Labor & Employment Law

Catholic Scholars Support Employee Free Choice Act

By Seth Michaels

A group of leading Catholic scholars is adding their voices to the coalition supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

Organized by Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice, dozens of religious leaders, professors and scholars from a wide variety of institutions have signed on to a statement in support of the Employee Free Choice Act and the freedom of workers to form unions and bargain. This diverse group of Catholic thinkers agrees that our broken system needs new law to protect these basic workers’ rights.

Employee Free Choice is “rooted in and supported by” Catholic social teaching, these religious scholars note in their statement:

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church recognizes “the fundamental role played by labor unions, whose existence is connected with the right to form associations or unions to defend the vital interests of workers employed in the various professions.” Indeed, the Catholic Church holds that unions “are a positive influence for social order and solidarity, and are therefore an indispensible element of social life.”

Our current law, they agree, denies workers their basic freedom to form unions and bargain, and we need new law that ensures that key decisions about forming unions are in the hands of workers, where they belong.

These Catholic scholars are part of a strong and growing coalition of religious leaders and faith groups that supports the Employee Free Choice Act.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 29, 2009 (boomark / email).