Comments on: Catholic Colleges, Unions, and the NLRB

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:57:00 +0000

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.

By: Blake

Blake — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 17:23:42 +0000

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.

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:50:27 +0000

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.)

By: Blake

Blake — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:43:18 +0000

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.

By: Health Care Sister

Health Care Sister — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:51:49 +0000

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.

By: Kate

Kate — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:19:15 +0000

“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.

By: Mike Melendez

Mike Melendez — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 02:37:58 +0000

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.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 16:27:06 +0000

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.

By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 13:59:42 +0000

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?

By: Michael PS

Michael PS — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 11:19:52 +0000

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?