsource” things. If basic economics can be used as a guide, the logical conclusion would be to assume that American wages will keep dropping, while low-income nations wages rise, until an equilibrium is reached. If this is the case, then the union approach to the problem is worse than futile – it is an approach that does more harm than good.
June 28th, 2011 | 7:50 am
Blake, Coal mining safety standards are eroded because the own miners are cutting corners in favor of profits. The UMW’s are the staunchest defenders of safety standards. Look to the press coverage of the Massey Coal disaster. Second, jobs were taken offshore before the new technology. It was conscious policy of the 1980′s under President Reagan to create free trade zones in Central America as economic foreign policy followed by trade policy (e.g. NAFTA, etc.)
June 28th, 2011 | 1:23 pm
Blake, Coal mining safety standards are eroded because the own miners are cutting corners in favor of profits. The UMW’s are the staunchest defenders of safety standards
Excuse-making is no substitute for results.
The UMW is not doing what unions are supposed to do. They take money, but don’t produce results.
July 1st, 2011 | 8:57 am
One needs to go no farther than the Massey Big Branch coal mine explosion last April when 29 miners were killed. Yesterday (June 29, 2011), federal investigators revealed that Big Branch management was keeping two sets of safety records – one for government inspectors, one secret. Big Branch is a non-union mine. One of the front-line supervisors killed in the blast was threatened with being fired earlier in the year when he stopped his team from working because of unsafe conditions. But there was no UMW to back him up, no contract to enforce a procedure to protect workers on the ground.
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