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Not Obsolete Yet! By Msgr. George G. Higgins The Yardstick December 6, 1999  Leo Troy, professor of labor economics at Rutgers University, has predicted for as long as I can recall that the American labor movement's future is behind it. In a recent article about Troy in Forbes magazine ("Driving the AFL-CIO Crazy," Nov. 1) we are told that for something like 35 years he has "cruelly reminded" his pro-union academic peers (who predominate in the profession) that the private-sector labor force will be scarcely more unionized in 2000 than in 1900 (with a shade under 10 percent of workers in both years). Since the year 2000 is only weeks away, that's a risky prophecy. But Troy is only incidentally a prophet. At heart he is basically an ideological zealot who strongly believes that all workers are better off without union representation.  Or, as the Forbes article says in its summary of his writings, he makes an intriguing case for "individual representation." He says that ours is an era of "individualistic values, that is, a world in which people prefer to (and are expected to) shift for themselves." Troy may or may not prove an accurate prophet of the labor movement's future. But his ideological support of market-urban individualistic values in the field of labor-management relations is worrisome and runs counter to the social teaching of all of the major religious bodies in the United States -- Catholic, Protestant and Jewish. I know that some U.S. Catholics share Troy's view that "most workers do well in a world in which they are personally, not collectively, looking out for No. 1." He is convinced, and he thinks that almost all workers are convinced, that they are capable of looking out for themselves as individuals and therefore are opposed to unionization. If this is the case, it is hard to understand why so many employers spend so much money and even resort to illegal methods to prevent workers from organizing. Way back in the '20s and '30s, Henry Ford and other auto manufacturers used to talk that way about their workers in Detroit. They said workers preferred to bargain as individuals, and were opposed to unions and collective bargaining. It didn't take them long, however, to learn the hard way that they were wrong about that. The Big Three in Detroit have long since learned to live more or less amicably with unions and collective bargaining. Ditto for many other major industries. Because some U.S. Catholics claim that Catholic social teaching favors "individual representation," I took the time recently to review carefully what is said about this in all the official church documents, starting with "Rerum Novarum," Pope Leo XIII's historic 1891 encyclical. I found in my file on this that one well-known Catholic commentator on Pope John Paul II's social teaching says that most workers seem to think the labor movement is obsolete and are prepared to dismiss it with thanks for past services rendered. I don't know about "most workers," but it is clear that John Paul II does not think the labor movement is obsolete. To the contrary, he still thinks, as he said almost two decades ago in his first social encyclical, "Laborem Exercens," that unions in today's world are "indispensable." It is also clear that in his view the purpose of unions is not merely to render services to their members -- e.g. by bargaining for better wages. In John Paul II's words they are also "places where workers can express themselves. They serve the development of an authentic culture of work and help workers to share in a fully human way in the life of their place of employment."     Papal Social Encyclicals   Other Catholic Social Teachings General Articles of Interest  Catholic Worker Connection Msgr. George Higgins  Home Page E-Mail: Fr. Sinclair Oubre