On December 1, 2020, CSWJ issued a “Statement of Support” for the Faculty Union at St. Leo University:
Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice stands in solidarity with the faculty union at St. Leo University as it continues its efforts to bargain collectively for just wages, job security, health and retirement benefits, and other improvements to the workplace that befit their dignity as human beings created in the image of God.
We call upon the Trustees of St. Leo University to reverse their decision to refuse to recognize the faculty union. This union-busting decision by St. Leo’s Trustees stands in grave violation of Catholic Social Teaching on workers’ rights that promotes labor unions for all professions. We call upon St. Leo’s Trustees to repent from the scandal they exhibit by violating their own “Catholic Identity” statement that calls upon the university to “act in solidarity with people who are poor, oppressed, and marginalized” and to “advocate for social justice, guided by Catholic social teaching.”
Support for labor unions enjoys a long history in the Catholic Church. Following the medieval support for guilds of working people the Catholic Church, since the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), has given exceptional support for labor unions. The official teaching of the Catholic Church as found in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) holds that labor unions exert a “positive influence for social order and solidarity, and are therefore an indispensable element of social life.” (#305) In 1986 the Catholic Bishops of the United States stated: “The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions…No one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself.” (Economic Justice for All, #104) [For a complete understanding of Catholic teaching on labor unions, see Chapter 6 of the Compendium, “On Human Work.” See also Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice’s Foundational Statement and “Union Busting is a Mortal Sin,” found on our website.]
View or download the Statement of Support.