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Abortion and the Labor Movement: Academic Critics Msgr. George G. Higgins February 1, 1999  It generally is agreed by friend and foe alike that the American labor movement is at a crucial turning point or in a state of crisis.  In recent months this crisis has brought forth a spate of books and articles by self-styled radical intellectuals about the movement's future. Their authors mean well in offering tough-love criticism of the movement from the safe distance of academia, but their "feel'' for the rank and file is open to serious question. For example, they strongly criticize the movement for remaining neutral on abortion and argue, in effect, that unless its leadership comes out forthrightly in favor of abortion there is little or no hope the movement ever will win the support of the great mass of unorganized workers in the United States.  Academics, of all people, should be expected to bolster their ideological arguments with supporting evidence, but the authors I am referring to make no attempt to do so. They take for granted that rank-and-file workers are almost unanimously pro-abortion and almost unanimously want the labor movement to take the lead in promoting so-called abortion rights. That's a doubtful and somewhat patronizing proposition. Two experienced pollsters who regularly poll for the AFL-CIO and other unions -- Geoffrey Garin and Guy Molyneux, president and vice-president respectively of Peter D. Hart Associates -- have given labor's pro-abortion academic critics something to think about in this regard. In an excellent new book, "Not Your Father's Union Movement: Inside the AFL-CIO,'' Garin and Molyneux pull together on the basis of their extensive research "Ten Rules for Union Political Action.'' Rule 6 reads in part as follows: "Members want unions to represent them as workers, by addressing issues that directly affect them on the job and by advancing a populist economic agenda.... Members instinctively trust unions to represent their interests on matters directly relating to their jobs, and this is where labor issue advocacy meets with near-universal support....  "Most workers are also comfortable with the idea of unions representing their economic interest beyond the workplace.... Note, however, that ... most members feel it is inappropriate for unions to take positions on controversial social and cultural issues (such as abortion or gun control).''  In an interview in the same book, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney makes the same point. He says that "people don't want to be dictated to.'' He adds, "Our members are like the communities they live in to a great extent, with feelings pro and con about issues like gun control and abortion.''  Sweeney is right about that, in my opinion. Workers don't want to be dictated to on political issues even by their elected leaders and most certainly don't want to be dictated to by intellectuals outside the movement. Needless to add, neither do they want to be dictated to in the political arena by people like me. I made this point explicitly several years ago when I was invited to testify before an 18-member committee of AFL-CIO officials commissioned to study the abortion issue. I emphasized that I had not come before the committee to carry on a dialogue, much less a debate, about either the ethical or public-policy aspects of the abortion controversy. I simply said that, in my judgment, it would be a serious mistake, for pragmatic reasons, if the federation took an official position on abortion. I said I felt certain that if the federation deviated from its long-standing policy of neutrality on this issue it would seriously disrupt the movement's unity and solidarity.  I am still of that opinion -- with due respect to my radical intellectual friends in academia.     Papal Social Encyclicals   Other Catholic Social Teachings General Articles of Interest  Catholic Worker Connection Msgr. George Higgins  Home Page E-Mail: Fr. Sinclair Oubre