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Payback Time

Why Don't the Bishops Challenge Unions?

By Christopher Zehnder

At first thought, it does not seem at all strange. In honor of the first annual Cesar Chavez state holiday on March 30, the foundation bearing his name sponsored a series of events featuring a number of prominent individuals. Included in the roster of the powerful and famous were Governor Gray Davis, Ethel Kennedy (Robert Fitzgerald's widow), Yolanda King (daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.), and Roger Cardinal Mahony.

It is not strange, it seems, for Cardinal Mahony to attend such an event. Cesar Chavez was, by all accounts, a devout Catholic. The Church has, since the days of Leo XIII, affirmed the right of workers to organize in unions and has asserted the preferential option for the poor. The cardinal, too, has had a long association with the Chavez family and the United Farm Workers. Just last September, Mahony blessed a rose named for Our Lady of Guadalupe, bred by Jackson and Perkins of Bakersfield. Workers under contract with the United Farm Workers tend the rose, and Arturo Rodriguez, the union's president, joined Cardinal Mahony for the blessing.

No, none of this seems strange -- until one reflects that Mahony was a "featured guest" on March 30 at an "Educating the Heart Luncheon," held at the Regal Biltmore, where pro-abortion "Catholic" governor Gray Davis was billed as keynote speaker. And when one reflects that the United Farm Workers have not only endorsed, but actively promoted pro-abortion politicians -- including, in the last election, Al Gore -- one does not have to be anti-union to wonder why, at least, doesn't the cardinal, and the other bishops of our state and country, for that matter, speak out against this unnatural severance of the rights of labor and the right to life.

One's confusion deepens when he realizes that organized labor's alliance with anti-Catholic principles goes beyond support for pro-abortion politicians. The California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, at their 23rd Annual Convention, held in July 2000, listed "prejudice against individuals because they are lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgenders" with "racism, sexism, anti-Semitism," and "discrimination against immigrants" as discrimination for which "there is no place in this country." The federation also called for "increased support for and cooperation with" a number of organizations, including the pro-abortion National Organization for Women, which it listed among "labor and community organizations that have visions of a just and fair society."

The United Farm Workers is a member of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. So is the Service Employees International Union, which is organizing nurses in Catholic hospitals in California. Many Catholics wonder, why do bishops like Mahony give unions their seemingly unqualified blessing, when the same unions promote political and social movements antithetical to Catholic teaching? Has the universal Church not offered any guidance in these matters?

"I don't know that there is any focused guidance," said Monsignor William Smith, a Catholic ethicist at Saint Joseph's Seminary in New York. "Most of the Church's social teaching really operates on the level of principle that tends to be broad because it has to be universal. When you get down to the specific mechanism of what the unions do or what the corporations do, with political endorsements, I can't think of any answer except to go back and state general principles, and, hopefully, correct consciences will apply them."

Such general principles, of course, would include the right men have to a just wage, to safe working conditions -- to respect for them as men, not merely as units of production. Yet, these principles cannot ignore more fundamental principles -- the right to life, protection of the dignity and specific nature of men and women, of marriage, and of the integrity of the family. When principles collide, Catholics, and specifically the bishops, it seems, should at least say something and give guidance to Catholic union members. Why aren't bishops more forthright and confrontational with unions?

In the past, unions paid greater attention to Catholic concerns and beliefs. "In the beginning," said Monsignor Smith, "most unions, because they had so many Catholic members, took a neutral position. Unions never said anything about family values, divorce, abortion, etc. -- all of which kind of unraveled with George McGovern. Your family, your church, and your work were really considered off-limits."

Some bishops' unqualified support of unions stems, in part, said Monsignor Smith, from their "age and where they came from. One of the serious arguments I had with my own archbishop, Cardinal O'Connor, was when he told me five times in a row, in the space of five minutes, that it was 'the union that put food on our family's table during the Depression.' 'Well,' I said, 'Your Eminence, it was the union that almost destroyed my father's business.'" Yet, much has changed, not only morally, but also in terms of the work force represented by unions. In their conversation, Smith said Cardinal O'Connor "brought up Church teachings, and I said, 'I know the Church's teaching, but if you go back to some of the teachings of Pius XI, nurses, doctors, teachers, firemen, all of those people -- they're never supposed to strike.' And now it turns out that our industrial base is much reduced, and it's the state, county, and municipal workers' unions that make up a gigantic segment of organized labor."

The bishops' unquestioning support of unorganized labor to some degree represents a tactical mistake since membership in labor unions is decreasing. Not only are the bishops, as Smith said, "playing to an increasingly shrinking audience," they are gaining no concessions from unions for issues it is the Church's interest and duty to promote. "When it comes to payback time," said Smith, if the Church asks the union, "do you give us a hand on pro-life things? The answer is, no. Do you give us a hand on parental choice? No. When one party has a particular group of people so one handedly, they end up not helping them very regularly, because they take them for granted. My father told me early in life, 'be nice to everyone, but you better figure out who your friends are and who your enemies are. Don't confuse them.'"

If the bishops are "going to walk hand-in-hand and make statements [in favor of organized labor]," said Monsignor Smith, "then they have an obligation to sit down with whomever their union friend is and say, 'look, you're making my life impossible, because this is a contradiction." Why don't they do this? "My fear is," said Smith, "is that they are just afraid."

Afraid of what? "The press. They're afraid of being perceived as out of step and all sorts of other crap. There's a massive lack of episcopal testosterone. My God! You can count on one hand the number of bishops who stand up and say the right thing in public!"

When I asked Father John Miller, editor of the Social Justice Review in St. Louis, why he thought the bishops do not challenge unions, he said, "Money. In some cases it may be ignorance, but I'm afraid it's money."

Miller said that if the bishops knew that particular unions supported pro-abortion candidates and immoral social policies, they "did something immoral" not only by publicly endorsing unions, but "by approving of union membership under those conditions." Catholic union members support union policies they conscientiously oppose by their union dues. "No one," said Miller, "should be forced to contribute to something against his conscience, and the bishops should make that clear."

For Miller, though, responsibility does not rest only on the bishops but on union members. "The Catholics who are in those unions need to raise their voices against the unions' using their funds in ways Catholics object to. The Catholic has a right to protest anything that goes against his conscience, and if the union won't stop that, then a Catholic should leave the union. That is the only solution."

But what if by leaving the union one will lose one's job? After all, union shops are closed shops. "That's unfair," said Miller. "Here's where the government has to intervene to insist on union constitutions that forbid this kind of activity -- never to use an employee's dues in a way contrary to an employee's conscience."

What about, for instance, a non-unionized Catholic janitor? Should he vote against joining, say, the Service Employees International Union, even if it will give him a better chance of supporting his family? "Like everybody who has convictions," said Miller, "you have to suffer for your convictions. They have to make up their minds whether they want to be Catholic or whether they want to make a few extra dollars." Miller, though, saw that "it's very hard for men who have to support their families; but you have to face it, it's more than just material cooperation when you're contributing to an organization which uses your money immorally."

Monsignor Smith, though, didn't think Catholics needed to oppose unionization even when their dues would go to support immoral policies. "There are more fundamental things about job security," he said, "and fair employment practices, and the rest, that are justifiable; the union doesn't exist to make political endorsements, though it does. I pay my taxes, but I don't agree with everything the government spends that money on; but I think that the obligation for the one with the well-formed conscience is to work for different policies, or, at least, neutral policies. This is where [Monsignor] George Higgins is a colossal failure. He's been sitting in Washington for 55 years writing lovely columns about how wonderful the union movement is, and he's almost stone silent on abortion. Here abortion is 28 years old and he's never said a damn thing about it."

Father Miller, though, did not think paying union dues was strictly analogous to paying taxes, because one is bound to the latter by law. "Union dues," he said, "are something to which you are bound willingly. If there are a sufficient number of Catholics to change the thing, and they don't try, they're at fault."

But if they do try, and fail? "At least they've tried," said Miller. "Then you can say they are paying their dues under objection. I suppose that would excuse them from culpability in this case. But if they don't make any attempt to rectify this situation, they are as culpable as anyone else." But, I said to Father Miller, the bishops do not come out and say this. "I know that," he replied. "That's the problem. Therefore, you have more than just one excuse for culpability, here."

Father Miller thinks that part of the answer lies in a renewal of study by the bishops of the papal social encyclicals. The encyclicals have not merely approved of labor union organization, but have called for a wider distribution of private, productive property; for a system where a larger number of workers are not merely workers, but owners. Father Miller is putting into booklet form a series of articles published in the Social Justice Review under the title, "Bishop Beware," which call on bishops to guard against a distortion of Catholic social teaching in favor of the current neo-liberal, laissez-faire economic order. "I will write the preface [to the book]," said Miller, "in which I will aim the whole thing at the bishops -- what are you doing about it? If you don't study the encyclicals, nothing will be preached about them correctly; and if nothing is preached correctly, the kingdom of justice and love, which our popes have been begging for, praying for, will never come true. It's up to you bishops."

Monsignor Smith added another aspect of the solution. Noting that the percentage of Catholics who voted for George Bush against the pro-abortion Al Gore in the last election was higher among those who attended Mass regularly than among those who didn't, he opined that "the more regular people become as church goers, the more the Catholic agenda will emerge. Until that happens, and unless that happens, I think you have these Mexican standoffs where you really end up half the time hand-in-hand with contradictory friends."

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