Catholic-Labor Gathering - 2003 Luncheon Report

Catholic-Labor Network Luncheon

for Participants of the

Catholic Social Ministry Gathering

February 9, 2003

Tom Shellabarger, a long time member of the Catholic-Labor Network and staff member of the Office of Social Development of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, coordinated this year’s activities of the Catholic-Labor Network at the 2003 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering.

On the heals of a very successful Wrap-Around conference of the network, and luncheon, Tom was able to schedule the Sunday luncheon again as an option for the conference’s participants, and include a workshop on the Catholic Church’s support and teaching on labor in the heart of the conference’s program.

Ms. Kristi Sanford of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice

At the luncheon, Tom invited Kristi Sanfrod of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice to Premier to present the major issues facing religion and labor. He also invited Jerry Shea, associate to the John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO, to address the twenty-five luncheon participants .

After a wonderful lunch of jumbo cheese ravioli, Kristi Sanford, of the National Interfaith Committee spoke on the work of the committee. Two major issues that the interfaith committee is working on are:

    •    an increase in the minimum wage
    •    preserving the forty-hour work week.

The NICWJ has been encouraging people to:

    •    Get in touch with the local group in your area
    •    Support Worker Friendly Public Policy:\
        a. Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2003
        b. Caregivers Living Wage
        c. Immigration Reform
    •    Come out in May for the national meeting of the NICWJ
    •    Host a labor in the pulpit speaker at your local church, synagogue or mosque
    •    Support Cintas Workers in the laundry and uniform industry
    •    Support Sky Chef workers in their efforts to organize
    •    Support the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice

Jerry Shea: Assistant to President Sweeney

Some thoughts about the year ahead:

National Working Family Issues in the new Congress:

    1. New taxes coupled with massive cuts in social programs. This is tied with the reality that the president’s budget does not include funding for the Iraq War, which is estimated to be over one hundred billion dollars.

    2. Some positive things:

        a. Organize a trucking line in North Carolina of approximately 3000 workers;
        b. Some major victories in the west in organizing hospitals in the west.
        c. Cintas is being organized by the UNITE. This will be a long a difficult fight over the next few years.

    3. President Sweeney is working to develop a policy for the reform of national labor law. This will become a major piece in holding the political candidates accountable.

    4. A major part of organizing has been to focus on immigrant workers of color. This has brought about a renewal of the old tradition of labor and religious leaders standing together to help the new workers.

    There was much progress on immigrant rights and immigrant working rights through 2000, but with September 11th, the issue of immigrant rights has been put on the back burner. It became a victim of the fight against terrorism.

    5. Area of contract negotiations:

    This is a major year of contract negotiations with over a million and a half workers involved in negotiating. In all of the negotiating, healthcare and healthcare cost shift will be major issues.

    This is a very bad situation against the very backbone of healthcare: employee-based healthcare insurance. These costs are unsustainable, and the leaders of the labor movement do not know what to do about it. Employee-based healthcare is very vulnerable, and of great concerns for what will happen in the future.

    This is a U.S.-job-and-competitive issue. The health costs are so high that they are effectively hurting U.S. companies in their competitive environment. It may come to the point of paying the insurance or surviving the company.

    This is most clear in the retail food industry. In the contracts in California, the Safeways and Krogers are faced with major healthcare costs which its primary competition, WalMart, does not share. Where these UFCW stores have good jobs and benefits, WalMart has predominantly part-time workers, and very limited healthcare insurance opportunities. At WalMart, only 30% percent of the WalMart employees have healthcare.

    Janitor contracts are coming up this year, the Service Employees Union is looking to replay the Boston-Fight. Once these contracts come up, it will be important to push for part-time healthcare for these janitorial workers.

A Few Reflections:

In terms of union institutions, the traditional alliance between churches and unions has been tremendously important. Religious people have been helpful in breaking down the walls that had been built up during the 50's and 60's. It has helped us realize that our mission in building power among workers. Rather than wielding political power and labor power. This is a return back to the primary root and purpose of the labor movement. We are at the beginning of the redirection. It is hard to change the way of handling power, but people have gotten the message and are trying to figure out how this will happen.

There are a lot of parallels between the churches and the unions. As we see churches turn to the care of the new immigrants, and the reaching out of the parish to the new immigrants. This has brought about a greater social justice orientation in many parishes as they try to support the new immigrant workers.

The luncheon ended with a question and answer period for Jerry Shea. Following that, each participant was asked to give a very brief synopsis of important labor or religion/labor issues in their area of the country. The dinner then broke up at two p.m.

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