Catholics and Unions
The Catholic Church hierarchy has come to a mutual accord with labor over organizing in hospitals:
The accord, announced Monday, seeks to apply Catholic teachings that recognize the right of workers to “freely and fairly” decide whether to join a union. [...]
The agreement touches on a thorny situation for Catholic hospitals, some of which have aggressively resisted union organizing amid complaints that their conduct contradicts Catholic doctrine on social justice. [...]
“The central actors in these dramas have to be the workers themselves, that’s what we feel is the strength of the document,” said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, D.C., who helped lead the discussions.
Under the agreement, hospital managers agree not to use “traditional anti-union tactics,” including hiring firms, known as union-busters, that work with companies to defeat organizing drives. Unions also agree not to publicly attack Catholic health care organizations during labor campaigns.
The article mentions that 15 percent of the 600,000 Catholic hospital workers nationwide are members of unions right now, but so far as I’ve been able to find, none of the Connecticut Catholic hospitals are unionized.
Update: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has the document available as a PDF here.