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A study of the influence of the United States Catholic church on union organizing and community organizing: A historical review, Los Angeles in the 1990s, and future relations

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A study of the influence of the United States Catholic church on union organizing and community organizing: A historical review, Los Angeles in the 1990s, and future relations

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A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE U.S. CATHOLIC CHURCH
ON UNION ORGANIZING AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZING:
A HISTORICAL REVIEW, LOS ANGELES IN THE 1990s, & FUTURE RELATIONS
by
Rev. George E. Schultze, SJ
A dissertation Presented to the
THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Religion)
August 1998
© George E. Schultze
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UMI Number: 9919105
Copyright 1998 by
Schultze, George Edward
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 90007
This dissertation, written by
Q c o
under the direction of h.k£ Dissertation
Committee, and approved by aU its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re
quirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Date
Dean of Graduate Studies
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairperson
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To Rev. John Chandler. SJ
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank my advisors. Profs. Bill May, Don Miller, and Terry Cooper at the
University of Southern California for their ongoing support and helpful advice in my
research and writing. While providing many good suggestions, they respected the
direction of my work and conclusions which are wholly my own. I also appreciate the
instruction and guidance o f Prof. John Orr, and the administrative help o f Ms. Linda
Woolton of the Department o f Religion at USC. Finally. I am grateful for the prayers and
encouragement o f Father Jack Boyle, SJ, my other brothers in the Society of Jesus, and
my family.
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ABBREVIATIONS
ACORN Association o f Community Organizations for Reform Now
ACTU Association o f Catholic Trade Unionists
ACTWU Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union
AFL-CIO American Labor Federation-Congress o f Industrial Organizations
ALRB Agricultural Labor Relations Board
CHD Campaign for Human Development
CLUE Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice
CSO Community Service Organization
HERE Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union
IAF Industrial -Areas Foundation
IWW International Workers of the World
LAMAP Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project
LISTO Not an acronym but means “ready” in Spanish
NLRA (B) National Labor Relations Act National Labor Relations Board
PICO Pacific Institute for Community Organization
SEIU Service Employees International Union
TIDC Tourism Industry Development Council
UFW United Farm Workers
UNITE United Needle and Industrial Textile Employees
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter
1. Introduction..............................................................................................
Worker-0wnership and Worker Leadership
Theology and Social Justice
Saul Alinsky Links Religion, Social Justice, and Action
Labor’s Drive in the 1990s
Methodology
Three Case Studies: Justice for Janitors/SEIU 1877,
LAMAP, LISTO
Justice for Janitors/SEIU Local 1877
Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project (LAMAP)
LISTO
The Roman Catholic Church and Community/Labor
2. U.S. LABOR HISTORY AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 19™
CENTURY TO WORLD WAR I: KNIGHTS OF LABOR & THE
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF L A B O R .......................................
The Knights of Labor: Community and Labor
The Community Vision o f the Knights o f Labor
Trade Union Organizing: Pure and Simple Business Unionism
Union Movement Growth in the 1 s t Quarter o f the 20th Century
Father Peter Dietz
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VI
3 WORLD WAR I SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TO SIT-DOWN STRIKES,
JOHN L. LEWIS AND SAUL A LIN SK Y 86
The Influence ofMonsignor John Ryan on the Social Question
A Change in Law Aids the Organizing Drives o f the 1930s
A Fundamental Difference in Organizing Styles: William
Green and John L. Lewis
Saul Alinsky’s Respect for the Methods of John L. Lewis:
Change Means Conflict
4. U.S. LABOR 1940s TO 1990s CATHOLIC LABOR SCHOOLS,
BUSINESS UNIONISM, THE UFW, AND THE PLANT CLOSURES
D E C A D E................................................................................. 118
Labor Schools
AFL-CIO in the 1950s
Rural Organizing and Plant Closures
5. FROM LABOR ORGANIZING TO COMMUNITY
ORGANIZING ..................................................................................... 165
Social Work Becomes Professional
The 1960s and Community Organizing
Alinsky Organizing in the 1980s and 1990s
6. LABOR ORGANIZING AND LABOR LAW .................................. 193
Ineffectiveness of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
Labor Union Initiatives
Rebuilding Unions As An Economic Development Policy
Labor Organizing Must Occur in the Wider Community and Include
Demands for Economic Democracy
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vii
Union/Management Cooperation
Legal Decisions that Have Severely Limited Labor
Organizing
Reform of U.S. Labor Policy
7. JUSTICE FOR JANITORS AT USC— SEIU LOCAL 1877 _____ 240
Justice for Janitors, SEIU Local 1877 and the Catholic
Church
Conclusion
8. LOS ANGELES MANUFACTURING ACTION P R O JE C T 290
LAMAP and the Catholic Church
Conclusion
9. L IS T O .......................................................................................................... 340
Festival Catering
Mondragon
Conclusion
10. Conclusion................................................................................................... 382
APPENDIX ...............................................................................................................408
BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................410
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This dissertation describes and evaluates the interrelationship among community
organizing, labor organizing, and the Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles in the mid-
1 990s. How are labor and community organizing interacting with this social institution?
How supportive or non-supportive has the Church been in the organizing that is occurring
in Los Angeles today9 My discussion of labor and community organizing includes a
history of their development, focusing on their relation to Roman Catholicism in the
United States in the last 175 years. Oftentimes these organizing spheres overlap, as
occurred during the 1880s with the broad-based organizing of the Knights of Labor’s and
during the CIO organizing drives o f the 1930s. This history also suggests some o f the
means by which today’s labor and community organizing groups might engage the
Catholic laity, religious, and hierarchy, and the ways that Roman Catholics might faithfully
respond to calls to organize. How might Catholics integrate their social tradition with the
various attempts to organize in the community and the workplace? Truly, as workers have
seen a decrease in their real wages and benefits in the last twenty years, and urban
communities have struggled with unemployment, youth violence and pollution, U.S.
workers and residents, in general, need to organize for themselves.
1
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A study of historical U.S. Catholic Church pronouncements and social justice
efforts suggests an obligation on the part of Church hierarchy and members to encourage
and support organizing activities in their areas. For this reason, my work is also
prescriptive. If we want higher real wages, more jobs, less crime, and a cleaner
environment, then faithful people need to participate in labor and community groups that
promote these goals. Social ethics for a believer in God is making the proper response to
God’s action in the world. In the last one hundred years, the Catholic Church has
accepted community and labor organizing as two means of responding to G od’s actions in
the world. To help contemporary organizing, the community called the Catholic Church
needs to educate its members; first, in its own story as a people; secondly, in the ways the
Church’s story connects to the many issues addressed by labor and community
organizing; and, thirdly, in encouraging the participation of the faithful in organizing
groups that share some common values with the Church. Pope John Paul II encourages
people who “want peace to work for justice,” and the United States' political and
economic systems offer possibilities for change to peace loving Americans. Yet. the U S
political and economic systems are not always just in a Christian sense, nor can one
anticipate any ultimate political or economic system that achieves perfect social harmony
and justice. For this reason, the Church's role as witness is primary. In other words,
organizing is one means available to work for justice, but. for the Catholic, the organizing
effort must be bom from faith.1
‘This introduction briefly traces the historical flow of the dissertation, describes my
methodology for contemporary data collection, and points to my conclusion which
prescribes a role for the Catholic Church in organizing in Los Angeles today.
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At the dawn o f the American industrial revolution in the 1830s, American
craftsmen as well as laborers met to discuss their wages and working conditions and the
manner of improving them. Those who had specialized and highly valued skills found that
they could gain more for themselves by organizing with their fellows. The economic
insecurity workers faced in the decades after the Civil War, combined with an awareness
o f the great wealth o f the industrial titans and their managers, made labor and community
organizing inevitable. Industrialization led to community organizing in the modem era,
the late 1 9* century, as urban centers grew and workers and their families found
themselves struggling to survive with low wages and dangerous work at the job site and
poor housing and inadequate health care in the neighborhood. During this period o f urban
growth, middle class progressives entered working class neighborhoods to establish
settlement houses: College Settlement and Neighborhood Guild in New York and Hull
House and the University o f Chicago Settlement in Chicago. The sons and daughters of
reform-minded liberals and gospel preaching ministers dedicated themselves to mediating
between the rich and the poor to improve neighborhoods, schools, health care and
housing.
Although residents saw improvements they seldom won these changes tor
themselves nor were the underlying political and economic injustices addressed.
Organizing was from the top down and sympathetic to a gentler corporate business
liberalism that linked social improvements to the success o f companies. Yet social welfare
neighborhood organizing— settlement houses— oftentimes dismissed local ethnic groups and
social networks and seldom organized around economic demands (See Fisher 1994, 6-
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4
14). Except for the rapid organizing o f the Knights o f Labor in the late 1880s that
included a community encompassing thrust (i.e.. promoting the commonwealth through a
“great brotherhood”), union organizers and community groups inadequately linked their
efforts.
The community organizing of poor citizens during the 19th century included
immigrant benefit societies, church groups, charitable societies (e.g.. the St. Vincent
DePaul Society), political groups, and other free associations (i.e.. early community
organizing) that gave the workers/community members the space to observe their lives, to
reflect on their state, and to take action to improve their lot. For example, as early as
1850, German-American Catholics had established the German Catholic Central-Verein
which provided life insurance, job referrals, and other immigrant aid. Labor questions
necessarily concerned these immigrants and the Church, but Catholic clergy feared the
utopian schemes of labor visionaries (e.g.. Fouerism. which promoted socialistic
communities built on common ownership) or the secrecy of worker societies, like the
Knights o f Labor, the most famous labor effort of the late 19th century.
A tension has existed between the Church and some forms of political and
economic organizing from the very beginning, one that can be traced in modem times to
the French revolution and all subsequent political and social movements. The historian
finds both support and opposition to different forms o f labor organizing in every
conceivable Catholic social segment (laity, pastors, religious, bishops, and Pope)
throughout the past 1 00 years. For example, papal teachings encourage worker
solidarity, but a solidarity that respects other institutions and individuals. Popes and
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bishops have promoted the efforts of individuals, families, and their mediating institutions
in the advancement of social and economic justice (the social encyclicals are replete with
admonishments for such work), but they caution against ideologies that deny God. human
dignity, private property, religious freedom and other religious and social goods. On the
one hand, the most virulent opposition to the Knights o f Labor came from bishops in
Maine and Quebec; undoubtedly, bishops who knew the history of the Church’s
experience during the French revolution. On the other hand, the Archbishop of Toronto
and Cardinal Gibbons o f Baltimore defended the Knights. The North American Catholic
hierarchy in the 1880s and 90s had to speak out against the externalities of the industrial
revolution— boom and bust cycles, monopolies, and urban poverty— but it also had to
maintain social order, protect individual freedoms, and guard against religious persecution.
Some local pastors and immigrant Catholics organized to effectuate change
because the flock challenged their shepherds to support these efforts or lose the sheep In
western Pennsylvania while some priests accepted the activities of the Knights of Labor
others denied communion to Catholic Knights. Both types of pastors warned of the
dangers o f anti-Catholic positions or religious discrimination. Local religious leaders were
not of the same mind with regards to the Knight’s work.
Similarly, Catholic laity have encouraged and discouraged labor organizing over
the past century. Terrence Powderly, the most famous Knights of Labor leader, was a
Catholic. At times Catholics constituted half o f the membership and dominated the
leadership (Weir 1996, 93). Later, at the beginning o f the 20th century, half of the nation’s
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6
labor leaders belonged to the Catholic Church and in the mid-1940s the fraction was still
above one-third (Sexton 1991, 41). But Catholic lay leaders also worked to impede the
influence of communism in the American labor movement, and some scholars and activists
argue that the Catholic fears adversely impacted labor’s organizing efforts. Other Catholic
lay people, e.g., members of the Catholic Worker Movement, in the 1960s and 1970s
distanced themselves from labor because it supported the war in Vietnam and accepted
.American political intervention in Latin America. Although .American Catholics affirmed
the right to collective representation, the practical implementation of this right has
received varied support.
Clearly, to understand the Church’s response to organizing in Los Angeles today
some historical framing is essential. The histories of labor and community organizing in
the U.S. are important to my interest in how Church members, religious and lay, respond
to organizing in Los Angeles in the 1 990s. Where have been the points o f mutual
cooperation between labor, community and the Catholic Church in the United States?
Historically Catholics to greater and lesser degrees responded to industrialization,
contract-at-will labor agreements, and social deprivation by consulting the popular
authority of their faith tradition. People asked themselves if joining a worker association
was acceptable to their faith. What did the Church say9 If membership was acceptable,
they then looked for religious support in their organizing activities. What did Church
leaders actually do? My research suggests that the Church, an organization often adverse
to social change, always felt more at ease with lay movements that advocated a personal
morality of virtues nurtured through habit than groups that organized to change unjust
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7
social structures. In other words, by perfecting work life through virtue, the worker
promotes one’s own life.
For example, looking closely at the philosophy and policies o f the Knights o f
Labor, the researcher finds a fraternal organization which possessed much o f the private
morality (e.g., condemning drunkenness and debt, and promoting familial responsibility) o f
other fraternal associations common during the 1880s. The Catholic Church became
convinced o f the good intentions o f the Knights o f Labor by the teetotaling, church-
attending Terence Powderly. This was a time when some Americans promoted a seamless
garment o f private and public morality, and the Church could sympathize with a Judeo-
Christian vein within the labor camp. By Judeo-Christian, I mean a perspective that
acknowledged God as Father and the dignity o f God’s sons and daughters. The Knights
o f Labor helped promote the well-being o f Catholic immigrants without resorting to class
conflict or degradation of the Church. Powderly spoke often against strikes and boycotts.
Ideologically, Powderly disliked strikes, and supported few because “it was consistent
with republican morality, which shunned social strife and activities that would polarize
classes” (Oestreicher 1987, 52). In addition, the corporatism, industrial councils, and
guild systems promoted by Pope Pius XII and religious during the 1930s and 1940s would
encourage an organic industrial society o f highly moral individuals.
A central figure in the American Church’s promotion of economic justice at the
turn o f the century was Monsignor John Ryan. When Pope Leo the XIII promulgated the
social encyclical Rerum Novarum. Ryan was a Minnesota seminarian who as a youth and
young student had sympathized with the developments o f American Populism. He
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searched for a means to join his Roman Catholicism with the progressive economic views
popular in rural America. Ryan used the encyclical to advocate the state’s role in
providing some social protection for the populace, because according to his Thomistic
view, the state served the people, and the people were the sons and daughters o f God.
John Ryan, in his extensive writing during the first decades of the 20th century, shaped the
arguments found in Rerum N'ovarum to fit American Progressivisnr and as a practical
result, helped win legislative victories for workers: minimum wages, maximum hours,
and employment benefits. At that time, adherents of the social gospel view had already
concluded that a democracy o f true Christians would create a just society. Yet leaders
outside o f the working class directed this movement and religious suspicions and class
differences kept Catholics out of its efforts. Ryan successfully borrowed social gospel
ideas without offending the American Catholic hierarchy. He succeeded because Leo
XIII’s social teaching. Rerum Novarum. superseded the local church’s teaching, and Leo
XIII, in Ryan’s estimation, accepted greater state intervention as a means to ameliorate the
lives of the working and non-working poor.
Other prominent Catholic religious figures who have influenced the fields of labor
and community organizing included Father Peter Dietz, and Monsignors John Egan and
George Higgins, because these professional religious have found various ways to enhance
both labor and community organizing without causing debilitating friction within the
2Ryan’s liberalism like that o f many progressives— Theodore Roosevelt and Jane
Addams, for instance— proposed government intervention to insure responsible business
practices. This was definitely not a radical position because some corporate liberals in the
National Civic Federation supported many progressive goals like a minimum wage and
workers’ compensation laws (Weinstein 1968, 32-33).
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9
institutional Church. This is not to say that they did not challenge the Church hierarchy or
occasionally experience its wrath. While John Ryan focused on the dignity of the human
being as a child of God and therefore called for a state enforced “living wage,” Peter Dietz
actively participated in the American Federation o f Labor conventions, encouraging
unionization while discouraging both the radical overthrow o f capital and Protestant
evangelizing among Catholic workers. Dietz’s support group for Catholic trade unionists,
the Militia o f Christ, promoted trade unionism in a pluralistic society, including greater
collective bargaining rights without denying property rights. The present study reviews
the historical efforts o f Catholic religious and the hierarchical Church (i.e.. Church
authorities, the public face of the institution), because more written material is available
for these social actors. Greater historical research focusing on Catholic working people
and their neighborhoods, as in Robert Slayton’s Back of the Yards, will provide a much
clearer understanding o f the importance of the Catholic faith in the efforts of the laity
themselves.
Worker-Ownership and Worker Leadership
Catholic social teaching over time has promoted greater worker participation in a
firm’s decision making and a larger share of a firm’s profit or losses for the employees.
Consequently, the social encyclicals support community members and workers in their
attempts at economic development through organizing. From the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, some workers and capitalists (e.g., industrialist and social thinker
Robert Owen) have promoted ways to eliminate the gap between labor and capital.
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10
Worker-owned cooperatives existed over 150 years ago in the United States. None of
them had lasting success, but all o f them started with the belief that workers should be the
owners and beneficiaries of their work. Although the contract-at-will relationship between
owner and employee suggests equal rights and power, my study of history and a review of
academic literature leads me to anticipate the continued demand by workers for greater
input into future workplace decisions. In other words, the growth o f Employee Stock
Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and cooperatives point to a gradual movement towards an
economic democracy that progressives have advocated for over 150 years. Workers and
their communities want to direct a region’s economic vehicle(s), but they first need to
organize themselves to address institutional powers (e.g., large corporations, financial
institutions, and local government bureaucracies) who dictate the rules of business. The
formation of ESOPs has led to greater worker-ownership, but the movement towards
ownership with worker participation in workplace decisions is the goal. I believe that
some ownership should entail ultimate employee control, and of course, a responsible
control that inevitably comes from education.
Mondragon, the 20,000 plus member cooperative in the Basque region of Spain, is
a sign o f hope for many progressive thinkers. Don Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta, a
Catholic diocesan priest, was the founder o f the cooperative in the 1950s. He started his
effort very much like a congregation-based community organizer (or a good pastor) by
circulating through his parish community, developing relationships with the parish’s
families, learning their needs, and identifying leaders. The community’s first organizing
effort was building a sports field. Out of this field came future students who attended the
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community built trade school. These same students and their families, imbued with a
sense o f social responsibility by Don Jose Maria, became the co-founders o f the
Mondragon complex. Don Jose Maria was a self-taught applied sociologist who read the
social encyclicals as well as Robert Owen. He promoted technical education but always
with a social conscience.
Mondragon is important because it is an industrial democracy, a functioning
democratically controlled economic institution which embodies much o f the vision of
Catholic social thought. Each member has a vote in the election o f leaders, the
determination o f cooperative policies, and the direction o f business plans. Both workplace
participation and worker-ownership are values. Don Jose Maria called “cooperativism" a
third way.
It is the third way distinct from egoist capitalism and from the mastodon of
depersonalizing socialism. We want cooperatives which constitute a new
social potential and, thus, are built by those who are not impelled by a
myopic and limited egotism or by a simple gregarious instinct. (Larranaga
1981,779)
...the third way of development equidistant from individualist capitalism
and soulless collectivism [is cooperativism]. Its center and axis is the
human person in his social context. (Larranaga 1981, 777)
He tried to give equal weights to social, spiritual, political, financial, and
intellectual capital. In Los Angeles Latin American immigrants, local church people, and
community supporters have organized a day worker cooperative called LISTO. The
members and advisors have tried to create a community that matches low-skilled workers
with service jobs and set the foundation for the creation of employment. The cooperative
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12
is trying to build micro-enterprises that are worker-owned. This is not a new dream for
poor people, but the merging o f community organizing and economic development, with a
sympathetic awareness o f the spiritual, offers a unique opportunity for success.
Cooperativists are different from their capitalist peers, according to Don Jose Maria:
The cooperativist distinguishes himself from the capitalist, simply in that
the latter utilizes capital in order to make people serve him, while the
former uses it to make more gratifying and uplifting the working life of the
people. (Larranaga 1981, 757)
But in the American context, worker-owned cooperatives are few and unionization
is down. According to some unionists, despite recent commitments to greater organizing
efforts, the percentage o f union workers in the work force will fall even further. Some
Americans have always waited for management to become enlightened and provide a
better deal for its workforce. William Green, an early president of the AIT. and a social
gospel backer, believed that Christian managers could be converted to creating a more just
economic system. ’ Some still believe that management has to make the offer for worker-
ownership and some progressive companies have attempted to make employees owners
through stock options and profit sharing— stock diffusion. Perhaps the change has to come
from the other side, like Richard Nixon initiating detente with Communist China or
President Clinton proposing welfare reform. A critical mass o f major employers, like
United Airlines, have to feel comfortable turning the keys over to their workforces.
Clearly, some workers find the present relationship to their liking, but one has to wonder
’See Donald Meyer, The Protestant Search for Political Realism 1919-1941. 65-
71, for a discussion of shop committee plans and industrial democracy experiments o f the
1920s.
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if any company will provide a lifetime of economic security in today’s global economy,
and whether workers might want greater voice in their own destinies. Since the
Mondragon cooperative’s establishment in the 1950s, the cooperative has not experienced
any layoffs. The social importance of work comes prior to returns on capital investment.
The case study section of this dissertation will discuss LISTO, a Los Angeles day
worker cooperative. I will look at its relationship to community and labor organizing and
the Catholic Church in Los Angeles. Rather than organize in a traditional fashion, at a
private employer’s work site, LISTO organizes by family and friendship. Cesar Chavez
first started to organize farm workers in a similar fashion because historically farm
workers had too often lost their conflicts with growers when organizing out o f an
industrial union model. For instance, Chavez did not call his first organization a union, he
called it the Farm Workers’ Association. As a mutual benefit society and community
service effort, the workers began to discover their own talents and leadership. They built
a foundation of relationships because their community did not have ready made
institutions to organize around, and house meetings offered the best means of building an
organization. Although often Catholics, during the 1960s the Catholic Church did not see
farm workers as congregation leaders nor did it emphasize their particular needs in the
parish. In part, farm workers never could develop strong institutional ties if they moved
with the crops. The Community Service Organization (CSO), established by Fred Ross
and Saul Alinsky, helped Chavez perfect the house meeting technique. Fred Ross,
Dolores Huerta, and Cesar Chavez found workers sympathetic to change and then asked
them to bring other like-minded people to their homes for small meetings. These small
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14
meetings eventually grew into a movement. Chavez, like Don Jose Maria, was first o f all
a community organizer and then a union organizer.
At LISTO. without the benefit of a single job site, members will have to develop
their own network o f action and support. Although many members belong to parishes,
their economic needs are met by the cooperative and their relationships within the
cooperative.
Theology and Social Justice
My historical review of organizing acknowledges the influence of some American
religious thinkers on labor and community organizing during the past century, including
Waiter Rauschenbush, Monsignor John Ryan, and Reinhold Niebuhr. I contend that
today's successful labor and community organizing is best traced to the 1930s rather than
to any other decade, including the 1960s and its great social upheaval. Walter
Rauschenbush’s greatest work occurred prior to the 1930s. but his ideas influenced many
social leaders; for example. William Green, a Baptist Sunday school teacher and president
of the AFL from 1924 to 1952. Green would try to inspire capitalists to witness their
Christian faith because he hoped that social institutions like companies and unions could
manifest the redemptive force of the kingdom as described by Rauschenbusch.
Raushenbush believed that the “conscious evolutionary program of Jesus ... combines
religion, social science, and ethical action in a perfect synthesis" (Rauschenbusch 1916,
76). The goal is to foresee and encourage an evolutionary development of the kingdom.
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15
an evolution that includes a conflict in values and institutions Although the change is not
revolutionary or catastrophic (Beckley 1992. 49).
Walter Rauschenbusch definitely denied the possibility o f achieving the kingdom,
but saw humankind moving toward it. He had an optimistic view o f human nature. Since
Rauschenbusch saw human love as building the kingdom by following Jesus, the working
class would grow in fraternal solidarity and confront the capitalists in an evolutionary
process Reinhold Niebuhr differed from Rauschenbusch because he emphasized sin at
work (i.e., never fully controlled) in any new social organization and denied the possibility
o f human perfection leading to the kingdom. Niebuhr believed that the forces of workers
had to be combined to balance their power against the capitalists, and this united social
front would fall well short o f commonly held views o f Christian love. Human perfection,
for the young Niebuhr, is an ideal that human beings attempt to reach in transcending their
self-interests and is never fully achievable because o f their natural will-to-live and will-to-
power. Niebuhr's Christian realism meant that justice was dependent on politics and not
just morality and religion (Beckley 1992. 216). ‘‘Narrower issues (e.g.. a living wage,
union rights, unemployment, and taxes) that occupied the attention o f Rauschenbusch and
Ryan did not, from Niebuhr’s realist perspective, address the inequalities o f power that
impeded progress toward equal justice. Reforms o f this narrow scope would be either
made trivial or prevented by those with economic power" (Beckley 1992, 217).
How do these thinkers relate to contemporary organizing in Los Angeles and the
Catholic community? In the Catholic community, the author sees a traditional movement
o f thought that promotes the Church’s teachings about the dignity o f the human person.
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Leo X T T I took Thomism and addressed it to the industrial worker in Rerum Novarum.
Monsignor John Ryan then took Rerum Novarum and shaped it to fit American
Progressivism to help gain legislative victories for workers. Social gospelers like
Rauschenbusch, promoting social conversion and the kingdom o f God, had previously
espoused many o f Ryan’s suggestions for economic justice, but these thoughtful and
dedicated people too often came from outside the working class and the Catholic
tradition. The Catholic immigrants at the turn o f the century needed unions to improve
their economic lives, and the Catholic church had to support unions and promote social
change to maintain any credibility with the working class faithful. Catholic parishes in
Chicago had numerous run-ins with the University o f Chicago Settlement House between
1915 and 1930. Settlement house work was one of the first attempts at non-labor
community organizing in U.S. industrial centers. The Settlement House was never
accepted by European Catholics or their pastors because Catholics saw them as
proselytizing organizations. In fact, priests openly spoke against these largely Protestant
and middle class efforts, and Catholic parishes built some service centers in direct
competition with the Chicago House (Slayton 1986, 175-177).4 Monsignor Ryan became
the intellectual who helped the institutional Church take greater steps to advocate for its
impoverished flock. After completing his dissertation, “A Living Wage,” Ryan
encouraged legislators to establish a minimum wage for workers, a health care system that
4 The Settlement House, however, became a haven for Mexican immigrants who
were not accepted by other ethnic Catholics (Slayton 1986, 186).
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protected all workers, and a social security program to provide for the disabled and non-workers.
Although this great work led to numerous state minimum wage laws and would
help gamer Catholic support for President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Ryan’s focus
assumed a link between wider social change and the development of personal material and
spiritual growth. Msgr Ryan had a liberal social agenda, but he was a conservative
individual and very orthodox in his religious thinking. For instance, he did respect
property rights which was true to form with Catholic social teaching. He believed that an
employer could morally retain any profit in excess of a living wage, basically, that wage
that could adequately provide for a family. He argued against divorce and artificial
contraception from natural law positions, and thus limited individual choice according to
liberals. Ryan was all o f the above and a board member o f the American Civil Liberties
Union as well. In his liberal social views. Ryan saw faith and morals as important to the
individual, but his liberal friends often disagreed with him in questions of church state
relations and personal morality (Broderick 1963, 150).
John Ryan’s success in bringing Catholics to a progressive position had its
dowmfall because legislation too often substituted for organizing. The destiny of the
society then became dependent on the success of the state which ultimately translates into
the expertise of the state’s bureaucracy. If state measures can be manipulated or
corrupted, then the individual necessarily engages the bureaucracy as an individual and,
consequently, the Church finds itself supporting a liberal government that cannot respond
to all interests. The Church, in my opinion, gives up its role as a contrast model for others
and is subsumed by the liberal democratic culture. Niebuhr’s early support of labor unions
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and Rauschenbusch’s support o f a Christian social movement encouraged a social activism
notion while Ryan looked to the chambers of legislatures for change. Ryan believed
rational government leaders would understand the reasonableness o f such social policies as
a living wage.
Ryan is important to understanding the Catholic promotion of economic justice in
the U.S.. but I believe the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr also plays a part in
understanding the Catholic church's growing involvement in labor and community
organizing. Niebuhr’s significance lies in his understanding of the limits of moral suasion
in Christian idealism (e.g., a naive social gospel way o f approaching economic justice) and
his conclusion that rationalism alone (e.g., scientific materialism) could not remove sin
from the world. In other words, Marxist scientific materialism had no answer for the sin
of human beings and as an ideal became another religion. People, according to Niebuhr,
could not simply think their way to social justice or become more perfect. Although one
cannot accuse John Ryan of depending primarily on reason for his promotion of economic
justice, because he also realized the importance o f union power, he focused his efforts for
social change on rational argumentation. It was Niebuhr who showed the importance of
power and conflict in creating change and balancing interests. The tension between the
actual and the ideal moved people to act and the countervailing power o f organized labor
was essential to economic change.
Saul Alinsky, who is sometimes referred to as the “Freud of community
organizing,'’ was educated in sociology at the University o f Chicago and in labor
organizing during the great CIO campaigns of the 1930s. Niebuhr’s Christian realism was
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coming into play at the same time. Although we know that Alinsky included Moral Man
and Immoral Society in his syllabus for new organizers (Horwitt 1989, 531), I am
uncertain o f the degree o f its importance on Alinsky himself Ed Chambers (Interview, 14
July 1997), who worked with Alinsky and heads the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF)
today, recalls no extraordinary influence of Niebuhr on Alinsky, but he finds that his IAF
community organizers from the Protestant tradition have a great affinity for Niebuhrian
thought. It fits their work. What I believe is important, however, is that through
Alinsky’s community organizing work Niebuhrian ideas have entered the American
Catholic life. Alinsky taught urban Catholics to distinguish between the world as it is and
the world as it should be. Reinhold Niebuhr speaks o f the actual and the ideal and the
tension between the two that leads to change. IAF organizing since the 1930s has used
this tension to train common people to become leaders, to analyze the local power
structure, and to confront the powerful.
In Chicago o f the 1930s and 1940s, the Catholic Young Christian Workers
Movement’s admonishment to “see, judge, and act” also influenced students and workers
who found an organizing mentor in Alinsky Msgr. John Egan as a young Chicago priest
served as a chaplain to the Young Christian Workers and the Young Christian Students
movements (Horwitt 1989. 269), and some early IAF organizers came out of these
groups. Alinsky created a broad-based organization by building on parishes, churches,
synagogues, and other neighborhood associations. Moreover, Catholicism fit well into
this mix because the Church’s social magisterium had traditionally focused on the
individual and the family. Since the Catholic parish is the natural extension o f Catholic
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families, the parish can comfortably support actions for change that improve the lives o f its
families. Alinsky did not fall into the traps o f questioning Church doctrine or allowing
unfriendly Church officials to dissuade him from working with supporters. Some Catholic
bishops accepted Alinsky’s methods because they promoted better families through better
neighborhoods without pushing class analysis or theoretical abstractions. The Alinsky
organizers built, and continue to build, their organizations around personal relationships.
Niebuhr’s thinking, as understood by Alinsky’s organizers and accepted by urban
Catholic religious, encouraged a more aggressive and sometimes conflictive approach to
social change. Niebuhr argued that religion should not be identified with politics, and
Alinsky style community organizing sees justice and not love as the goal of politics.
Politics will never embody love because politics is power against power. Moral Man and
Immoral Society expresses this truth. The Industrial Areas Foundation organizers tap into
the moral life of communities by emphasizing one-on-one meetings with neighbors,
friends, and family. These relationships, rather than class or citizenship, are the source of
moral life and act as the starting point for organizing. Faith-based community organizing
assumes that you find children o f light in congregations. Once an organizer finds the
children o f light, she teaches them to reflect on the world as it is, a world of egotistical
self-interest and sin. The movement towards action reflects a Niebuhrian view:
The preservation o f a democratic civilization requires the wisdom
o f the serpent and harmlessness o f the dove. The children o f light must be
armed with the wisdom o f the children of darkness but remain free from
their malice. They must know the power of self-interest in human society
without giving it moral justification. They must have this wisdom in order
that they may beguile, deflect, harness, and restrain self-interest, individual
and collective, for the sake o f the community. (Niebuhr 1944, 40-41)
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Multi-denominational faith-based community organizing complements democracy
because it engages the religious-minded and promotes citizenship. When self-interest is
channeled into social change using the democratic process, the element of humility found
in religion properly practiced prevents an identification o f religion with politics. The work
of the IAF is focused on rebuilding the social order and not religious institutions, although
the success of the organizing often produces vibrant churches.5 In the case of Christian
congregations, the IAF appeals to the ethical rigor o f Jesus rather than his simplicity.
Jesus was about action and engagement. Niebuhr is important because of his influence on
the organizers within the IAF network and therefore on their affiliated congregations.
Many American Catholic parishes have received Niebuhr’s thought through the activities
of the IAF and the United Farm Workers, and this link is important to community and
labor organizing in Los Angeles in the 1990s.
Saul Alinsky Links Religion. Social Justice, and Action
Robert Fisher (1984) describes five periods o f community organizing in the last
one hundred years: social welfare neighborhood organizing, 1886-1929; radical
neighborhood organizing, 1929-1946; conservative neighborhood organizing, 1946-1960;
the neighborhood organizing revolution of the 1960s. and the New Populism of the 1970s.
Labor organizing has occurred during the same periods, and Saul Alinsky built a bridge
between the two from the 1940s forward. Saul Alinsky and his legacy continues to
5 See Upon This Rock: The Miracles o f a Black Church for a description of the
lAF’s influence on the work o f Pastor Johnny Ray Youngblood and his East Brooklyn
church.
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influence Los Angeles community organizing and labor organizing, and the role that
Catholicism takes in these arenas. Alinsky authored a biography of John L. Lewis that he
also used as a text in his training o f organizers. Labor historians agree that it is a poor
biography, but I believe that it is important to understanding Lewis’ influence on Alinsky’s
thinking, most importantly in regards to his own organizing methods. John L. Lewis was
Alinsky’s model (Sanders 1970, 16). Alinsky did some selective editing, a redaction if you
will, of Lewis’s life which helps us understand Alinsky’s own views on organizing. Using
the biography, one gains a better insight into Alinsky’s own thinking and one has a sense
o f the realism and pragmatism in Alinsky’s thought.
The Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council. Alinsky’s first broad-based
community organization and the Industrial Areas Foundation received substantial
economic, intellectual, spiritual and human resources from the Catholic Church. Joseph
Meegan, the indigenous Back o f the Yards organizer, and Monsignor John Egan o f
Chicago introduced Alinsky to Catholic clergy and sought benefactors for his work.
Alinsky had Jewish and other Christian supporters, but his work with Chicago Catholics
led to subsequent assistance from Catholic groups around the country. Chicago’s Catholic
leaders like Bishop Bemared Sheil made the city the model o f Catholic social justice work
in the 1930s and 1940s. Sheil was instrumental in steering Alinsky to churches that might
support his work, breaking down ethnic walls, and opening parishes to support labor
(Slayton 1986, 109). In part. Catholic social justice work started here because Chicago
was a social laboratory, and social thinking occurred because o f the social dilemmas in a
“community lost” not unlike 1990s Los Angeles (Slayton 1986, 7). Chicago had a mix of
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immigrants, industrial conflict, churches, and academic research. Alinsky himself studied
sociology at the University of Chicago under E.W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park, both
respected sociologists.
People came to Chicago to make money; the city had no other purpose in their
lives. The packing house industrialists feared unions but not ethnic associations, parishes,
or family networks, all social groups that gave people freedom and provided the space for
community discussions. Workers and their families took control o f their lives and
developed leadership skills through these mediating institutions and, by maintaining their
moral authority, these groups provided the means of confronting industrial and political
power. The congregations already had self-understanding, and Alinsky, rather than
criticizing the habits, customs, laws, and tradition within the community, challenged the
workers, their families, and the local clergy to live out this understanding. The
communities had their own histories, and a worker, by being true to his community
history, could more fully approach the truth of his or her own life. While John Ryan had
fought for legislative victories for working people, local parish priests and lay people in
Chicago organized for power with Saul Alinsky
During the 1930s and 1940s, Marxists were influential in CIO organizing. Herb
March, the president o f the Chicago packing house local, was a communist and a leader in
the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council. Robert Fisher (1984, 46-59) contends that
Alinsky borrowed many o f his organizing tactics— strikes, boycotts, and other conflictive
measures— from communists.
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It was in the Council’s social action work that Alinsky cultivated his
“conflict” approach to community organizing, which raised strategy and
tactics to paramount importance in community organizing, above and
beyond questions of ideology, goals, and even democratic structure.
Curiously, the use of militant conflict tactics was also what distinguished
the Communist party’s neighborhood work from most other groups in the
1930s. The “nonideological” Alinsky shrewdly mirrored Communist
tactics without adopting communism or party structure. (Fisher 1984, 55)
Both socialists and communists played significant parts in the community and labor
organizing of the 1930s and 1940s. Alinsky has been labeled a communist although he
never joined the communist party nor promoted its platform. In fact, he argued that
ideology of whatever kind led to divisiveness in the communities that needed power. His
position made him a radical that could be accepted in traditional Church circles with
conservative political views. Working within the boundaries of the Ajnerican democratic
tradition, Alinsky mustered school teachers, unionists, church-goers, and youth into
power groups that forced business executives and political bosses to meet with the
community on its turf and on its terms. The meshing of leftist demands, in the eyes of
some observers, with republican rhetoric created a bigger tent for more participants.
In the 1940s, this method of organizing brought communist Herb March and
Bishop Bernard Sheil together in a common sphere of interest. Will such a wedding of
disparate agendas and views occur in Los Angeles today? The Catholic Church has a
reputation with some progressives as being an anti-communist force in the labor
movement that cost organized labor dynamism and growth. Rev. Charles Owen Rice, a
Pittsburgh labor priest, has publicly apologized for his anti-communist excesses during the
1940s. Rev. John Coffield, an activist priest in Los Angeles, also recalls distributing
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leaflets at an East Los Angeles plant and meeting with parishioners to warn them of the
dangers of communist led unions (Coffield, Interview June 18, 1997). Some progressives,
therefore, attribute the lack o f a significant socialist presence in U.S. labor to the red
baiting of the Catholic Church. Yet many o f the labor union leaders o f the first half of
this century were Catholics with socialist Ieanings~e.g.. Peter McGuire (Carpenters),
James O’Connell (Machinists). John Brophy (Mine Workers), Philip Murray (Steel
Workers), and John McBride (Mine Workers). The Catholic Church was anti-communist,
and its influence on the labor movement “muted" the work o f socialists and communists,
but the rank and file Catholics supported many socialist-looking programs and efforts
(Sexton 1991, 41).
Today progressive leaders would be better served by focusing on the Catholic
Church’s social teachings and entering into greater relations with the Church’s leaders to
defend the poor, workers, and unions than focusing on earlier misunderstandings or
outright injustices. Since the 1970s, this working relationship has occurred in some
European countries, particularly Germany (Sexton 1991, 23). Pope John XXHl’s
encyclical Mater et Magistra (1961) has made it much easier for Catholics to support the
intervention of the state in promoting the well-being of its citizens because the hierarchy
has stated its preferential option for the poor (Dorr 1983, 108). This leaning makes
cooperation with the left much more feasible, although John XXIII as well as John Paul II
are clear about protecting the rights of private property and the importance o f private
initiative. The state is never the ultimate answer for justice in Catholic thinking.
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Faith-based community organizations offer a site for labor and community to work
with the Catholic Church (and other faith groups) to achieve common ends. The Catholic
hierarchy appears to feel most confident when such movements start with the individual
and the family, and the one-on-one relationship building of Alinsky-style community
organizing fits this preference. Social and political analysis come after social relationships
are built. Initiatives for social action will then come from individuals and communities
rather than from the higher and larger collectivities, a method of proceeding that satisfies
the subsidiarity principle of Catholic social teaching. Here we find a clear difference
between the Marxian social analysis that focuses on class and economics, and the Roman
Catholic Church’s focus on family and community (e.g., a focus seen in the sometimes
pastoral nature of Catholic labor schools during the 40s and 50s (McDonough 1992. 104-
105)). Economic analysis was and is clearly a part of Alinsky organizing, but .Alinsky had
the wisdom to start where the people were at and not where they should be— i.e„ avoiding
the error o f Marxian idealism.
Cesar Chavez Promotes Labor Organizing While Big Labor Loses its Will to Fight
My historical analysis moves from the CIO organizing of the 1930s and 1940s to
the community organizing it spawned and then traces the influence o f the Catholic
Church’s participation in the farm worker organizing of the 1960s and 1970s. Fred
Ross, a well known California community organizer, and Saul Alinsky trained and
supported Cesar Chavez both in his community and labor organizing. Cesar Chavez read
the Catholic Church’s social encyclicals and other social justice works. While big
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unionism had settled into a relationship o f corporation with management and built its own
bureaucracy, Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers became the sole reminder, with
the possible exception o f Walter Reuther’s United Auto Workers, of organized labor's
social movement past In part. Chavez's knowledge of community-based organizing and
his missionary vision enabled him to succeed in organizing farm workers after many others
had failed. Prior to founding the United Farm Workers. Chavez organized in Los .Angeles
for the Community Service Organization (CSO). founded by Fred Ross and Saul Alinsky.
In the 1990s. many of the organizers the UFW trained and inspired are working in
community and labor organizing (e.g.. the LAF. Justice for Janitors, and the Hotel
Employee and Restaurant Employees Union) in Los .Angeles and around the nation. The
UFW's link to Saul .Alinsky and John L. Lewis is an obvious one. .Although Catholics
both supported and opposed the UFW, I believe the Church was a key element in the
organizing mix. The values o f the Judeo-Christian tradition moved people to take a stand
on pursuing greater welfare for the poor in their midst.
Today, with less than 11% o f the private work force in unions, the leadership of
the AFL-CIO wants to put the social movement, copying the farm workers' movement,
back into labor. During the past 50 years, since the passage o f the anti-labor Taft-Hartlev
Act. the labor movement has been stymied to a large degree by anti-union forces o f
corporate America. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), although mandated to
protect the right o f employees to engage in concerted activity, has seen its mission
defeated by anti-labor court rulings and pro-management appointments. The NLRB and
the courts have defeated the original intent of the Wagner Act to encourage collective
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bargaining as a means of achieving industrial democracy, and as a consequence, the United
States has no consistent labor policy. For example, during the Eisenhower administration,
the NLRB was Republican controlled The Board raised the dollar volume for cases it
would consider (eliminating meritorious unfair labor practice charges and representation
elections); allowed employers to broaden their anti-union captive audience speeches and
to interrogate employees about signing union cards; and on the whole, created a Board
unsympathetic to workers (Gross 1995. 92-121). The Board, however, returned to a
more pro-collective bargaining position under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson— e.g..
giving regional directors more control over determining questions of representation and
bargaining unit size (Gross 1995. 157). expanding organizational picketing possibilities,
prohibiting some forms of employer lockouts, and limiting employers' speeches during
representation elections and so on (Gross 1995. 165-167). To say the least the NLRB has
become a political football.
Since the early 1960s Fibreboard (138 NLRB 550. 1962) has acted as a line in
the sand for management and labor. Does management have the right to subcontract— in
this case janitorial work— without negotiating with the collective bargaining representative
of its employees? Republican appointed Boards believe subcontracting is management’s
prerogative while Democrat appointed Board’s disagree. It was the Kennedv-Johnson
Board that ruled in favor of collective bargaining in this case (later, supported by the
Supreme Court). Still later, the NLRB. controlled by Nixon appointees, would not
reverse this decision outright, but “redefined the scope of the statutory obligation to
bargain to exclude matters of fundamental managerial or entrepreneurial decision making"
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(Gross 1995, 225) In addition, employers responding to the Kennedy-Johnson Board
established, in 1971, the Labor Law Reform Group which later became an arm o f the
Business Roundtable (its Labor Management Committee). This Roundtable actively
supported articles in magazines (e.g.. Reader’s Digest) and other media to portray unions
as threats to the national economy (Gross 1995, 235). Although the union movement had
a friend in Jimmy Carter, Senator Orin Hatch of Utah and other anti-union congress
people, with extensive Business Roundtable lobbying, defeated any attempts at labor law
reform.
During the Reagan and Bush era, a twelve year period, the Board did not have a
full complement of five members 62% of the time. This illustrates the low regard that
recent Republican presidents have shown the federal panel that governs labor policy in the
United States (Gross 1995, 267). With resignations and short term appointments, the
Board could not maintain a consistent and stable body of judicial expertise to insure
economic citizenship for American working men and women. After President Reagan
appointed Donald Dotson chairman of the NLRB in 1983, Dotson’s Reagan-appointed
Board reversed 29 major NLRB decisions within two years. Professor James Gross at
Cornell University’s School o f Industrial and Labor Relations documents the ideological
bent o f the Reagan-Bush Boards that had the intended purpose of maximizing employer
profits in foreign and domestic markets.
A Dotson-led majority, unsympathetic to the Wagner Act— rooted purposes
o f Taft-Hartley, weakened the obligation to bargain collectively, once
central to the purpose and policies o f the act, by excluding management
decisions it considered too important to an employer’s business to be
negotiated with a union. The Dotson Board’s speedy and extensive
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overturning o f precedents that conservatives considered pro-union brought
about a shift in national labor policy that freed employers in many
important ways from the constraints of workers and unions. (Gross 1995.
254)
The basic problem with U.S. labor policy is that labor law has been at cross
purposes since the Taft-Hartley Act o f 1947. The Wagner Act was to encourage the use
of collective bargaining for industrial democracy, providing some benefit for all; this came
after the experience o f two earlier labor boards, during WWI and during the first years of
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. The Taft-Hartley Act changed this policy by
arguing that the purpose of the act was to protect the rights o f individual employees
(Gross 1995, 272). The law became so focused on the individual that over time employers
and their political supporters would whittle away the balance of power achieved by
concerted activity.
Professor Gross argues that the United States needs to make some ethical and
moral decisions about future labor policy:
Given the conflict and confusion over the central purpose of the Taft-
Hartley Act, the United States needs a definite, coherent, and consistent
statement o f the intent of its national labor policy. That requires more than
changing NLRB case doctrines or amending Taft-Hartley to tighten or
loosen government regulation o f the labor-management relationship. The
recrafting o f a national labor policy must begin with a precise and certain
statement o f its purpose and objectives. Fundamental questions must be
confronted and answered.
These questions are moral and ethical (emphasis added) more than
they are legal, economic, or political. In the U.S. economic system
employers, particularly corporations, are the dominant agents in producing
and distributing most o f the means by which people live and earn their
living. The control these employers have over jobs, the use of scarce
resources, and the distribution o f products and services give them the
power to affect people’s lives, to harm or benefit them, to violate or
protect their rights, to favor some over others for various reasons, to make
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or break their communities, and to make many of the rules that govern who
gets what in the economy and what they have to do to get it.
Consequently, the overwhelming number of working people, even
when prospering, are subject to the arbitrary will of others or to the
allegedly impersonal forces o f economic markets. Although the impact of
employer decisions on human life is much more direct than the impact of
most political decisions, the nation has been preoccupied with issues of
political democracy while most people are subjugated to economic forces
over which they are allowed to have little or no control. That is contrary
to the promise this nation made to itself that it would be a democracy, and
to the fundamental democratic purpose o f the Wagner Act. which Senator
Taft claimed remained the central objective of his new law. Its dedication
to the idea that principles of democracy should apply at the workplace was
the underlying strength of U.S. national labor policy and still is— at least
when the act is read by Democrat-appointed NLRBs. (Gross 1995. 280-
281)
Since 1973 United States workers have watched their real wages steadily decline
as corporate profits and stock prices have soared (Mishel. Bernstein, and Schmitt. 1996,
10-11; Phillips 1990. 8). Wealth is less evenly distributed in the United States than ever
before and the demise o f organized labor has hastened this inequality (Mishel. Bernstein,
and Schmitt. 1996. 40; Center for Budget and Policy Priorities 1990. I). My analysis will
consider the loss of social power in the labor movement and point out its causes:
enervated labor laws, anti-union corporate campaigning, bureaucratization, failure to
organize and globalization. 1 will suggest that community and labor organizers who use
Catholic social teaching and Alinsky-style organizing methods might jump start a
movement for economic democracy in the United States.
Labor’s Drive in the 1990s
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In 1996 John Sweeney, the president o f the AFL.-CIO, wrote America Needs A
Raise: Fighting for Economic Security and Social Justice. His mission is to revitalize the
labor movement.
... a revitalized labor movement will be the core and the catalyst for a new
social movement extending well beyond our ranks, a movement that will
push for public policies promoting economic security and social justice.
And that movement itself will help bridge some of the racial and social gaps
in our country and restore a sense of purpose to public life.
That’s what we mean when we say. "America needs a raise.” Working
together, working Americans can regain a sense of purpose and power— and we
can lift our spirits as well as our wages. (Sweeney 1996, 28)
I contend that these "spirits” are the stuff of religion, and the American Catholic
Church has a key role to play in this endeavor. For this reason, this work is both
descriptive and prescriptive. The present is an opportune time to bring Alinsky-style
community organizations, labor unions and the Church together to promote social justice.
President Sweeney recalls his training at the Xavier Labor School in Manhattan. Like
Cesar Chavez, he knows the social encyclicals:
... I studied Catholic social teaching. In many ways, I learned a more
detailed version of the values I’d been taught at home. Since men and
women are created in God’s image, their dignity must be respected.
Working people have the right to a living wage— in fact, we used to say that
breadwinners should earn a “family wage” so that they could support their
households. And though there will always be some churning in the
economy, working people should not be cast aside like disposable parts
when the last drop of energy and effort has been wrung out o f them.
Recently, the United States Catholic Bishops said it all: “The economy
exists for the human person, not the other way around.”
Human dignity demands that workers have a voice on the job, and
the papal encyclicals we studied recognized the role of unions. Several
priests, particularly Father Philip Carey, of the Xavier Labor School, taught
me a lesson I try never to forget: a union must be a movement and a
mission, not a business or a bureaucracy. In particular, they taught that
organizing new members is not only an institutional necessity but an ethical
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imperative. It is a practical example of the fortunate helping their less
fortunate sisters and brothers. I stress the lessons of Catholic social
teaching because these views shaped my thinking, certainly not because
they are the only course to a commitment to the labor movement. Over the
years, I have been struck by how many in the movement have been
influenced by the teachings of their own traditions— from prophets of the
Old Testament, to the social gospel of modem Protestantism, and the
determination o f the African-American churches to help people make a "a
way out of no way.” Whenever I hear the voices of prejudice and privilege
claim scriptural sanction for their views. I wonder how they managed to
read the Bible without coming across the words “justice” and “love.”
I’m not saying that people who believe, as I do, in the traditional
values of work, family, and faith must support the labor movement in
everything we do. But I do believe that for people to live decent lives—
with lasting commitments to their families and neighbors— they need some
security. (Sweeney 1996, 14-15)
John Sweeney’s solution for working America is a “seamless garment of activism.”
He wants organizing across industries, a social movement that reaches into the community
(not unlike the organizing of the Knights of Labor), training for the new economy, fighting
for job security, gaining a share of the wealth that workers produce, and building the spirit
of community in the United States (Sweeney 1996. 124). He goes on to offer the
example of Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD), the LAF affiliate in
Baltimore. BUILD worked with the American Federal State County and Municipal
Employees Unions (AFSCME) to win a living wage ordinance in Baltimore. Following
the path of Msgr. John Ryan and his populist sympathies, BUILD fought for a wage that
would take city employees and employees contracted by the city off of public assistance.
Los Angeles is a key city for this attempt at revitalizing the labor movement and it
is also the home o f a strong IAF network. The AFL-CIO had its annual convention in
February 1997 in Los Angeles, the first time it has been held outside of Bal Harbour,
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Florida in twenty years. In the last national election, the city’s Latino population
surpassed the African-American population in voter turnout. This Latino population is
also nominally Catholic, and, if in fact not Catholic, continues to participate in religious
communities. How significant is the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ role in this work? How
do concepts of justice converge and diverge in Los Angeles organizing?
The United States labor movement has historically experienced an ebb and flow o f
organizing successes and failures, including the rapid growth and decline of the Knights
o f Labor, the National Civic Federation’s support for labor at the turn o f the century, the
red scare days demonizing labor after World War I, the American Plan’s attack on unions
during the 20s. and the rapid rise in union membership after the 1935 Wagner Act passed.
In recent times the percentage of union members in the private and public workforce has
decreased to less than 11%; this is an extreme ebb tide. Some employers and academics
are sounding a death knell and within the labor movement a few knowledgeable organizers
expect further losses. Yet zealous organizers and dedicated union members who have
seen economic injustices have revived the labor movement too many times to shut the
door on organizing as a means o f economic development in the future.
Recent events in the nation, California and Los Angeles point to a drive to
reinvigorate the AFL-CIO and to solicit the help of natural allies, like religious groups,
particularly the Catholic Church, to build power. The AFL-CIO has asked member unions
to increase to 20% the amount of money that they dedicate to organizing, up from
amounts as low as 3% during the 80s. On April 13, 1997 John Sweeney, UFW leaders
Arturo Rodriguez and Dolores Huerta, and Rev. Jesse Jackson marched with 30,000
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people from 36 states and three countries to support the UFW’s organizing o f strawberry
pickers in Watsonville, California. President Sweeney is striving to identify the AFL-CIO
with all workers and underscore its justice mission. At the same event in Watsonville, the
board of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice met to discuss the
strawberry workers’ situation and consider the needs of workers in general. The
ecumenical board includes two Roman Catholic Bishops, Sr. Virginia Gillis, R.S.M.. Sr.
Nancy Sylvester, I .H.M, Msgr. John Egan. Mr. Tom Chabolla. Director of the Los
Angeles Archdiocese Justice and Peace Commission, and other Catholic leaders. Msgr.
George Higgins is a special advisor to the board. The national director of the committee
is Kim Bobo, a long time community organizer and author.
The Los Angeles National Interfaith Committee affiliate is Clergy and Laity
United for Economic Justice (CLUE) which worked with labor to pass the Los Angeles
Living Wage initiative in 1996. The Catholic Archdiocese has promoted CLUE’s efforts
and two labor groups studied by the author have used CLUE to further their organizing
campaigns. At the February 1997 AFL-CIO winter meeting in Los Angeles, John
Sweeney, Richard Trumka, and Linda Chavez-Thompson met with CLUE leaders,
including Auxiliarly Bishop Stephen Blaire and Tom Chabolla, to discuss the “new labor
movement and explore ways to work together" (Faith W orks 1997). The Archdiocese has
also encouraged the IAF’s organizing efforts which include citizenship preparation, voter
registration, and get out the vote efforts. The Service Employees International Union
(SEIU) invested over $60,000 in IAF work in 1996 and 1997 to aid its citizenship and get
out the vote work.
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Labor, community and Church are coming together to promote economic
development through organizing just as many workers and some church leaders pushed
for the New Deal in the 30's. This effort is finding and will continue to find an ally in
Catholic social justice activities
Methodology
I was a participant-observer in Los Angeles community and labor organizing
activities from 1994 to 1998. In the area o f community organizing, my work and study
have focused on Alinsky-style organizing as practiced by Los Angeles affiliates of the
Industrial Areas Foundation. Although the Community Service Organization (CSO) and
the Association o f Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have roots in
.Alinsky-style organizing and are active in Los Angeles, I have not spent time with these
groups, in part, because neither of them are congregation-based like the IAF. The L.A.
Metropolitan Churches, an African-American organization, is a congregation-based,
Alinsky-style organizing group partially funded by the Campaign for Human Development
but has no Catholic parishes. In turn, in the area of labor organizing, I have focused on
activist unions (e.g.. SEIU 399 and HERE 11) or cooperative efforts (LISTO and Festival
Catering) that have connections with the IAF and/or the Roman Catholic Church. These
links may include, but are not limited to. financial resources, human resources, and the
reporting of their organizing activities in the Archdiocesan newspapers.
I selected members of a handful o f organizing groups to observe and interview
because the people and groups had some level of reputation (e.g., foundation award
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37
recipients) or renown (e.g., media attention) in Los Angeles. Service Employees
International Union Local 399 has effectively used the Justice for Janitors Campaign in
Los Angeles, and the local had initiated an organizing campaign against the University o f
Southern California as my research began. The Los Angeles Manufacturing Action
Project brought together unions, academics, and community activists with some fanfare in
the organizing community while facing the gargantuan task o f trying to organize a half
million workers in L.A. LISTO has a ten year history of providing daywork for Hispanic
immigrants in Los Angeles and has received funding and support from the Archdiocese
and numerous L.A. foundations. LISTO is distinct from the union organizing efforts
because the staff and members have attempted to create work as a cooperative. These
workers are sometimes too low-skilled to obtain jobs that unions would consider
organizing.
I included some study of the Tourism Industry Development Council (TIDC)and
Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) in my field research because they
are linking community/labor efforts with some participation from the Catholic Church.
These organizations frequently had activities and issues that appeared on local television
or in the press. The .Archdiocese has a representative on the board of directors of TIDC
and has ongoing contact with the organizers and leaders o f both groups through the
Archdiocesan Justice and Peace Commission.
This dissertation relies primarily on qualitative data although I have used
quantitative data from secondary sources as well. I relied on numerous observations of
social encounters, practices, relationships, and groups to increase my understanding of the
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organizing activity. Union halls, churches, and community meetings provided
opportunities to confirm the ideas, beliefs, and motivations o f the interviewees. A
researcher should notice inconsistencies between a subject or an organization’s stated
beliefs and its public actions. I wanted to listen to stories and viewpoints and observe
behavior to determine what was or was not happening in community and labor organizing.
I decided against quantitative surveys and analysis because I believe they would have been
less useful for gaining a “large" understanding of L.A organizing and its relationship to
the Catholic Church. Without some relationship with me. the subjects would quite
posssibly have failed to respond to questionnaires, made incomplete responses,
misunderstood questions, or perhaps given false answers to questions (See Yow 1994, 6).
Personal interviews allowed me to get to the heart o f the matter although false reporting
or misunderstandings were still possibilities.
Social activists taught me about the interrelationship o f organizing and the
Catholic Church in Los Angeles today. They provided the histories and personal referrals
that gave me new questions and new sources of information on the organizing. Written
surveys would have been too static by leaving numerous paths unexplored. This
qualitative investigation, however, should provide ideas for quantitative research in the
near future. For instance, gender issues and personal morality views seem to be two
stumbling blocks when community activists consider relationships with the Catholic
Church in L.A To what degree are these blocks important to union organizers,
community organizers or leaders in the Catholic community? Are they surmountable?
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From July 1996 to April 1998, the period in which I systematically gathered data, I
attended 159 meetings, events, training sessions, and other similar activities conducted by
labor organizers, community organizers, and the Catholic Church. For example, in the
case of training sessions, I attended the IAF national training (1996), the AFL-CIO
Organizing Training Institute (1997). and the L.A. Archdiocese's Public Discipleship
teach-in (1997). I took field notes at 103 of the research settings, a number less than 159
because some o f the meetings offered little new information relevant to my research
interests, and the participants remained the same I attended some meetings because I
have been and continue to be an active supporter of community and labor organizing as a
means of economic development. I also interviewed 43 practitioners— labor and
community organizers, workers, community members, and Catholic Church leaders. My
interviewees included paid staff, elected officials (e.g., union presidents), and Church
appointees (e.g., bishops), all leaders who had voices in the ongoing work and planning of
their institutions. An additional seven interviews with rank and file union members.
Catholic congregants, and community members provided some sense o f the importance of
the labor-community-Church organizing relationship in the minds of those who are the
focus of organizing efforts— workers and community members. Fifteen of the 50
individual interviews were with women and 35 were with men. Forty-five of the
interviews were in English and five were in Spanish. I transcribed over half the interviews
myself and reviewed for errors the transcripts that others produced for me.
I held one focus group session that included: union organizers from SEIU, United
Needle and Industrial Textile Employees (UNITE), and Los Angeles Manufacturing
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Action Project (LAMAP); the Archdiocesan Justice and Peace Director; the LISTO
director, and a community organizer from the Industrial Areas Foundation. This meeting
allowed activists in the three spheres of influence to discuss their views of the labor-
community-Church organizing in the 1990s. I moderated the discussion, but the
participants quickly engaged each other in conversation. This focus group session was
recorded and transcribed. It revealed to me the desire of organizers and Church people
for deeper and more systematic relationships between the three spheres, underscored the
misunderstandings about the nature o f leadership in the Catholic Church and the resources
at the Church’s disposal, and highlighted the oftentimes demanding and urgent nature of
organizing work. The relationship is obviously a complex one. Some o f the focus group
participants have continued to meet.
In the selection of interviewees, I made a conscious decision to learn from people
who had roles that intersected the labor. Church, and community organizing spheres. The
interviews normally lasted from one to one and one-half hours and took place most often
in offices and homes of the interviewees. Some interviews with organizers occurred in
restaurants and cars because we met while they were working in the field. I conducted
my interviews with a set of questions (Appendix I), but I always encouraged open-ended
responses. During interviews I revised questions until I reached dead-ends, and I allowed
interviewees to sometimes give me information that strayed ffom my original questions.
In this way, the interview followed the path of an oral historian rather than a social
scientist. At the same time, the interviews contained not only personal reporting and
reflections on organizing but institutional analysis as well. I asked the practitioners to
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analyze the union campaigns (e.g.. Justice for Janitors), community organizing groups
(e.g., the IAF and the Tourism Industry Development Council), and the Catholic Church.
Moreover, a quantitative investigation that captured the historical links and present
development of L A. organizing seemed highly unlikely given the harried nature o f the
organizers' work and their desire to gain power by building relationships. Good
organizers consciously decide if they want to be in relationship with someone, and they
cannot make this decision by receiving a questionnaire. Los Angeles also does not have
one dominant organizing group but a multitude o f unions, community groups, and social
activists. A qualitative approach allowed me to capture some of the breadth of the
organizing as well as learn the specific viewpoints of well-known practitioners. In
addition, as the story of organizing and its relationship to Catholicism unfolded for me, I
was able to reflect on the ethics of this work. By attending numerous events, marches,
and meetings, 1 better understood the thinking o f the subjects I interviewed, the positions
of the groups they represented, and the goals they sought. My qualitative investigation
reports on the organizing activities, and I used my findings to present an ethical position
for the participation of Catholics in these efforts to organize (See Chapter 10, my
conclusion).
Throughout the research period I conducted literature reviews, followed Los
Angeles Spanish and English newspaper accounts o f organizing, and researched the
documents of labor, community, and Catholic groups. My files contained agendas,
meeting minutes, handouts, and magazine clippings. However, the interviews and the
focus groups were my primary sources o f data. I believe that documents and reports are
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often saved by the powerful to maintain control while the accounts o f the powerless are
lost or never kept CYow 1994. 12)— whether they be the powerless in community groups,
in unions, or the Church.
The case descriptions are written as narratives and are interspersed with comments
from interviewees and cites from published sources. I presented the case studies as
narratives because they are a continuation of an earlier organizing history and also speak
to the legal and economic obstacles that labor and community organizers face today. My
desire was to provide one snapshot of the Catholic Church's role in labor and community
organizing in Los Angeles in the mid-1 990s. to encourage organizing within the bounds o f
Catholic social teaching and hopefully, as a consequence, to promote economic justice in
Los Angeles today. My case study narratives and analysis o f the organizing sprang from
the ordering and coding o f the interviews and documents collected throughout the
research period. I separated material into labor or community organizing categories, I
selected out interviewee's comments that highlighted occasions of success or failure when
organizing with the Catholic Church, and I sorted out materials and comments related to
organizer/member formation in each organization. Formation, the transmitting of a
community's story to a new generation or members, was a clear goal for each institution.
Do people identify themselves as Catholics who organize with a union or community
group, or as union/community activists who are Catholic?
The dissertation’s conclusion provides ethical support for Catholic participation in
this work. I have purposely blended description with normative comments because I
believe community and labor organizing benefit poor communities when the organizing is
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around values. The values o f the Catholic community continue to be supportive of
organizing, and the Catholic social tradition provides a vision of social and human
development that is not hostile to other faith groups or cultures, making it useful for Los
Angeles today I believe, however, that Catholics must first know and witness their
Christian faith and not try to design programs or organize social structures that can mask a
will-to-power. In this light, I suggest that we should be about becoming a community of
character, as described by the etnicist Stanley Hauerwas. The community o f character
produces individuals of character who then act in the wider world. This requires a
grounding in the sacraments, liturgy, and the Gospel for Catholics, the learning of one’s
story, before one can witness one's faith in the social setting.
Three Case Studies: Justice for Janitors/SEIU 1877. LAMAP. and LISTQ
The following three case studies are briefly described to introduce them as
examples of the worker organizing now taking place in Los Angeles. They are selected as
cases because they are fairly well-recognized in Los Angeles, they are unique attempts at
organizing, and they entail labor organizing, community organizing, and Roman Catholic
support. Justice for Janitors leaders have come out of community organizing and the
United Farm Worker movement, bringing all of the history of religious participation in
those organizing efforts. LAMAP is a multi-union organizing effort that hopes to reach
across the community in ways that parallel the community-wide development o f the
Knights of Labor. Roman Catholic workers and religious leaders encourage this work.
LISTO is an immigrant day worker cooperative that harkens to the Catholic social
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tradition o f worker-ownership and corporatism. Rather than focusing on class division,
the cooperative is trying to build a worker-owned and managed institution. The Roman
Catholic Church has supplied financial and human resources to help this association of
immigrants create their own social and economic community. After the historical analysis
o f the Roman Catholic Church’s relationship to labor and community organizing, the
author will describe each o f the case studies in more detail and analyze the activity of the
Catholic Church in their organizing work. As one passes through the historical analysis,
one should keep in mind these brief case descriptions o f contemporary labor and
community organizing in Los Angeles.
Justice for Janitors/SEIU Local 1877
Justice for Janitors is the most well known o f these three case studies because of
the union’s use of nonviolent civil disobedience and confrontational tactics that attempt to
gain employer recognition without employing NLRB representation election procedures.
These tactics harken back to the thirties and the Detroit sit-down strikes which Alinsky
believed copied the steel workers closing of the Carnegie Company mill during the
Homestead Strike of 1892. In June 15. 1990 Los Angeles police officers beat Justice for
Janitors demonstrators on Olympic Blvd. in Century City after striking janitors and their
supporters were not allowed to march towards area office towers (Baker 1990, Bl). The
Los Angeles City Council, three years later, agreed to pay the union $2.3 million in
damages. In 1997 Justice for Janitors won an NLRB election at the University of
Southern California after a year o f street demonstrations and community efforts to gain
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collective bargaining recognition. Many of the Justice for Janitors (SEIU) leaders learned
their skills and gained their passion in the United Farm Workers movement. Eliseo
Medina, a member of the SEIU’s executive board, was a key figure in the UFW. John
Sweeney, the President o f the AFL-CIO. is the former president o f the SEIU. In America
Needs A Raise John Sweeney writes:
The strategy o f Justice for Janitors was to build a mass movement,
with workers making clear that they wanted union representation and
winning ‘Voluntary recognition" from employers. The campaigns
addressed the special needs o f an immigrant workforce, largely from Latin
America. In many cities, the janitors’ cause became a civil rights
movement--and a cultural crusade. (Sweeney 1996, 128)
The historical line o f influence from John L. Lewis to Saul Alinsky and Fred Ross
then to Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and now to Eliseo Medina is certain. Direct
nonviolent action and tactical maneuvers bring the wider community into the conflict.
Large scale labor campaigns always require organizing around a community larger than
the job site. This organizing also benefits from the moral authority of institutional religion
and the relationships already established within these communities. Community
organizations and labor unions are working with one another to strengthen the political
and economic lives of poor people in Los Angeles. The IAF has received funding from
the SEIU/Justice for Janitors for its Active Citizenship Campaign, an organization
established to prepare and help eligible U.S. residents apply for citizenship. The national
IAF affiliates, as non-profit, non-partisan “501 C)3)s" have worked to register middle and
low-income voters as well as educate them on important ballot initiatives. In Los
Angeles, the IAF has received financial support from the Archdiocese’s Campaign for
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Human Development Office and has received public support from Cardinal Roger
Mahony. Justice for Janitors, SEIU Local 1877, has also been a member o f the IAF’s
United Neighborhoods Organization based in East Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project (LAMAP)
The Community scholars program, a joint effort o f the Center for Labor Education
and Research and the Department o f Urban Planning at UCLA, worked with LAMAP to
study the possibility o f organizing the 600,000 workers (90% non-union) along the
Alameda Corridor, the industrial boulevard that stretches from downtown Los Angeles to
the San Pedro port. Start up funding for the project and its study came from the
Rosenberg Foundation o f San Francisco (Berg, 1994 B3). After completion o f the study
in 1995, the LAMAP offices opened in Huntington Park under long-time labor organizer
Peter Olney. Oiney and his organizers initially combined the financial support o f nine
unions to make the community-wide organizing drive. At this writing, only the Teamsters
Union is participating. LAMAP won a local Campaign for Human Development grant and
has included one priest on its advisory board. Father Pedro Villarroya, CM. Although
Father Pedro is not active in the Industrial Areas Foundation today, he was one o f the first
Los Angeleno religious to attend an Industrial Areas Foundation training in the 1970s. He
then participated in the organizing o f the East Los Angeles United Neighborhood
Organization (UNO), the first modem IAF group in the city. Father Pedro introduced
LAMAP to Catholic Auxiliary Bishops Stephen Blaire and Joseph Sartoris whose regions
include the Alameda Corridor. Bishop Blaire later toured the corridor with Richard
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Trumka, the President of the United Mine Workers and a member of the AFL-CIO
executive council, to discuss the needs o f the community and the role of the Church and
labor in meeting those needs.
LAMAP is a union drive that embodies the organizing goals of John Sweeney and
the renewed AFL-CIO. The organizing is around manufacturing, a traditional union
strong hold, because the unionists believe low manufacturing wages and the lack of
benefits cause poverty. Los Angeles is key to a national organizing movement because
half o f the manufacturing workers are Latino immigrants who are ripe for organizing. The
immigrant workers themselves are demanding recognition: Justice for Janitors, since 1990,
7,000 workers organized: American Racing Equipment Inc., 1990. 1,500 workers;
Drywall carpenters, 1992. 3.000 workers (Organizing the Future 1995, 2). Just as the
Chicago o f the 1930s and 1940s encountered a large unorganized immigrant population so
does Los Angeles of the 1990s. The Catholic Church and the Industrial Areas Foundation
helped organize workers and the community in Chicago, and we will see whether history
repeats itself in Los .Angeles. How influential of a role will the Catholic Church have in
LAMAP9 Will the Industrial Areas Foundation cooperate with LAMAP and its work?
The UNO and SCOC affiliates already have many member Catholic parishes along the
Alameda corridor.
LISTO
The LISTO day worker cooperative was founded in July 1988. The St. Joseph
Center, located in Venice, California, aided its establishment after determining that the
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Center’s family advocacy staff was spending significant amounts o f time job hunting for
its many Hispanic clients. The political violence in Central America and the poverty of
Mexico during the 1970s and 80s led thousands of Latinos to seek a better life in the
north. Five hundred thousand Central American political and economic refugees settled
in Los Angeles. The Immigration Reform and Control Act o f 1986 placed greater
pressure on these immigrants because they faced a hostile government that questioned
their right to work and live in the United States. The founders of LISTO set up a job desk
for the unemployed and underemployed who lined street corners around West Los
Angeles hoping to find a day’s employment. The cooperative membership has fluctuated
from a high o f 150 members to its present 90 participants. Although primarily Latina
women who are employed as housekeepers and care-givers, the cooperative also has men
who garden, paint, wash windows, and perform numerous other home service work.
The cooperative has two ftill-time staff people who act as organizers for the
community and administer the job desk. A member-selected board o f directors (mesa
directiva) leads the cooperative, and an advisory board of local religious leaders (e.g., the
local parish priest), business people, and community activists work with the mesa
directiva. LISTO. although not union organizing, is labor organizing. The hourly wage
rate for LISTO members is from $7.00 to $8.00 per hour in a city where some employers
pay less than the $5.15 minimum wage. The cooperative is a unique case because the
members are moving toward worker-ownership in small micro-enterprises~e.g., house
cleaning and moving. The staff and advisory group have discussed the Mondragon
cooperative complex in Spain, and they hope to see a similar development, albeit on a
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smaller scale, with LISTO. The primary goal is job creation. Cooperative ownership is a
desire, but it is not the primary goal.
LISTO as a member o f the St. Joseph Center (a social service center), developed
within the Catholic milieu of Los Angeles Although non-sectarian foundations as well as
many Protestant and Jewish organizations have supported its work, the members are
primarily Catholic given their Latin American roots. The Campaign for Human
Development has been a major supporter over the past nine years and continues to provide
financial and intellectual aid as LISTO becomes a stand alone nonprofit organization. The
cooperative is the first dues paying member of the West Side Organizing Committee, a
sponsoring committee for a new Industrial Areas Foundation affiliate in West Los
Angeles. The committee includes local churches, a Buddhist temple and the Santa
Monica-Malibu School District. The IAF cabinet has shown the BBC documentary on the
Basque cooperative Mondragon to its network of organizers, has proposed job creation
through cooperatives as an option for Iow-income communities, and has organized service
work cooperatives through its Napa/Sonoma and Sacramento Valley Organizing
Committees. The IAF network wants to learn more about LISTO’s management and
democratic structure to create other LISTOs around the Los Angeles area. LISTO wants
to learn more community organizing skills from the IAF to help the cooperative grow
Four American bishops, with the theological and economic guidance of Msgr. John
Ryan, offered cooperatives as a viable route for workers in the Bishops’ Program on
Social Reconstruction of 1919;
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Nevertheless, the full possibilities o f increased production will not
be realized so long as the majority of workers remain mere wage earners.
The majority must somehow become owners, or at least in part, o f the
instruments of production. They can be enabled to reach this stage
gradually through cooperative productive societies and copartnership
arrangements. In the former, the workers own and manage the industries
themselves; in the latter they own a substantial part o f the corporate stock
and exercise a reasonable share in the management. However slow the
attainments o f these ends, they will have to be reached before we can have
a thoroughly efficient system o f production, or an industrial and social
order that will be secure from the danger of revolution. It is to be noted
that this particular modification o f the existing order, though far-reaching
and involving to a great extent the abolition of the wage system, would not
mean the abolition o f private ownership. The instruments o f production
would still be owned by individuals, not by the state. ("Program o f Social
Reconstruction o f 1919,” Pastoral Letters o f the United States Catholic
Bishops. 1984)
The personal interviews center on the person's organizing story. How did he or
she come into this work? In other words, what is his story? What has he been taught
about the Church’s role in labor and community organizing9 How does he experience the
Church at work in these areas today9 Is he aware o f the social magisterium9 As an
observer o f the three cases, I will look to see if practitioners are working on the basis of
some moral imperative. Perhaps they face bureaucratic imperatives. For instance, are
unions replacing a social service model with a social movement one? Is the Catholic
Church a source o f political and economic power? Since community organizers, church
people, and labor organizers have attempted to collaborate, when has the collaboration
succeeded and when has it failed? What are the perspectives and motivations o f the
various groups?
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As mentioned above, this study is both descriptive and prescriptive. Given the
Catholic Church’s teachings on economic justice, how is it supporting the organizing work
now going on in Los Angeles? How should Catholics be involved?
The Roman Catholic Church and Community/Labor
My historical survey and observations suggest that organizing needs to begin with
the individual and his or her immediate family. The one-on-one method o f meeting with
neighbors and kindred builds relationships o f trust. The family is the building block for the
Church community and both are prior to the political and economic system. Moral
practice begins with the family. In the hearing of family and community stories, one
encounters the anger over injustices suffered and the passion for justice that move some
members to act. A common story unites people, and, therefore, if the family and
community are to have some affect on society, the story tellers at each level must speak. I
do not deny that sometimes families and communities can be stifling or oppressive, but 1
would contend that some form of family or religious community, hopefully institutions that
are life giving, will always persist. My conclusions are generalizations and these
generalizations will fall to counter-examples, but this is the nature of studying human
beings and their social behavior. The success of the Industrial Areas Foundation and other
faith-based organizing groups attests to the continued strength o f religious communities.
The Catholic Church is a community with a tradition. The Los Angelenos who
continue to practice the Catholic faith obviously see some value to this tradition, and they
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try to use it in a rational way/’ They try to support their families and communities by
living moral lives and seeking solutions to social problems (e.g., participating in
community organizing groups). At times the Catholic Church’s leadership, in following
the tradition, is comfortable with the effects o f the liberal democratic social system of our
country (e.g.. welfare protection for the poor) and at times it is not (e.g.. publicly funded
abortions and anti-immigrant laws). Individual Catholics, of course, have personal
positions on these issues, but the tradition and official views as taught by the Church, are
normally fairly clear. Vatican II and the work of Catholic theologians like John Courtney
Murray, SJ allowed Catholics to accept American pluralism, but neither Murray nor the
Council condoned relativism. Pluralism succeeds where virtue abides for Murray.
Founding Father John Adams likewise believed that the US. Constitution was only as
good as the moral and religious strength of the people.
The Catholic tradition addresses justice questions and. with the work of teachers
like Msgr. John Ryan, sometimes suggests changes to the social system to alleviate
injustice. But the primary function of the Church is to be the church. (Admittedly, my
focus on the Roman Catholic Church is sectarian, and I understand that the church is
wider than the Catholic Church.) My goal is to see how Catholics respond to community
and labor organizing in Los Angeles and suggest ways in which they might contribute to
this work by living their narrative. “The first social task of the church is to provide the
space and time necessary for developing skills of interpretation and discrimination
6See Stanley Hauerwas A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive
Christian Social Ethic 1981. 25-26. for further discussion of reason and tradition.
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sufficient to help us recognize the possibilities and limits o f our society” (Hauerwas 1981,
74). When the Church, the community o f character, tells its story, community members
will both witness and hopefully organize for a better tomorrow.
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CHAPTER 2
U S LABOR HISTORY AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
19th CENTURY TO WORLD WAR I: KNIGHTS OF LABOR & THE AMERICAN
FEDERATION OF LABOR
The experience o f the 1830’s was a first demonstration that labor had no
real basis for setting up a distinctive party. Its aims were broadly liberal,
and taken over by the major parties whenever the workers were able,
directly or indirectly, to exercise sufficient pressures. (Dulles 1966, 5 1)
Although U.S. trade unionism did not become a significant economic force until
after the Civil War, when national business enterprises had become more common, as
early as 1836, North Eastern city labor councils had organized a federation called the
National Trades' Union (Dulles 1966, 59). During this time, there were strikes for a
shorter work day. The reformists had a goal of ten hours of work per day. The
government councils o f the cities were the first to concede to the ten hour demands and
the private sector followed suit. In effect the local governments set area labor standards.1
To understand the relationship between labor, community and Catholic Church
today in L.A., this generation of organizers needs some understanding of the past. The
lIn the 1990s community activists and workers around the United States have
lobbied their city officials to set living wage rates. The city of Los Angeles passed a living
wage ordinance in 1997 requiring all private subcontractors to pay $7.25 per hour with
family medical benefits. Later chapters will discuss this living wage initiative and the
labor, congregation, and community cooperation that achieved its passage. Workers in
the 1990s, like their counterparts in the 1830s, are demanding better wages and working
conditions to improve their lives and the lives of their families.
54
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next 100 pages are a synopsis of U.S. labor history with an eye to the influence o f Roman
Catholicism in this history.
Workers during the first quarter of the 19* century demanded shorter work days
because they wanted time to educate themselves and their children.
In the I830’s [...] the emphasis upon time for self-education, which was
considered so essential to enable the newly enfranchised laboring classes to
fulfill their obligations as citizens, was a great deal more than merely a
facile argument to bolster their cause. There is every evidence that the
workers were deeply interested in education for themselves as well as for
their children. The crowded workingmen audiences at the popular lyceum
lectures o f these years, the growing vogue for circulating libraries, and the
insistent demand for free, public schools all attest to a deep concern born
of the idealistic belief that education alone could provide the basis for a
successful democracy (Dulles 1966,61)
Early workingmen’s councils and federations did not have the social class
consciousness o f later labor unions after Marx’s writings; in other words, the division
between capital and labor was not as clearly defined as in an industrial age. The American
aristocracy denied craftsmen and artisans rights that American democracy upheld for all
men, and the aggrieved workers organized to hold on to these rights. The laborers, if not
working out o f clearly articulated religious principles, at least saw a basic right as
producers to participate in the rewards o f their efforts. The democratic ideals o f the
founding fathers o f the nation necessarily engaged the groupings o f artisans, craftsmen,
and other hired laborers who lived in growing communities and contributed to their well
being. The worker associations fell apart when economic conditions declined in 1837.
Once again each worker was forced to concentrate on satisfying his or her immediate
personal needs (Dulles 1966, 71). In the next decade industrialization began to take root.
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wages dropped in New England mill towns, and the labor pool grew as Irish, German and
French-Canadian immigrants sought work (Dulles 1966. 78).
At the same time, the United States remained a Protestant country. Historians o f
religion now believe that the majority of immigrants from Catholic European countries
did not practice their faith when they arrived in the U.S. Moreover, the immigrants that
came from these primarily Catholic countries were often Protestant; e.g.. Northern Irish
and French Protestants (Finke and Stark 1992. 111). By 1850, Catholics in the U.S.
probably numbered 1,088,000 or less. They were not a significant population in political
or economic terms. Not until the great wave of Catholic immigration during the 1890s did
Catholicism begin to become a significant factor in the American political and economic
spheres.
The I840’s offered various well known communal alternatives to wage labor, from
Robert Owen’s New Harmony commune in Indiana to the religiously inspired communal
living of the Shakers in the north east. If laboring people could not be assured of a decent
and relatively secure life by working for others, perhaps an association of
workers/producers would serve their interests. People without resources listened to
.American labor advocates and writers, including Horace Greeley, who promoted social
utopianism along the lines o f Charles Fourier (Dulles 1966, 81). When these associations
failed, progressives founded producer and consumer cooperatives but these, too, did not
become widespread. Dulles (1966, 82) attributes this to the temperament of the American
people who sought individual development over communal living. United States Catholic
Church leaders also criticized Fourierism as being the “first step to Socialism” (Commons
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19 18, Vol. 571). In the mid-1800s, George Henry Evans and other working people
pressured politicians for land reform so that all Americans could own land, and their
efforts led to the Homestead Act. Workers were citizens looking for the well-being and
respectability attained with property They still saw themselves as individuals and not as a
working class subjugated by the capitalists. The ten hour work day movement was not
organized at the workplace, but grew from political associations that focused on winning
legislative fights for a shorter day (Dulles 1966. 85). The assemblages that existed for
these issues were reformist rather than revolutionary and not truly labor organizations
formed to bargain with employers.
During the 1850s labor unions organized around the skilled crafts and trades while
the great mass of unskilled manual laborers were left unorganized. The trade unions
fought to maintain closed shops, to protect wages, and decrease hours; creating a broad
labor movement was not a concern (Dulles 1966. 88). Catholic immigrants formed
immigrant aid societies to help new arrivals find employment and better navigate the social
waters o f a new land. Catholic Irish formed the Irish Emigrant Aid Society in New York
in 1841. In 1855 American Catholics o f German decent established the German Catholic
Central-Verein that they fashioned from the work of Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel Von
Ketteler who organized the German Catholic Congress of Mainz in 1848. The Central-
Verein created programs for life insurance, immigrant aid and employment bureaus
(Browne 1949, 6-7). Social action became a greater part of these organizations but not
until the hierarchy made a more comprehensive pronouncement about the labor question
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would the Catholic faithful know that the Church stood with them in the new industrial
world.
However much Catholics singly or in groups might seek to uplift the
workingman, there could be no meeting of the Church and organized labor
until the hierarchy had seen fit to make some pertinent pronouncement.
Before 1866 there was nothing definite said relating to labor unions except
in so far as the American Bishops had reflected the century-old concern o f
the Church about secret societies. This had begun with the constitution. In
eminenti. of Pope Clement XII in 1738, which first condemned
Freemasonry and prohibited Catholics from affiliating with it or aiding it in
any way under penalty o f excommunication from which they could be
released only by the Holy See. Such fiiiminations against anti-social
societies, or those which threatened injury to Church or State, were
repeated and elaborated up until the time of Pope Leo XIII. That pontiff
issued five encyclicals which attacked the Freemasons and kindred
societies, and finally these condemnations were codified in three canons o f
the Code of Canon Law of 1918. (Quigley 1927, 12-28)
At the same time the U.S. Catholic hierarchy encouraged Catholics to strengthen
their social bonds with non-CathoIics and to perform their civic duties responsibly. The
bishops wanted outstanding Catholic citizens to be the bulwark against anti-Catholicism
(Guilday 1932). The hierarchy’s concerns, however, were the secrecy and socialism that
could be found in the wider world of labor solidarity (Healy 1923, 101). In 1866 at the
Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, the bishops permitted Catholic membership in
“workman associations” so long as they existed for the mutual benefit of workers and did
not conspire against the Church or state (Browne 1949, 13-15). We find that individual
bishops had distinct views of labor associations, for example. Bishop James Bayley of
Newark condemned them while Archbishop John Lynch, the great Canadian friend of
labor, applauded the exemption given to workers’ associations that aided so many poor
people (Browne 1949, 16-17). Other Bishops feared the intimidation that agitators might
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use in forcing fellow workers to became association supporters. The Catholic Church
continued to uphold the right to private property and contract-at-will work agreements.
By and large, the hierarchy took a cautious position on workers' associations out of fear
of socialism and anti-Church views.
The Civil War had led to an increase in trade unions as cities turned out more
products and labor was in ever greater demand. At that time, labor newspapers like the
Working Man’s Advocate reappeared and trade unions boycotted recalcitrant businesses
out of labor solidarity. The advent of the national railroad system played a major role in
national business expansion and contributed to the growth of gigantic corporations in
steel, mining, and oil. The railroads often created Catholic centers because Irish
immigrants built the railroads and worked on them. Cities like St. Paul, Omaha, St. Louis.
and Spokane became Catholic islands in a Protestant sea. and Catholics began to organize
in these railroad cities.
Terence Powderly. the second Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor,
would later write about “the awakening” that occurred during and after the Civil War.
Working people had come to see “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as their rights,
and many of them had fought to abolish slavery in the land.
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are words that were being read
and studied by the mechanics of the United States. Every time that these
words were read they took on a deeper meaning. Liberty to live meant
more than to be a slave to the whim or caprice of any man. The man who
held ownership in his fellow-man had the right to so misuse that fellow-
man as to deprive him o f life, and, while the conditions of servitude were
somewhat different between the white toiler of the North and his sable
brother of the South, yet the result was the same when the master decided
to use his power. Shutting off the supply of food from the black slave
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60
while holding him to the plantation was no worse than the discharge of the
white mechanic and the sending of the blacklist ahead of him when he left
his home to seek for employment elsewhere. (Powderly 1890, 31-32)
Once large scale industrial production made its appearance, it brought workers together.
and labor activism began to stir in their communities. Since some companies had become
national enterprises, labor groups had to develop links across the country to strengthen
their economic position (Dulles 1966. 99). Once again disputes arose over the best means
o f promoting labor's ends. Some argued for craft unions, organized to extract from
employers better wages and working conditions, while others supported reformist
measures to promote political changes to improve the lot of all working people. A pattern
developed around failures and successes. When employers broke strikes with private
guards and government support, the call was for worker legislation. When labor parties
and worker initiatives were defeated, the leadership turned to strict labor organizing and
direct, local action.
In 1866 delegates from various local and national trade unions met to form the
National Labor Union; it was a politically minded group and pushed for legislative reforms
to improve the lives o f all working people including seamstresses and African-Americans.
The National Labor Union also called for the support o f consumer and producer
cooperatives and an eight hour day. In part the reformist bent of the leaders was a
response to employer associations that had successfully defeated the concerted activities
o f their employees— political reform seemed to be the most feasible route to change
(Dulles 1966, 103).
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The National Labor Union moved through numerous reformist movements
including the eight hour day, the promotion o f cooperatives, and monetary reform.
Employers circumvented eight hour day statutes by promoting the passage o f bills that
permitted private employment agreements to supercede the eight hour day laws, i.e.,
employers could make employment contracts that included work days of more than eight
hours per day. The labor cooperatives o f the mid-century had now failed because of
managerial ineptness and corruption, and political calls for monetary reforms were never
fully understood by the great majority o f workers.
The 1870s and 1880s marked a time of labor upheaval, in part due to industry’s
vulnerability to work stoppages. Strikes occurred on the railroads and the eastern
anthracite coal mines in response to wage reductions and the general economic depression
o f the 1870s. New immigrants like the German Johann Most preached anarchism to
foment the revolution o f the working class. He was a proponent of revolution and class
war (Dulles 1966. 123). The Molly Maguires, Irish Catholic miners in the East, engaged
in terrorist activities, although these acts o f violence had a direct relationship to the
suppression o f the coal miners’ organizing activity by the coal companies (MacDonald
1946, 5 1). Employers around the nation responded to labor radicalism, which in fact was
by and large rejected by a majority o f the laborers, with the use of Pinkerton agents and
federal and state troops to quell labor unrest. The Chicago Haymarket Square bombing
on May 4, 1886, occurring days after a one day national strike for the eight hour work
day, sullied the reputation of the more pragmatic labor organizations and was instrumental
in the downfall o f the Knights of Labor, even though no Knights were involved. The
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Chicago criminal justice system ultimately tried and convicted innocent anarchist leaders
as the instigators of the bombing.
During the 1870s many Catholic bishops continued to use the Second Plenary
documents of 1866: to give them freedom to speak on the labor question. On the one
hand, in New Orleans the hierarchy affirmed the right of laboring people to join
associations that had mutual benefit purposes. On the other hand, the bishops o f Portland.
Maine and Rochester. New York spoke out against societies that were secret or that
advocated doing wrong to individuals or classes in the society (Browne 1949. 24-25).
The Catholic hierarchy had no common position on the social question. Meanwhile, the
Catholic immigrants who continued to disembark in eastern ports found themselves facing
the economic power o f industrial capitalism.
The Knights o f Labor: Community and Labor
By 1872 the National Labor Union had collapsed from philosophical fights
between those who wished to concentrate on trade union activities and those who called
for legislative reforms. The National Labor Union, under the leadership o f William Sylvis.
had increasingly supported the development of cooperatives and political reforms but with
little success. When the National Labor Union failed, it was supporting Greenbackism. a
monetary reform that would have kept prices up and circulated more currency in the
economy Many labor leaders did not support calls for a labor party because they
■'North American bishops met in the 1866 plenary, bishop s meeting, to come to
some consensus about the needs and direction o f the Catholic Church in the United States
and Canada.
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customarily produced votes for their favorite politicians in order to win their personal
political favors (Powderly 1890, 44).
The Holy Order of the Knights o f Labor, whose goal was the betterment of all
working men and women whether skilled or unskilled, was a milestone organization in
U.S. labor history In 1869 nine Philadelphian garment cutters reorganized themselves
into the Knights o f Labor after their Garment Cutters' Association dissolved. Unlike trade
associations, the organization did not promote strikes and other concerted work actions,
but more militant members pulled it into labor confrontations, and it supported strikes
with some reservations when they did occur. Uriah Stephens, one o f the original garment
cutters and a former Baptist seminarian, argued for the organization in explicitly religious
terms. He spoke o f the universality o f labor. Working people recognized the Knights
because o f the organization's rituals; members addressed the president as the Grand
Master o f Workmen. Stephens talked o f all workmen being united without regard to their
nationality, race, or religion; '"Creed, party and nationality are but outward garments and
present no obstacle to the fusion of the hearts o f worshipers of God. the Universal Father,
and the workers for man, the universal brother” (Dulles 1966,129). Knights believed that
enlightened working men and women could create a cooperative commonwealth that
prevented inordinate inequalities in wealth, providing for all people in a just fashion.
The second Grand Master Workman was Terence Powderly, a machinist o f Irish
Catholic background. By this time, workers in a multitude of trades participated in
Knights' assemblies around the nation. Powderly convinced Cardinal James Gibbons of
Baltimore o f the organization’s humanitarian positions, and the Cardinal convinced Pope
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Leo Xffl of the Knights’ good intentions, in particular, the Knights’ decision to make their
internal activities more public helped their cause (Dulles 1966, 137). The Church had
remained concerned with secret fraternal organizations, like the anti-Catholic masons, and
the same bishops and clergy had told Catholics not to join the Knights.
The Holy Order of the Knights of Labor grew out of artisanal republicanism, a
tradition that respected private property and virtuous living. The Order’s republicanism,
however, focused less on private property and more on citizenship which guaranteed basic
rights to toilers— the rights to organize, to set union wages, and to work a reasonable
number of hours (Voss 1993. 82) The organization's rituals, social activities, and Judeo-
Christian background made the Knights’ organizers into veritable missionaries. They
promoted a cooperative commonwealth of virtuous citizenry, because virtue was seen as
the antidote to the extreme self-interest found in a laissez-faire society (Voss 1993. 28).
When the Knights first spread from Philadelphia into the iron and coal regions of
western Pennsylvania, some Catholic priests had no qualms with their presence, as long as
they met and discussed their issues openly. Other clerics, however, feared that the
Knights might return to the clandestine and violent ways o f the Molly Maguires. In 1878
Bishop William O ’Hara of Scranton denied ever giving approval to Catholic membership
in the Knights because he had not read the organization’s bylaws. Jesuits and
Redemptorist priests also preached against secret societies, including the Knights, during
parish missions that where on par with Protestant revivals. Consequently, the Catholic
workers who wished to participate in the order were left to their own consciences. The
Knights needed approval from the Church if they were to organize more Catholics.
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Terence Powderly argued against the oath-bound secrecy o f the organization to improve
the groups relationship with the Church, and the General Assembly ultimately acquiesced
in removing the oath in 1881 (Browne 1949. 40-60)
Similarly, the Grand Master Workman Powderly emphasized his political
conservatism by criticizing the advocate o f class revolution Johann Most because "Mr
Most does not in any way represent the views and aspirations o f the workingmen o f the
United States” (Muscatine. Weekly News. June 23. 1883). When labor activists across
the nation made preparations for the May 1. 1886 national strike for the eight hour day.
Powderly sent out a circular criticizing strikes and boycotts and advising against
participation in the May 1 action. In part, his position was a message o f conservatism to
the Catholic Church as well.
The Church has been watching our order for years In our infancy
we had but little power for good or for evil Today we are the strongest as
well as the weakest labor organization on earth. Strong in members and
principles, strong in the justice o f our demands if properly made, we are
weak in the methods we use to set our claims before the world. Strikes are
often the forerunners o f lawless action. One blow brings another, and if a
single act o f ours encourages the anarchist element, we must meet the
antagonism o f the Church. I warn our members against hasty ill-considered
action. The Church will not interfere with us so long as we maintain the
law If the law is wrong it is our duty to change it. I am ashamed to meet
with clergymen and others to tell them that our order is composed of law -
abiding. intelligent men. while the next dispatch brings news o f some petty
boycott or strike. (Freeman's Journal. April 3. 1886. from New York Sun
dispatch o f St. Louis. March 26. 1886)
The greatest opposition to the Knights of Labor came from .Archbishop Elzear-
Alexandre Taschereau o f Quebec whose knowledge o f the French Revolution surely
played a role in his heightened suspicion when a secretive labor organization entered lower
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Canada. The Knights also had the misfortune of entering the Quebec area as Taschereau
was investigating the Masons at the request of Rome (Browne 1949. 96). He was the
most critical Roman Catholic opponent of the Knights and sent out a circular forbidding
Catholic participation once the Roman Congregation o f Propaganda had condemned the
order in 1884 at his request (Browne 1949. 108). Archbishop John Lynch o f Toronto,
however, was quite sympathetic toward the Order and argued that workers had the right
to strike and organize boycotts against monopolies. Many United States bishops
considered the condemnation letter received by Taschereau as a local diocesan matter.
By 1886, there was much confusion in the North American Church over the status
of the Knights because different dioceses had various views o f the Order. In addition,
labor turmoil was rampant. A railroad strike in St. Louis had virtually shut down the city
for thirty days in 1885. and the strike leaders were Knights. Boycotts occurred in various
regions o f the country as well.
The U.S. bishop’s, however, were slow to act on Rome’s order to the Archbishop
of Quebec. Some U.S. bishops argued that Archbishop Taschereau's questions to Rome
had set up the Knights of Labor for condemnation (Browne 1949. 164). Archbishop
Gibbons wrote that "masterly inactivity and a vigilant eye on [the Knight’s] proceedings is
the best thing to be done in the present junction” (Archives o f the Archdiocese of
Cincinnati. Gibbons to Bishop Elder. Baltimore. May 6. 1886). .Archbishop Taschereau
only acted for his local church according to Gibbons (Browne 1949. 166), and Gibbons
did not want to lose Catholic working men and women because o f a poor understanding
of the Knight's methods and goals.
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In 1886 Cardinal Gibbons called a conference of U.S. Bishops and proposed that
they discuss the nature o f some of the labor associations and secret societies that had
attracted many of the faithful. In October 1886, Powderly met with the bishops in
Baltimore to explain the rules and activities of the Order At the conclusion of the
conference, the bishops condensed the notes o f their discussions of the Knights of Labor
and the other “secret" organizations and sent them to Cardinal Simeoni in Rome. Cardinal
Gibbons believed that a truly secret labor organization would result if Rome decided to
condemn the Knights (Browne 1949, 219). The memorial sent to Rome explained why
the Vatican should not consider the Knights a secret organization nor a violent one. It
commented that even President Grover Cleveland had accepted the necessity of the
organization because the workers had no protection from the civil government in their
efforts for justice (Browne 1949, 214). In early 1887, while Cardinal Gibbons visited
Rome and met with Vatican officials in support of the Knights, the Congregation o f the
Propaganda found no reason to condemn the Knights. Both Catholic and popular presses,
even prior to the announcement, voiced the opinion that the American Catholic Church
was on the side o f labor (Browne 1949. 244-246).
The Community Vision o f the Knights of Labor
The Order stood out among other labor groups because its vision of the social
economy was truly inclusive. All races, creeds, and ethnic groups of this period had
members in the Knights o f Labor (Weir 1996, 20). A sense of universal brotherhood
permeated the organization. It was a fraternal order, like others common to the era. and it
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grew as trade unionism was experiencing a decline. The members sought justification and
support in Christianity, although they distanced themselves from reactionary clerics who
they denounced for their “churchianity," a conservatism that valued a church’s position
within society rather than the promotion of gospel values.
Members learned workingman values from the Order’s rituals and were often
reprimanded for their vices such as drinking too much and failing to pay rent to their
landlords. The General Assembly passed an amendment against liquor dealers in 1881:
“No person who either sells or makes his living, or any part of i t . by the sale of
intoxicating drink, either as manufacturer, dealer or agent, or through any member of his
family, can be admitted to membership in this order" f Powderly 1890, 307). At the
Philadelphia convention in 1884, Powderly upbraided the convention for protesting the
use of $.05 of each member’s monthly dues to establish a fund for striking or locked out
workers and pointed out the membership’s wasteful intemperateness.
We talk of reforming the world, why, we cannot reform ourselves! Do not
look upon me as a fanatic or a radical upon this question of temperance, for
I am not; I only ask that the men who are in the vanguard of reform, men
who would accomplish something of benefit for the race, to stop for one
moment now and ask whether we should not go a step further than others
are willing to go in this direction...When I meet a man whose reason has
been drowned in drink, and look upon his face, I feel that I am looking
upon a murderer. I am looking upon a person who has no regard for virtue
or morality, for that which upholds virtue and sustains morality is lacking,
the God-like gift of reason; incapable of judging whether his next step will
be for good or evil, he plunges madly ahead and takes the dagger with a
willing hand from his worst enemy only to plunge it to the heart of his most
cherished friend. (Powderly 1890, 310)
Similarly, a sense of chivalry ran through the group, and solidarity, reinforced by their
elaborate ritual, became a hallmark. Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American
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Federation o f Labor (AFL). had been a Knight and to his death he kept the secrecy of the
Order’s rituals and signs as a matter o f honor This was clearly a social movement that
saw men and women as free agents who were capable o f living lives o f virtue (Weir 1996.
37).
Like the wealthy o f the time, working men and women in this era believed in the
nobility o f human beings. They strived for moral perfection and held their peers
accountable for transgressing the Knights’ ethical codes (Weir 1996. 100). Analytical
studies o f the development o f the Knights o f Labor assemblies in New Jersey during the
1880s point to greater efforts and success in the community-wide organizing goal of
building community solidarity than straightforward trade or industrial organizing. The
goal was building an industrial commonwealth that included small businesses and worker-
ownership. Mobilization was conclusively around the entire community, not simply the
job site (Voss 1993. 173).
Workers in one factory or industry were often not strong enough to force
concessions or union recognition, but with the help o f a community wide
boycott, they could not also prevent the housing and feeding of
strikebreakers by enlisting the aid of shopkeepers. In addition, they could
hope to win over local public opinion and to ostracize factory owners
whose local authority, as [Herbert] Gutman points out, was not yet
legitimated. This tactic, o f course, not only highlighted the importance of
community-based organization, it made it at least as important to organize
workers outside the industry as inside it. (Voss 1993, 171 )3
3 In regional organizing today, as in the case of the Los Angeles Manufacturing
Action Project (LAMAP), people who are not working at companies being organized will
need to be integrated into the organizing campaign. Public sympathy is important, but
active participation in the relationship building that leads to successful organizing is
essential. Unionists, academics and community activists saw the need for greater
cooperation in labor organizing, and LAMAP grew from the work of Kent Wong at the
UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education. Gilda Haas, a UCLA professor, Peter
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Olney, a former Service Employees International Union organizer, various AFL-CIO
union leaders, and community activists like Father Pedro Villaroya. Using church and
ethnic relationships, the project will link the factory to the community. Many of the
workers live in the East Side, South Central Los Angeles, and the South East areas of the
Alameda corridor. The geographical proximity of homes and job sites is to the advantage
o f the organizers.
Successful campaigns will earn respect and recognition from relatives, friends, and
acquaintances who then begin to question their own economic security. Since the workers
in the Alameda corridor are 66% Latino, one can assume that a large number are at least
nominally Catholic The Catholic Church, therefore, is a key ally in the organizing effort.
The Campaign for Human Development’s (CHD) local office gave LAMAP grants of
$10,000 in 1996 and $35,000 in 1997. CHD uses its financial resources to encourage
organizing in low-income communities.
The threat from employers is less work. Gordon Richards, the chief economist of
the National Association o f Manufacturers, commented in a Los Angeles Times article on
the LAMAP organizing. "When you force wages up, you slow the rate of job creation. If
you raise wages within particular industries, these firms would likely employ less. If you
squeeze a producer’s profit margin, they need to make it up somewhere and they aren’t
going to raise prices” (Berg 1994. 3). USC management professor Edward Lawler
commented in the same article:
My personal guess is that organizing would contribute to the departure of
at least some companies... The win-win argument is that if you uplift your
work force with good wages and good jobs, you create a positive
economic cycle. But there are some kinds of [low-skilled] work that don't
lend themselves to that sort of scenario and can be done cheaper in
Mainland China or somewhere else. (Berg 1994, 3)
An example of an initial organizing success that parallels the Knights of Labor
pattern was the Mission-Guerrero tortilla drivers strike. LAMAP supported the drivers by
disseminating information on the dispute around the Los .Angeles area. William Kramer,
the LAMAP coordinator at UCLA, publicized the dispute by email, letters and telephone
calls. Through the efforts o f Father Pedro Villarroya, Catholic Bishops Gabino Zavala and
Stephen Blaire offered to draw on the McIntyre charitable fund o f the Archdiocese to aid
striking drivers with essentials. Teamsters Local 63 bought a one page advertisement in La
Opinion asking the Spanish speaking community to support the striking drivers, to boycott
restaurants (e.g., Polio Loco, a chicken fast food chain) that used Guerrero tortillas, and
to stop buying the tortillas. Randy Cammack, the secretary-treasurer o f Local 63,
received hundreds of letters o f support for the drivers and small donations from Latino
supporters. The six week strike became a rallying event for many Latinos.
Contemporary organizing in Los Angeles underscores the importance of
community support to gain labor organizing wins to this day History reveals a strong link
between labor and community organizing, and religion is a significant epoxy in their
binding. Parallels exist between the 1880s and 1890s and today.
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In 1886 the Knights o f Labor had grown to a significant size with 5,892 assemblies
and 700,000 members (Dulles 1966, 143). Yet just as the power was gained, it was lost
by well-intentioned but poorly planned wr alkouts on Jay Gould’s Southwest railroad
system. Pinkerton agents and government troops squelched a semi-supported grievance
strike and other employers took their cue from Gould’s success. Terence Powderly who
did not support calls for strikes hoped to focus the Knights* membership on producer
cooperatives, and at one time the Knights had over 135 cooperatives (Dulles 1966, 137)
including a coal mine in Indiana (Powderly 1890, 234).
In the late 19th century, labor laws did not exist and workers had to exert their
united power in spontaneous uprisings. For example, during the 1880’s another economic
depression struck the nation, and employers began to fire workers or implement pay cuts.
Railroad workers and others responded by walking off their jobs and frequently Knights of
Labor members led these walkouts. Although the United States now has close to 60 years
o f national labor law, immigrant workers have found little support in the law for their
organizing. Instead, Southern California immigrant workers in the 1990s have united
through their own ethnic associations and faith groups and through their affiliations have
won bargaining power. In 1990 low-wage Latino immigrants, without the involvement of
Los Angeles unions, struck the American Racing Company for better wages and working
conditions. In 1992 Los Angeles area drywall carpenters, primarily from Mexico, walked
off construction sites shutting down the jobs. They organized squadrons o f strikers which
moved rapidly from one new housing project to another to encourage carpenters to put
down their tools. At one point they closed down area freeways when police and industry
officials unsuccessfully tried to stop their strike caravans.
The efforts o f the workers themselves drew in the labor organizers and community
activists. This parallels the Knights’ organizing of the 1880s. The associations affiliated
with the Knights had great success in spontaneous work stoppages against the Union
Pacific, and Jay Gould’s Southwest railroad system; as a result of these victories, more
workers sought membership in the Knights, the popular labor movement o f its time
(Dulles 1966, 139).
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The majority of members, however, were more inclined to fight for immediate
gains won from their employers. For example, many Knights struck with other workers
for the eight hour day on May I. 1886 over Powderly’s objections. The Haymarket riot
on May 4th in Chicago led to the death of both police and workers. Although not a
Knights’ event, it contributed to the downfall of the Knights because of the public’s fear of
anarchy (Dulles 1966, 146). Powderly and the Knights leadership lost their membership
as they turned to more abstract visions (a cooperative commonwealth) while the workers
focused on their immediate self-interests.
Kim Voss (1993, 202) conducted a detailed analysis o f the demise o f the Knights
of Labor in New Jersey and suggests that one might generalize her findings to other parts
of the nation. She believes that the Knights disappeared because o f the rapid organization
o f employer associations and the money power of the employers. Comparative studies
reveal that British employers made no such efforts because they had a more tolerant view
of organized work forces, and French employers were slow to respond at this time
because they had little financial resources to put up a fight (Voss 1993, 204). In
addition, while in France, the state intervened in labor disputes on the behalf of workers,
no such effort was made by the government in the United States; in fact, the state normally
stayed out of labor disputes and only intervened to quell strikes on behalf o f employers
(Voss 1993, 204). For this reason, organized labor to this day has played a more integral
role in European economies than organized labor in the U.S.4
4 In 1997. the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce organized a public
relations and fund raising effort to defeat a “living wage” proposal that was before the city
council. The original proposition would have required city subcontractors or those who
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Trade Union Organizing: Pure and Simple Business Unionism
The American Federation o f Labor was the labor group that survived business’
struggle to be free o f organized work forces. During the 1890s the AFL succeeded the
Knights of Labor as the leading labor force in the United States. Adolph Strasser and
Samuel Gompers were the no nonsense leaders who promoted business unionism, and
Gompers would lead trade unions into the future American Federation o f Labor (AFL).
They explicitly argued that labor organizations had to make themselves more business like
if they were to survive. This meant strict regulations, significant dues payments, union
benefits, and sound business practices. The international trade unions and the AFL were
more hierarchical than the Knights o f Labor and. therefore, no local had the power to call
a strike without approval from the international. Furthermore, the AFL was not
promoting the organization o f all workers, particularly the unskilled, nor advocating the
creation of some utopian workers’ commonwealth.
receive financial aid from the city to pay $7.50/hr with health insurance or $9.50/hr
without medical insurance. The compromise initiative that passed lowered the hourly
wage to $7.25 with health benefits and $8.50 without health benefits. The “Coalition to
Keep LA Working’’ included the Mexican American Grocers Assn., the Central City
Assn., and the Asian Business Assn. among others (Merl 1996, B6). The Chamber made
it clear that not all minority groups supported higher wages because o f increased costs to
the business community Both LAMAP and Justice for Janitors organizers attended the
Living Wage Coalition’s meetings to help promote the passage o f the initiative. These
groups met with city council members and attended the council chamber votes on the
ordinance. The Living Wage Coalition is in turn a project o f the Tourism Industry
Development Council (TLDC), a group the Catholic Church’s Campaign for Human
Development has also supported to encourage labor organizing in the L. A. tourism
industry. Employers do not want organized employees and just as employers formed
associations to stop the Knights, Los Angeles employers have supported lobbies to defeat
the concerted activities o f late-20th century workers and their community sympathizers.
The city council passed the living wage initiative over the veto o f Mayor Richard Riordan.
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Strasser and Gompers became the leaders o f this federation movement because o f
their success in making the International Cigar Makers a viable labor organization. The
death and strike benefits o f the Cigar Makers' International Union helped it reach a level
o f stability not known by more class conscious labor groups (Laslett 1987. 75). They
acknowledged the views o f their socialist and more radical contemporaries, but they also
saw the dissension and failure that occurred when working people moved away from what
they called pure and simple unionism. Workers wanted to fight for immediate gains not
farfetched utopias (Dulles 1966. 153). John L. Lewis learned this truth from Gompers.
and Saul Alinsky would similarly recognize the conservatism and traditionalism found in
American culture. The opportunistic bargaining perspective of Gompers did help trade
unions to survive and grow , but the lack of a broad-based agenda never pushed the trade
unions to the even greater political and economic power they might have achieved.
Gompers was not concerned about workers possessing the means of production, he just
wanted more for them. Sixty years later. John L. Lewis, riding on the New Deal
organizing drives, would attempt to achieve this greater level of power, but the backlash
o f the business interests once again stifled greater gains by winning the passage of the anti
labor Taft-Hartley Act in 1947.
Samuel Gompers, although himself a one-time member o f the Knights of Labor,
aligned himself with other national trade unions against what they thought was the Order's
failure to adequately represent skilled workers. Gompers and the almost defunct
Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (organized in 1881) demanded that the
Knights o f Labor promote their agenda over that o f assemblies o f unskilled workers and
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refrain from interfering in national union disputes; when the Knights of Labor failed to
take this tack, the AFL was organized at a Columbus, Ohio meeting in December 1886.
Gompers became the first AFL president (Dulles 1966. 161) The conservatism of
Gompers ultimately won out. More radical unionists have called him a class collaborator
(Laslett 1987, 63). We also know that he was not a religious man, albeit a descendent of
rabbis, and quite a heavy drinker (Laslett 1987, 66). This was not a missionary labor
unionist with the ideals of a moralist. He trusted the abilities of the workingmen to win
their own independence from oppression and paid little attention to intellectuals, populists,
or other freethinkers (Laslett 1987. 70). As the AFL developed under Gompers. it
became hierarchical and bureaucratic with Gompers as the head administrator This
bureaucraticization ended any social movement quality to the organizing work o f the craft
unions.
The first significant wave o f Catholic immigration to the United States came
during the 1890s. Finke and Starke (1992, 115) contend that these immigrants
encountered an aggressive clergy who promoted an “otherworldly" religion, devotional
activities, and ethnic identity. The clergy worked with missionary zeal to create a Catholic
revival that struggled to beat more established Protestant denominations in the religious
market. The Jesuits. Paulists, and Redemptorists had to work with evangelical zeal
because the U.S. government provided no subsidies to the Church as did its European
counterparts. Parish missions and Catholic revival meetings revitalized the faith of the
new arrivals. Finke and Starke (1992, 119) describe well-planned and administered one
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and two week missions that the clergy conducted with business-like skillfulness. The
Church was re-evangelizing Catholic immigrants.
During the labor unrest o f the 1890s and the growth o f populism that unified both
laborers and farmers, the AFL would stay out of party politics as an organization while
continuing to lobby for the end o f child labor, the end to injunctions against labor unions,
and the enactment o f other legislation favorable to free trade unionism. In the first decade
o f the 20th century, employers and workers took a more conciliatory approach to labor
disagreements, after the volatile confrontations during the 1890’s (notably the Homestead
and Pullman strikes). The industrial titans at this beginning o f the century (Mark Hanna,
John Rockefeller, and others) worked with Samuel Gompers and other similar minded
labor leaders as members of the National Civic Federation. This group acknowledged the
existence of labor organizations and offered to help employers and these organizations to
reach agreements. President Teddy Roosevelt also gave support to coal miners when he
called for arbitration with mine operators rather than simply ordering federal troops to
quell the anthracite coal disputes in 1902 (Dulles 1966, 188).
On the one hand, the cooperation occurred because the employers feared that too
harsh a stance against labor would raise allegations of unlawful corporate trusts. Labor,
on the other hand, particularly Gompers, felt it was easier to bargain with an organized
industry. Meanwhile, the Marxists and socialists accepted trusts as a natural development
in the unfolding of capitalism and its eventual demise (Laslett 1987, 76). This period of
relative cooperation would not last long because union membership began to swell with
more than a million workers joining unions between 1902 and 1904 (Dulles 1966, 193).
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Employers once again insisted on yellow-dog contracts (employer/employee agreements
where the employee gave up his or her right to unionize), sought injunctions to end
concerted activity, and campaigned against closed shops and socialism (Dulles 1966. 194).
Employers also formed the Citizens’ Industrial Association and the National Association
of Manufacturers to fight for the open shop, contending that individual freedom was lost
when labor groups enforced closed union shops.
Yet-despite the renewed legal and social threats against labor. Gompers and the
AFL held close to their conservative path and refused to promote more radical or socialist
answers to workers’ woes. As a result of labor’s unfavorable position vis-'a-vis
employers, the union movement began to lobby for legislative support to prevent the use
o f injunctions, yellow dog contracts and other such tactics to prevent organizing activity.
At the same time some state legislatures were passing minimum wage laws, worker
compensation provisions and child labor laws. Gomper’s position held firm: he supported
legislation that protected men and women but did not want government interference with
wage and hour standards (Dulles 1966, 200).5
5 Gomper’s position holds some sway with labor leaders into the 1990s. Many
labor union officials are indifferent to social welfare and broader-community issues
because they fail to impact the self-interest of their constituencies. The trade-off is
between staying focused on their members’ needs and the good of the community at
large. Social justice activists have in recent times criticized building trades unions over
their self-interested vision in community redevelopment fights, affirmative action policies,
and immigration issues. Yet these unions have tried to include more people and social
concerns in their collective thinking. For instance in the mid-1980s, Los Angeles building
trades unions supported the Jobs with Peace initiative that required the city of Los
Angeles to give an accounting o f the amount o f residents tax dollars that went to military
expenditures. In 1987 the IAF and L.A. organized labor worked together to raise
California’s minimum wage from $3.35 to $4.25 and worked again with each other to pass
the minimum wage initiative on the 1996 state ballot. Gomper’s view, however, still
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During the progressive era. President Woodrow Wilson aided labor’s cause by
supporting the Clayton Act of 1914. Although it was designed to prevent the use of
injunctions against unions, various loopholes nullified its intent; it did. however, concede
that labor was not a commodity and. therefore, not subject to anti-trust laws and
acknowledged the inappropriateness of the contract-at-will formula for industrial workers.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1937 that the liberty of employment-at-will contracts in our
industrial society was a fiction (Dulles 1966. 202). Up until this date, employers had
invoked the 14th amendment to the constitution as a means to prevent government
regulation of contracts between companies and employees, that is. not requiring employers
to recognize unions as bargaining representatives. “No State shall make or enforce any
law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities o f citizens of the United States; Nor
shall any State deprive any person o f life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. " Although
Congress wrote the 14th amendment for freed slaves, corporations (considered persons
under the law) have used it to protect corporate property rights (Gerberg 1987, 49).
Employment-at-will thinking to this day does not accept the right of employees to
strengthen their position by bargaining as an organized group. Despite the development of
labor relations and labor law, many managers still argue that employees cannot be truly
free if they are not allowed to enter into individual agreements, that is, contract-at-will
accords.
looms great because initiatives may be won but they must be enforced. Employers will
seek new ways to avoid community interference in business affairs, and legislative wins are
normally short-term.
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The right to bargain collectively had been won and lost over the past 60 years
because of this questionable position— questionable because a single worker cannot change
the policies and procedures of a corporate employer and for this reason employees need
collective power to find some balance in the employee-employer relationship. The Catholic
Church has consistently argued in favor of the free association o f people, including
workers, since Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum in 1891. The Church was aware of the
dangers of associations that condemned religion, but did not deny the importance of
association.
Certainly, the number of associations o f almost every possible kind,
especially o f associations of workers, is now tar greater than ever before.
This is not the place to inquire whence many o f them originate, what object
they have, or how they proceed. But the opinion is. and it is one confirmed
by a good deal o f evidence, that they are largely under the control of secret
leaders and that these leaders apply principles which are in harmony with
neither Christianity nor the welfare of States, and that, after having
possession o f all available work, they contrive that those who refuse to join
with them will be forced by want to pay the penalty. Under these
circumstances, workers who are Christians must choose one of two things;
either to join associations in which it is greatly to be feared that there is
danger to religion, or to form their own associations and unite their forces
in such a way that they may be able manfully to free themselves from such
unjust and intolerable oppression. Can they who refuse to place man’s
highest good in imminent jeopardy hesitate to affirm that the second course
is by all means to be followed? (Rerum Novarum 1891, #74)
Union Movement Growth in the ls l Quarter of the 20th Century
Union membership continued to grow during this first quarter of the 20th century.
The United Mine Workers (in essence an industrial union within the AFL) became the
biggest union in the country. The garment workers formed various unions— the
International Ladies’ Garment Workers, the United Garment Workers and the
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Amalgamated Clothing Workers. However, it was the Industrial Workers of the World ,
the wobblies, who agitated and struck for the thousands o f immigrant, unskilled and
disenfranchised workers— miners, lumberjacks, and textile workers. The owners o f mines
and logging operations employed thousands o f people and this work now required
extensive capital for railroads, equipment, and smelting. The Rockefellers bought up
Montana mining rights and the Phelps Dodge corporation became dominant in Arizona
(Dubofsky 1988. 22). The IWW preached class warfare, although this was more rhetoric
than substance, and conducted some extremely disciplined labor actions like the Lawrence,
Massachusetts strike o f 1912.
The founders o f the IWW included Father T.J. Hagerty, a Catholic priest. Big Bill
Haywood, and Mother Jones. They were nationally know labor radicals who organized
and animated thousands of low-wage and low-skilled workers. On the one hand. Father
Hagerty saw no incongruity between his Roman Catholicism and Marxist positions. The
Catholic hierarchy, however, later relieved him of his priestly duties and in a short time he
drifted away from labor activism and the priesthood. On the other hand, during the
Lawrence textile strike. Catholic priests in Lawrence published condemnations o f the
wobblies for misleading immigrants, called for the end of the strike to the dismay of the
strikers, and warned that civil unrest would lead the participants to damnation (Cole 1963,
184-186 and Palmer 1912, 1692). Cardinal William O’Connell of Boston sent Monsignor
Michael Splaine, his chancellor, to mediate the dispute, after receiving a request for help
from Governor Eugene N. Foss. Monsignor Splaine’s work with employers and workers
proved successful when the priest helped bring a settlement to the dispute (Stroh 1939).
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Also, despite the revolutionary, direct action rhetoric, the IWW preached passive
resistance in its disputes and gained the admiration o f some religious and civil leaders who
witnessed these long but peaceful strikes. During the Paterson, New Jersey strike of
1913, Rabbi Leo Mannheimer praised the leadership o f Bill Haywood. Elizabeth Gurley
Flynn, and Carlo Tresca for keeping the 25,000 strikers peaceful, and the Paterson police
chief reported absolutely no assaults on "scabs ’— workers crossing picket lines, returning
to work and consequently breaking the strike (Mannheimer 1913, 356 and Fitch 1913,
82). On the whole, the Catholic Church had a negative view o f the wobblies. and Catholic
priests seldom supported their strikes because o f the organization's avowed anarcho-
syndicalism which promoted direct action, e.g.. sabotage, on the means o f production.
The wobblies, however, soon declined in numbers as the public and employers
reacted to their refusal to support the efforts o f the United States during World War I.
Newpapers around the country criticized miners and lumbermen for sabotaging the war
effort, but the IWW argued only for the fair treatment o f working people. States enacted
criminal syndicalism laws and the federal government produced the Sedition and
Espionage Acts and used these acts to arrest numerous wobblies including Big Bill
Haywood (Dulles 1966, 221). Samuel Gompers and the AFL disliked the wobblies
immensely, but the wobblies clearly reminded him and other trade union leaders o f the
great mass o f unorganized unskilled workers around the nation. Craft unions had failed to
take up the banner o f these workers who they considered to be unorganizable and
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obviously less skilled; in fact, the IWW likened the craft unionists to capitalists who feared
the loss of their property (Dulles 1966, 213).6
Throughout the conflict o f WWI. the AFL supported the United States and
acquiesced to the mediation services of the National War Labor Board. O f course the war
gave labor additional clout and the government sought out the collaboration of organized
labor to act as an intermediary with workers. The National War Labor Board, while
promoting conciliation, acknowledged the right to organize, bargain collectively and strike
if necessary How could working people agree to fight for liberty abroad if their own
liberty to organize at home was denied9 When the war ended strikes broke out over
wages that could not keep pace with inflation; employers once again became antagonistic,
and because of Russian Bolshevism, a red scare began at home. Three hundred thousand
steel workers went out on strike against U.S. Steel for higher wages and an eight hour
day, but, using the forces of local, state, and national governments, the company broke the
strike. If industrial unionization were to happen, it would depend on the successful
organization o f the steel industry.
6 The strength of socialists and wobblies during the first two decades of the 20th
century acted as an impetuous for social reform during the Progressive era. Violent acts or
the fear of violence led to the creation of the United States Commission on Industrial
Relations in 1912. The public concern after the bombing of the Los Angeles Times
building in 1910, which came in the midst o f an open shop fight, as well as other industrial
conflicts, led to the commission. President Taft and his successor President Wilson did
not invite any socialists or wobblies to join the commission, but each of the three labor
appointees was a leader o f an AFL union and a member o f the National Civic Federation,
as were the first business appointees. These were leaders who were acceptable to
corporate America and Samuel Gompers. The Commission was therefore an early
marriage of business and union conservatism (See Weinstein 1968, 172-191).
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Father Peter Dietz
During the first two decades o f the 20,h century, the AFL had a great champion in
Father Peter Dietz. His goal was to educate American workers in their right to organize
and to maintain a Christian outlook in the union movement (Fox 1953, 14). He wanted
Catholic workers to maintain their Catholic identity in a country which had no faith-based
unions, the form of worker associations preferred by Leo XIII. Dietz and sympathetic lay
people began organizing associations and disseminating literature on the social question.
The German Catholic Central-Verein and the American Federation o f Catholic Societies,
organizations that Dietz helped lead, spoke out against economic injustices and educated
their members in the abuses of capitalism and the dangers of socialism (Fox 1953, 33).
Peter Dietz is most remembered for the Militia of Christ for Social Service, the
Catholic labor group that operated in tandem with the wider labor movement, its purpose
being the promotion of Catholic ethics within American labor. The Militia for Christ
sponsored lectures at universities and colleges to encourage student participation in
worker causes while discouraging affiliation with socialist endeavors. For clergy, it
organized lectures, provided social oriented sermons, and conducted retreats for trade
unionists. The Militia for Christ also conducted social conferences for Catholic clergy
and sponsored Labor Day Celebrations (Social Service. May 19 11). The Catholic
hierarchy welcomed the organization, and Catholic academics like Monsignor John Ryan
embraced it (Fox 1953, 48-49), although some in the labor movement and the Church
requested a name change because they thought it was “too pious” sounding. The name
was eventually changed to American Conference of Catholic Trade Unionists (Fox 1953,
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64). The Socialist Victor Berger was adamantly against cooperation between the labor
movement and the Militia because o f its sectarian nature (Fox 1953, 52).
Dietz attended every AFL convention from 1909 to 1922 and he sometimes
addressed the conventions, often fighting back attempts to dispel religious participation in
the labor work (Fox 1953. 44). Labor leaders in the American labor movement directed
local and state wide bodies o f the Militia for Christ. One o f the leaders. John Mitchell o f
the United Mine Workers, commented:
I believe that Catholic people should be in the vanguard in the movement
for constructive social and industrial reform, and whether there be any
justification for the charge there is a widespread impression that our
Church is just a little over-conservative in matters o f this kind; therefore, it
seems to me that our people should adopt and pursue a systematic program
for social betterment; that we should identify ourselves with the movement
to promote legislation, that is. constructive legislation, for the protection o f
that great majority of the people in our country who are least able to
protect themselves.
The Militia o f Christ for Social Service presents an avenue through
which good work can be done for our less fortunate fellow beings, and at
the same time credit can be reflected on the church itself (Mitchell to Dietz.
June 1. 1911 quoted in Fox 1953, 52).
In 1915, Dietz also tried to create a formal relationship between the AFL and the
American Federation of Catholic Societies to formulate joint positions on strikes,
industrial education, social services and other concerns. Samuel Gompers and his
executive council, however, rejected any religious interference in the AFL (Fox 1953,
118-120). Clearly, the labor movement valued the support o f sympathetic Catholic clergy,
but it did not want to lose its autonomy or cause sectarian divisions within its ranks.
Father Dietz agitated for a school o f social science within the American Catholic
Church to teach organizers, social workers, and others about Christian ethics and social-
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85
economic and political history. This idea would become the American Academy o f
Christian Democracy established in 1 9 15. He later attempted to create a labor college
within the structure o f this academy, and some labor and Catholic Church leaders
endorsed his vision. Nevertheless, the college closed its doors in 1922 after Bishop
Moeller of Cincinnati forced Dietz to leave the Diocese. Members of the Cincinnati
Chamber o f Commerce had complained to the bishop about Dietz’s attacks on their
support for the American Plan.7 Although never receiving the complete backing o f the
Catholic hierarchy, Dietz would see many o f his ideas come to fruit in the National
Catholic Welfare Conference: a bishops’ pastoral letter on the social question, a national
coordination committee for social issues, and the incorporation of lay men and women
into the social justice work of the Church.
During this post-WWI period the economic boom would end and unemployment
would increase. The government also intervened to prevent strikes in coal mining and on
the railways. Employers once again sought injunctive relief from the courts for the
ostensible reason o f protecting the citizens o f the United States by preserving freedom o f
contract and defeating trusts (i.e., unions).
7 In 1997 Cardinal Roger Mahony (1997, Statement) made a public statement in
favor of the living wage ordinance in Los Angeles putting him at odds with the Los
Angeles Chamber o f Commerce and Mayor Richard Riordan (Merl 1997, B3). Yet no
one publicly attacked his liberal social position, one held by other religious leaders in L.A.
as well.
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CHAPTER 3
WORLD WAR I SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TO
SIT-DOWN STRIKES, JOHN L. LEWIS AND SAUL ALINSKY
The Influence of Monsignor John Rvan on the Social Question
Monsignor John Ryan is a stellar figure in the development of Catholic social
thought in the United States. He grew up as a Minnesota farm boy in a devout Catholic
family that produced another priest and two Roman Catholic nuns. As a child he listened
to the local farmers criticize railroad monopolies, and his father William was a member of
the National Farmers Alliance, a group that decried these monopolies as well. Ryan also
read the Irish World and Industrial Liberator which supported the Knights of Labor and
other groups that organized against the industrial titans (Broderick 1963, 8). As he
moved through his priestly formation in the 1890s, he came to identify with the more
liberal wing of the Catholic Church that encouraged greater involvement of the Church in
the United States’ culture and social reforms. Leo XIII promulgated Rerum Novarum
during Ryan’s seminary training which was contemporaneous with the growth o f Populism
in the nation (Broderick 1963, 14-18). Rerum Novarum maintained the right o f private
property and repudiated the socialist vision of social ownership, but it also harshly
criticized the owners of production for their treatment of workers and advocated state
intervention in the economy for the good of the community. Ryan had found a Catholic
document that made his populist and then progressive leanings acceptable to his Catholic
86
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87
faith. He would become a bridge between American Progressivism and the American
Catholic Church.
American progressives, primarily Protestant faithful like social gospelers and
muckrakers, had many differences to bridge with urban Roman Catholics. The
progressive activists, clergy, and thinkers tended to be middle class and native bom. The
Catholics were working class and foreign-born. The progressives championed a vision of
a social commonwealth based on economic democracy, not union organizing. The
working class Roman Catholics needed better wages and working conditions immediately
and filled the union halls. Progressives with nativist views saw the Catholic Church as
partly to blame for the poverty of its members because the Church rejected modernity.
Furthermore, some nativists argued that one could not be both Catholic and American. On
the Catholic side, the leadership suspected that the Protestant social gospelers who
entered the industrial slums only sought converts. The unfortunate upshot for the Catholic
Church was that a fear of losing its flock to Protestant churches and socialists made it
appear anti-reformist (McShane 1986, 14-15). John Ryan would find himself working to
bridge the gulf between the these two groups.
Rerum Novarum gave Ryan the Church teaching that he needed to make his
connection. The encyclical continued in the Thomistic theological tradition and it argued
for the state to have a role in reform (McShane 1986, 29). Ryan had already come to the
conclusion that the social question was a moral one and not simply an economic one by
reading the works o f progressive economist Richard Ely and the moral thinking o f William
Lilly, an English Catholic who looked at all social institutions through the lens o f moral
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values. Progressivism offered some means o f unity with Catholic social thought because it
offered a revisionist understanding of natural law that meshed with Thomism. The laissez-
faire extremism found in the United States had developed from a view of natural law that
was too Lockean. Capitalists had promoted individual liberties (and abuses) by stressing
self-interest and negative, non-interventionist government to their extremes. The
progressives returned to the writings o f the founding fathers and discovered political
thought that balanced natural rights and social responsibility. Ryan's anti-Lockean
Catholicism also struck this balance (McShane 1986, 33). Clearly, American
Progressivism had conditioned Ryan’s thought, and Ryan was comfortable reading behind
the text of the Summa Theologica to make his point. His contribution is immense to the
American Catholic Church’s engagement in the social question. He took three main
points from Rerum Novarum: I) The social question is not merely economic, it is also a
moral question; 2) traditional Catholic moral tradition is brought to bear on the modem
world through scholastic principles; and 3) state intervention is sometimes necessary for
social amelioration (McShane 1986, 31).
In his fundamental thought, then, Ryan discovered and articulated the
keystone of his ethical system: The nature of man was sacred because it
was created by God and destined for life— reasonable life. From this
fundamental truth followed the ethical principle that the universally equal
dignity of the human person (his person and his rights) had to be preserved
and fostered. Any actions that violated that dignity or abridged the rights
supporting or ensuring its maintenance were to be condemned in the
strongest possible way. At the most basic level, then, Ryan discovered a
significant point o f contact between the Catholic and American reform
systems of thought: both were insistent that the dignity o f the individual
was inviolable. (McShane 1986, 40)
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Ryan’s contribution to the social question was based on faith and reason. God
created human beings to live reasonable lives. To live a reasonable life required a state
because human beings are social beings, and by their nature they seek out some authority.
The authority of the state comes from God, but it only has this authority so as to promote
the well-being of its members— i.e., help them lead a reasonable life. Ryan argues that
without a state human beings cannot achieve what is necessary to live this life (McShane
1986, 40).
Ryan published his dissertation. A Living Wage: Its Ethical and Economic Aspects,
in 1906. He argued that a living wage was one of the requirements for a reasonable life in
an industrial society. The state had the responsibility to see that employees received living
wages. In an industrial society a living wage was primary because the human right to life
could only be understood in economic terms (McShane 1986. 43). Natural law thinking,
therefore, had social utility, but Ryan had added the notion o f “expediency” to the natural
law ideas of harmony and balance. American Catholicism needed to address the social
question, and Rerum Novarum’s use of Thomism and its acceptance o f state intervention
provided the aperture. Ryan promoted state participation in industrial affairs while having
a healthy Catholic fear o f an all encompassing state. With Ryan’s thinking, Catholics
began to make greater connections with the social initiatives of American progressives
(McShane 1986, 42-43).
John Ryan later became a spokesperson for minimum wage fights in states across
the country, and he authored a 1911 initiative in his home state o f Minnesota. The
legislature passed a revised version in 1913 (Broderick 1963, 82). He was a friend of
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labor unions but not a labor union activist. The unions had not achieved a living wage or a
reasonable life for workers through strikes or collective bargaining. Although aware of
the impediments to successful labor organizing, he focused his efforts on legislative
reforms (Broderick 1963, 58). His voluminous writings included common points with
some American progressives: “public ownership of public utilities; public ownership of
mines and forests; control of monopolies, either by breaking them or fixing their prices;
progressive income and inheritance taxes; taxation o f the future increase in land values;
prohibition o f speculation on the stock and commodity exchanges” (Broderick 1963, 59).
Monsignor Ryan was important to the post-WWI era because he authored the
American Bishop’s Program on Social Reconstruction of 1919. The American Catholic
Church had become more acceptable to non-Catholics because it had actively supported
the war effort. As during most war periods, the state and business had granted social
reforms (e.g., the National War Labor Board which mediated industrial disputes) to keep
the military/industrial machine running. The Catholic Church and labor approved of
Woodrow Wilson’s progressivism in this regard. Once the war had ended, however, the
business community and state once again took a hard line against labor; for example,
business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed the American Plan which
hoped to keep industry free of unions by maintaining the open shop.
Nevertheless, towards the end of the war and after, church leaders, government
officials, and other liberal thinkers had begun to consider the post-war reconstruction
period both in Europe and the United States as an ideal moment for social reform.
Sherwood Eddy and other progressives believed that the forces mustered during the war
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could be channeled into a crusade to reconstruct a more just society at home (McShane
1986, 97). Progressives hoped that political democracy would lead to industrial
democracy. Some social gospelers who had eschewed an alliance with labor because of
labor’s selfish nature now attempted a working relationship. The Federal Council o f
Churches actively supported the ideal of industrial democracy, including the living wage
and collective bargaining (Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook, Church and
Industrial Reconstruction 1920, 11-12, 108). Of course, conservative churches and
business people criticized these progressive ideas as socialistic (McShane 1986, 124).
The Catholic Church was now a more mainstream institution and the hierarchy
desired a reconstruction position of its own. The bishops wanted to check radicalism and
secure the working class for the Church; in addition, the letter would promote the Catholic
Church as a valued member of American society (McShane 1986, 147) The Rev. John
O’Grady, the head of the Bishops’ Committee on Special War Activities, asked John Ryan
to write the document for the bishops. Ryan had written a rough paper already, and Rev.
O’Grady literally saw it sitting at Ryan’s desk. With a few changes and additions, it
became the first pastoral letter of the American bishops.
The letter borrowed much from American progressivism. but Ryan found support
for his positions in the Leonine tradition (Leo XIII's views on the social question). Ryan
wanted to make the National War Labor Board a permanent agency as well as maintain
the National Employment Service. Moreover, he wanted the reforms to lead to greater
cooperation between management and labor because industrial peace could only come
when workers became at least co-owners of the means of production (McShane 1986,
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151). He borrowed the ideas on cooperatives from a group of 20 British Quaker
industrialists who advocated worker-ownership and promoted an altruistic spirit based on
modest living (McShane 1986, 159). The Bishops’ Program advocated a number of
reforms, land colonization; retention of the National Employment Service; retirement of
women workers from industrial work; retention of the National War Labor Board; a living
wage; government housing for workers; government check of monopolies; development
of cooperative stores (modeled after Britain's Rochdale stores); social insurance against
injury, illness, unemployment, and old age; labor participation in management; vocational
training for children; and child labor laws (McShane 1986, 161-166).
The reaction to the program was praise from progressives and radicals. Upton
Sinclair called it the “Catholic miracle” (McShane 1986, 197). Conservatives inside and
outside of the Church decried what they saw as Marxism and the Catholic Church
conservatives called it a violation o f canon law (McShane 1986, 212). Ryan and the
bishops who signed the letter referred to Rerum Novarum and natural law theory and
underscored the moral rather than the canonical importance of the letter. Nevertheless,
reformers would not see any reconstruction because the economic power o f business
interests would devour their attempts at moral and rational suasion.
During the 1920’s labor also faced the onslaught of Taylorism and welfare
capitalism— corporate forms o f progressivism. While Taylorism attempted to make work
more efficient and productive, welfare capitalism offered employees insurance, health care,
recreational opportunities and other benefits to make them feel more like members o f an
organization rather than a commodity. Unfortunately, a company could just as soon take
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benefits away as provide them. Company unions encouraged worker participation and
greater identity with the employer and, of course, during the relatively good economic
days of the early 1920s, workers responded to these rights given as gifts. Union
membership decreased at the beginning of the 1 920s.
Unions had roughly 5,000.000 members at the beginning of the decade, but by
1929 the number had fallen to 3,443,000. Anti-union groups like the National Association
of Manufacturers, a very conservative association of business people, had promoted the
open shop through the American Plan , and periodicals continued to disparage the labor
movement as being communistic or corrupt. Although there were communist
sympathizers who were unionists and some unions were strong armed by gangsters, the
press exaggerated their influence. By discrediting unionists, the propertied class defeated
attempts at establishing democracy at the workplace through collective bargaining. The
workers did not gamer the passion necessary to promote stronger unions or to fight for
political gains for labor. Pro-labor Senator Robert La Follette from Wisconsin, despite
support from the AFL, did not have a significant impact on the 1924 presidential election,
and conservative pundits mocked the progressive dud (Dulles 1966, 252). There would
be no true social reconstruction in the 1920s, and progressives had lost a window of
opportunity.
The Great Depression did not raise up a mighty front o f the laboring class despite
15 million unemployed and a drop of $40 billion in national income (Dulles 1966, 260).
Despite the propaganda and flurry o f communist organizing, extreme radicals who hoped
for a revolution found their call falling on the deaf ears o f working people. Communists
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were "day dreaming” (Adamic 1938, 333-337). With a deteriorating economy, employees
avoided strikes while watching their welfare capitalism benefits and jobs being cut. While
William Green, Gomper’s successor as president of the AFL, was promoting a shorter
work week, he refused to back calls for an unemployment insurance program being touted
by some politicians and progressives, including Monsignor John Ryan and American
Catholic bishops. Green followed Gomper's conservative view of the government's
involvement in employment questions. Some states passed worker compensation laws,
and Wisconsin passed an unemployment insurance law In 1932 Congress passed the
Norris-La Guardia Act which prohibited yellow-dog contracts, prohibited the use of
injunctions against labor groups except in specific situations, and most importantly
acknowledged the right of workers to associate.
Putting people back to work for Franklin D. Roosevelt meant he had to give
greater freedom to industry to develop its own codes of business while giving employees
the explicit right to organize and bargain collectively. He achieved these ends in the
National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA) which the Supreme Court found
unconstitutional. The NRA also failed because employers, when developing their
industry's codes, manipulated the codes to prevent individual employees from exercising
their supposed right to concerted activity. For instance merit became the basis for all
wages, benefits, and job promotions, and, of course, the employers could always find
union sympathizers to have no merit (Dulles 1966, 270).
John Ryan, now in his 60's, and the staffs of the National Catholic Welfare
Conference and its Social Action Department, heartily endorsed most ofF.D .R.’s policies.
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Ryan opposed the Economy Act that cut the salaries of government employees but
approved of the National Industrial Recovery Bill to jump start the economy. Ryan,
however, saw a 30 hour work week and a minimum wage law as the best means to help
the economy (Broderick 1963, 212-213). In the first few months o f the New Deal, the
NRA public relations office asked him to write a letter encouraging clergy to support its
work. Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins appointed him to the advisory council of the
United States Employment Service (Broderick 1963, 214).
John Ryan became a diplomat for the New Deal with the Catholic community. In
Commonweal in April 1 934, he argued that the New Deal effectuated the proper role of
the state in serving the economic needs of the country The legislation did not sanction
rampant individualism nor did it fall into the inefficiencies of state-controlled socialism.
Labor had a role in the direction and governance of industries. He called the New Deal a
via media between capitalism and communism (Ryan 1934, 657-659). Ryan had seen
progressive ideas stymied after WWI and he wanted to do everything possible to make
them reality now. In 1934 General Hugh S. Johnson appointed Ryan a member of the
Industrial Appeals Board of the National Recovery Act and he remained so until the
Supreme Court found the NRA unconstitutional in 1935. In a press release after the
unconstitutionality decision, Ryan called for increased union membership and general
wage and hour contracts to improve the difficult situation of workers (National Catholic
Welfare Conference press release May 29, 1935).
The union movement attracted new followers as people woke up to the
weaknesses o f welfare capitalism and the open shop. The need for economic security
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increased the ranks of organized labor by over a million new members in 1933. The
AFL’s conservative leadership attempted to organize industries by craft, but this proved
unsuccessful and the great mass o f unskilled workers remained unorganized: the industrial
workers would need industry wide campaigns to achieve organization. Employers fought
back with company unions and divided workers by negotiating with a plethora of
employee organizations rather than a single collective bargaining unit. Luis Adamic
(1938, 345-362), a sympathetic Los Angeles labor writer in the 1930s, wrote that the AFL
actively opposed industrial unionism with strike breakers, internal union intrigue (as in the
case of steel worker organizing), and tacit support of company unions. The business
union leaders o f the AFL were often too comfortable in their relationships with employers
and many workers accused them o f being complacent stooges for management. In some
cases automobile workers became so discouraged with the AFL organizing drives in the
early 1930s that they publicly burnt their union books and cards (Alinsky 1949, 106).
In 1934 the Roosevelt administration established the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) to adjudicate the great number o f labor disputes coming before the NRA,
but the NLRB was powerless without enforcement provisions. The defeat o f the NRA
and the apparent inertia o f the New Deal did not bode well for New Deal progressives.
The Congress of 1935, however, rallied to create the progressive policies necessary to
revive the nation. It passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to protect union
organizing and created economic insurance with the Social Security Act. While John
Ryan supported these measures, Father James Gillis o f the Catholic World complained of
a rising national debt and Roosevelt’s apparent willingness to slight the Constitution
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(Broderick 1963, 221). The radio priest Charles Coughlin accused F.D.R. o f being under
the communist spell o f Felix Frankfurter and Bernard Baruch, a Jewish financier. Clearly,
Catholic religious were not all o f a single mind on many issues nor immune from
discriminatory and inflammatory remarks. Ryan, in support o f Roosevelt’s '36 re-election,
would criticize Coughlin on a national radio broadcast for his raising the question of
communism within the New Deal. He explained that Coughlin’s monetary remedies had
no support in Catholic social teaching (Broderick 1963, 226). Ryan gave the benediction
at Roosevelt's inauguration in 1937. The following year Congress passed the Fair Labor
Standards Act, and Ryan saw the progressive dream of a minimum wage and maximum
work week become a reality (Broderick 1963, 238).
A Change in Law Aids the Organzinu Drives of the 1930s
The Wagner Act, sponsored by Senator Robert Wagner of New York, brought
equality to organized labor. Although at first not supported by Roosevelt, he would later
embrace the act because it offered a balance weight to the power of employers. Earlier in
the New Deal, the NRA trade associations could not institute industrial codes benefitting
business without granting the employees’ the right to bargain collectively. The Wagner
Act, however, was truly pro-labor legislation because up until this date, despite stood
intentions, no previous legislation had actually given employees the right to engage in
concerted activity and at the same time had made it illegal for employers to refuse to
negotiate with union representatives. The Wagner Act outlawed company unions without
giving any concessions to employers and prohibited the coercion of employees in the
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exercise of their right to associate. The NLRB conducted representation elections, heard
unfair labor practice charges, sought remedies, and had the power to ask for federal
injunctions when management committed unfair labor practices (Dulles 1966, 275). Yet
companies continued to combat unions with anti-union propaganda, labor spies, bribery
and other questionable means. They refused to bargain with their employees*
representatives believing that the Wagner Act would be found unconstitutional, but it was
found constitutional in N.L.R.B. v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Company in 1937 (Dulles
1966, 279).
The New Deal brought forth new programs to aid the great number of
unemployed including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Federal Emergency Relief
Administration, and the Worker Progress Administration. Congress passed the Social
Security Act in 1935 providing unemployment insurance through federally approved state
run programs, pensions for the elderly and the disabled, as well as programs for child
health services and other social programs (Dulles 1966. 282). The Fair Labor Standards
Act passed in 1938. Congress gave the nation minimum wages and work time limits—
both clear governmental inroads into the economy— but popularly supported in light o f the
Depression (Dulles 1966, 285).
Public opinion polls favored the Roosevelt administration’s furthering o f labor
power. The administration believed that industrial stability would result when labor and
management were put on equal footing. And despite numerous work stoppages, the
public’s opinion remained with labor and the birth of the CIO (Committee for Industrial
Organization). Social Justice, a periodical o f Father Coughlin’s National Union for Social
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Justice, complained that communists led the CIO. John Ryan, however, felt this was red
baiting by those who wished to defeat any efforts for social justice, and he compared this
red scare rhetoric to efforts to defeat the Knights of Labor in the 1 880's. The Catholic
bishops refused to condemn the CIO, and Archbishop Edward Mooney of Detroit stated
that the influence of communists in the CIO was too small to be taken seriously
(Broderick 1963, 234-235). At this point, Ryan and Catholic progressives had a firm hold
on the direction of the American Church in the area o f industrial relations. During this
time Father John Hayes o f the Social Action Department of the Catholic Bishops’
Conference distributed Social Action Notes for Priests to keep clergy informed o f the
work of other religious and lay people in the labor movement (Higgins 1993. 54).
A Fundamental Difference in Organizing Styles: William Green and John L. Lewis
William Green had worked his way up in the United Mine Workers Union and in
1924, with the death o f Samuel Gompers. became the compromise president of the AFL.
Both John L. Lewis and Matthew Woll, a member of the engravers union and an AFL
insider, had coveted the position. Since neither could obtain a majority. Green was elected
with the blessing of both Lewis and Woll. Green was a devote Christian. He knew the
works of social gospel preachers Washington Gladden and Walter Rauschenbusch. and his
trade union philosophy accepted the belief that capital and labor could cooperate if both
sides only practiced Christian neighbor love (Phelan 1987, 139). The adherents to the
social gospel tended to be native bom, and this view would later find less sympathy with
miners who were immigrants. Enlightened employers, according to the social gospelers.
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knew that their employees had ideas to improve efficiency and production and that
cooperation was part of social evolution. The collective bargaining process would
stimulate the cooperation between both parties.
Green's presidency at the AFL reflected his Christian cooperativist bent. For
instance, in 1929 workers in textile mills in Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina
struck for shorter days and higher wages— conditions were harsh. These were
spontaneous strikes that reminded many of the surge in organizing that occurred with the
Knights of Labor in 1887. Some leaders in the AFL argued for concerted efforts at
organizing, but William Green desired a peaceful and conciliatory approach to meeting
labor’s needs. At the 1929 AFL convention the delegates agreed to the organizing drive,
but Green's caution muffled their aggressiveness. He would not accept any methods that
could be called militant or conflictive. At a January 1930 speech in Charlotte, North
Carolina he repudiated all force or violence. He thought employers would listen to reason
and decide for themselves that unions improved the economy (Phelan 1987, 134). In his
speech he said, ‘There is no sword in our scabbard, there is no weapon in our hand. We
come not with the mailed fist but with the open hand to the employers of the South
appealing to them to give us the opportunity, to try us out and see whether we can help
this industrial situation in the South” (Phelan 1987, 135).
Green went on a speaking tour of the South in 1930 to convince southern leaders
that the AFL’s work “paralleled” the work of the Church and was not a militant group.
No textile firms signed up, and the organizing efforts ceased after a disastrous strike at
Danville, Virginia (Phelan 1987,135).
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William Green espoused a social gospel world view that evolved in the late 19*
century It was clearly religious idealism o f the kind that Reinhold Neibuhr found
wanting. Attempts at promoting the social gospel view included “Labor Sunday."
alliances with the Federal Council o f Churches o f Christ in America, the Militia of Christ
for Social Service (organized by Father Peter Dietz) and the Labor Forward movement
(Phelan 1987, 136). Yet Green’s position became less and less tenable with the changes in
the work world and the division between the haves and the have-nots.
John L. Lewis, on the other hand, saw the great mass of unorganized, unskilled
workers and went about the work o f organizing them by focusing on their self-interest.
As the petulant and able leader o f the United Mine Workers, he ruled with force, and yet
he was not adverse to rank and file militancy He knew how to organize while conflicts
unfolded. He was clearly different from Green and the AFL in this respect. The craft
union leaders saw him as the source o f division in the labor movement and a threat to their
power within their own unions. In 1935 Lewis realized that the power o f the mine
workers was dependent on their ability to help organize steel workers and went with this
idea to the AFL convention. Lewis and other unionists then set up the Committee for
Industrial Organization which included the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the
International Ladies’ Garment Workers, Mine. Mill and Smelter Workers and others.
Although this was only an exploratory committee, it met with little sympathy from the
AFL. Once again in 1936 the committee petitioned the executive board o f the AFL to
permit and support campaigns to organize the automobile, rubber, and radio industries.
When this petition was denied and the CIO was ordered to disband, the CIO unions went
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their own way. William Green would spend much of his remaining career after the break
damning the CIO and holding to his ideal of Christian cooperation.
Lewis led the CIO with power in mind while Green preached consensus and
cooperation. Lewis led as an opportunist, realizing that power tactics and conflict played
roles in organizing the mass production industries. The CIO’s success proved Green
wrong because his leadership by moral suasion was empty (Phelan 1987. 156). It was a
middle class, non-working class position that failed to address the self-interested militancy
o f the workers.
Organizing along industrial lines, the CIO had 3,700.000 members to the AFL's
3,400,000 by 1937 (Dulles 1966, 297). The International Ladies’ Garment Workers later
returned to the AFL, but the other industrial unions became the Congress o f Industrial
Organizations. Philip Murray, Lewis’ lieutenant in the UMW. had begun organizing in the
steel industry in 1936. Within a few months, the major steel companies had recognized
the CIO and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee as the collective bargaining agent
o f the steel workers. The United States Steel Corporation quickly agreed to ten percent
wage increases and the 40 hour week (Dulles 1966. 300). The Steel Workers Organizing
Committee found it much harder to organize the Little Steel companies who used anti
union tactics and unsympathetic citizen associations to stymie the organizing. Yet by
1941 the NLRB had forced the Little Steel companies to recognize the United Steel
Workers of America as well (Dulles 1966, 302).
Similarly, the United Automobile Workers of America used the sit-down strike to
gain recognition of their union. In 1937 John L. Lewis and GM president William
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Knudsen met with the Michigan Governor to avert any violence at the Flint. Michigan sit-
down strike that ultimately ended after 44 days Chrysler soon followed General Motors
in recognizing the union and Ford would be organized after four more years Unions and
workers relinquished the sit-down tactic once the courts fully approved the NLRB. since
the Board could then conduct its representation elections without interference (Dulles
1966. 308). O f course, the rivalry between the AFL and the CIO led to jurisdictional
disputes some of which according to Foster Dulles (1966. 310) were more acrimonious
than the conflicts between labor ard capital.
In 1936 the CIO also established the Non-Partisan League to promote labor s
needs in the political arena. The New Deal had been good for labor, and the CIO wanted
to insure the support of friendly politicians in the future. William Green was adamantly
against such political work although some of the AFL affiliated unions supported the
efforts. Franklin D Roosevelt won the 1936 election and students o f politics attribute his
win to the efforts o f organized labor (Dulles 1966. 3 15). Some thought that this success
could lead to the development o f a labor party, but the .AFL remained opposed to such
intentions; it was simply easier to support friends of labor and oppose labor's enemies.
The history of the U.S. labor movement had already shown that the workers themselves
were not interested in focusing on class divisions or the championing o f a socialist society
(Dulles 1966, 316). Although socialists and communists played significant roles in union
organizing, they did not capture the hearts and minds of the working class.
On the one hand, John L. Lewis, without supporting their ideologies, used many
labor radicals and communists for their organizing skills, while also being aware of their
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desire to influence the CIO and the Non-Partisan League. On the other hand. Philip
Murray (in part due to his anti-Marxist Roman Catholic advisors) and Sidney Hillman
worked against any attempts at communist influence (Dulles 1966, 318). Also, the work
o f the Catholic labor schools, the Catholic Worker, and other progressive, non-socialist
religious institutions impeded the boring from within efforts of the far left. Lewis had
begun to believe he might have a political career as a running mate with President
Roosevelt who, however, never pursued this possibility. By 1940, John L. Lewis no
longer supported Roosevelt and vowed that he would resign as president o f the CIO if
Roosevelt were to win re-election, which he did (Dulles 1966, 322). Lewis had lost the
opportunity to move labor forward in the political front and had lost the opportunity to
reunite the AFL and CIO on the labor front.
During the organizing drives o f the 1930’s and then the 1940's, the CIO had the
support o f the Catholic Worker movement and Catholic labor schools. Dorothy Day and
Peter Maurin. the founders of the Catholic Worker movement, had a distinct view about
the social direction of the Catholic community. Their perspective had an ethical purity
that limited the movement’s impact on organized labor. As Christian idealists, they saw
unionism as a stopgap measure to alleviating industrial injustices, and they promoted a
romantic Medieval guild system o f work life and agrarian cooperatives. Peter Maurin
spoke out against strikes at times and Dorothy Day, although an early supporter o f CIO
organizing, found the power of organized labor to be foreign to the gospel message. The
endorsement o f cooperatives, small shopkeepers, and artisan guilds resonates with the
commonwealth vision of Terence Powderly and the Knights o f Labor. The Catholic
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Workers envisioned an industrial commonwealth where the worker would lie down with
the capitalist. The Catholic Worker organized hospitality houses around the country
which became centers o f radical but orthodox thought in American Catholicism: ex
seminarians, Catholic unionists, and the unemployed discussed the social dilemmas of the
era at these hospitality houses. The Workers were radical because they believed in a new
social economic system, lived austere lives in common, and served the poor. They were
orthodox because they faithfully prayed together, received the sacraments, and respected
both the tradition and hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
Dr. Julia Metcalf, a Roman Catholic doctor, and her sister helped organize a Los
Angeles Catholic Worker house in the early 1930s. Father John Coffield, a Los .Angeles
labor priest, then a high school student, remembers attending Dr. Julia's meetings with his
mother in the late 1920's. Dr. Julia opened her personal library containing works on
Catholic theology and social thought to the public (e.g.. works by C.K. Chesterton and
Hilaire Belloc), and Father Coffield attributes his future social justice work in Los Angeles
to this exposure. He read about the plight of the steel workers in articles submitted to the
Catholic Worker paper by Father Charles Owen Rice, a labor priest and Catholic Worker
leader based in Pittsburgh. The I930's Los Angeles hospitality house shortly closed, but
Father Coffield’s social activism helped carry its philosophy of Christian idealism into the
Los Angeles Civil Rights movement of the 1950’ s and 1960’s.
The philosophy o f personalism, as developed by Catholic French philosopher
Emmanuel Mounier, reached its peak of popularity during the 1920’s and 1930’s and
influenced the Catholic left through the 1940s and 1950s. Personalism focused on the
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primacy o f the person as a free spiritual being. The human being seeks integration in all
aspects of his or her life to reach a state of harmony with creation. Personalism did not
box human beings into any particular political, social or historical moment (Piehl 1982,
70). For personalists, and therefore many Catholic Workers, work should be an artisanal
vocation and not a mechanistic slavery. Furthermore, in the thralls of the Great
Depression, millions of God’s sons and daughters lacked work. Up until this time.
American Catholicism unlike European Catholicism had not taken ownership of the
Church’s social teachings but American’s never had to respond to powerful communist
parties and communist led unions.
The Catholic Worker movement gave some social justice oriented Catholics the
means to confront the evils they encountered during those harsh economic days. The
Catholic Worker newspaper taught the social encyclicals to many American Catholics, and
the community modeled Christian charity. In addition, Neo-Thomist philosopher Jacque
Maintain and other Catholic intellectuals visited Catholic Worker houses sharing their
insights and animating the communities
This radical lay Catholic movement distanced itself from labor at the end of the
1930's because Catholic Workers believed the AFL and CIO had acquiesced to the
capitalist system by treating labor as a commodity rather than as a gift from God (Piehl
1982, 125). Although the Workers’ influence in the labor arena dwindled with time,
resurfacing during the United Farm Worker struggles of the 1960's and 1970's, former
Catholic Workers did establish new organizations and periodicals to support labor unions.
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John Cort, a Harvard educated Catholic Worker, co-founded the Association of
Catholic Trade Unionists (ACTU) in 1937. ACTU had affiliates throughout the East and
Midwest and the Association required membership in a union. The group not only
sponsored labor schools that taught organizing methods, bargaining skills, and speech
making, but it also actively supported striking workers. “Like their parent Catholic
Workers, the ACTists were especially effective in swinging Catholic moral prestige behind
particular strikes, with the added advantage that ACTU operated from within labor’s
ranks” (Piehl 1982, 161). During the 1940's, ACTU concentrated on impeding the work
o f communist organizers within unions and sympathized with the union movement’s desire
for more military production. Dorothy Day rejected both o f these positions because
communist organizers had energy and commitment to offer and Catholic Workers, in her
mind, could only be pacifists; the gulf between the Catholic W orker movement and ACTU
widened. John C ort’s Labor Leader also accepted industrialization so long as employers
paid a “living wage,” and he looked to a time when managers and employees would have
industry councils to plan together the production and sale o f their goods and services
(Piehl 1982, 164). John Cort and the ACTists cited the social encyclicals, particularly
Ouadraeesimo Anno (1931), to support the Catholic character o f their views on the labor
movement.
Although ACTU is sometimes painted as a conservative tool o f anti-communist
Catholicism, ACTU was not directed by the hierarchy or clerical reactionaries. ACTU
sided with Catholic grave diggers in their strike against the archdiocese o f New York in
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108
1949 and the ACTU and Archbishop Edward Mooney both spoke out against the anti
labor fulminations of Father Charles Coughlin (Higgins 1993, 61).
The struggle between Catholic American liberalism, one that included John Ryan
and John Cort, and Catholic idealism-exemplified by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin—
points to the challenge o f recognizing both the material benefits o f technology and
industrialism while acknowledging their sometimes spiritual emptiness (i.e., the alienation
of the worker). Dorothy Day wrote: " ‘Labor is a discipline imposed on all o f us because of
the Fall, but it is also a vocation... whereby man shares in God’s creative activity...It is not
the low pay and rough conditions o f modem factory work but the lack of responsibility
that is devastating. The worker feels little relationship to the human and social
consequences of what he produces” (Day 1945 [48], [37], 3,[ 1 ],[ 1 ]).
The Catholic Worker also spawned the liberal Catholic Labor Association of
Chicago that recognized the fundamentally conservative nature o f American workers who
wanted to share the rewards o f capitalism and not destroy it. Similarly, Fathers Charles
Owen Rice and Carl Hensler, the famous Pittsburgh labor priests, became more estranged
from the Catholic Worker as they participated in the day-to-day efforts of organizing steel
workers with the CIO. They, too, recognized the basic conservatism of the workers they
met (Piehl 1996, 167-168). Furthermore, as American Catholicism and the labor
movement passed into the 1950s, the urgency of organizing workers declined because
collective bargaining became accepted by both management and labor and prosperity
dampened labor’s activism. If labor could consistently win wage and benefit gains, and
management could afford automatic increases, the religious radicals and liberals saw no
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urgency in championing the rights of American workers. Both liberal and radical Catholic
groups turned more of their attention to the civil rights and peace movements. Radical
Catholics, moreover, could not accept unions that sometimes operated discriminatory
hiring halls or gained their power and wealth through military production.
Saul Alinskv’s Respect for the Methods o f John L. Lewis: Change Means Conflict
Saul Aiinsky's biography o f John L. Lewis highlights the attitudes, characteristics
and thinking that Alinsky found attractive in Lewis. Both Lewis and Aiinsky understood
that all social change entails some conflict. Alinsky’s University o f Chicago sociology
training and his field work helped him learn how to blend into communities and ferret out
relationships. This was one essential skill for institutional-based organizing. Aiinsky
learned other skills from John L. Lewis like the power analysis and tactical maneuvering
that left an opponent vulnerable. An exegetical reading of the Lewis autobiography points
out five elements that Aiinsky found important to Lewis’ work. Aiinsky focused on these
elements in his own organizing and to this day the Industrial Areas Foundation and other
community organizing groups build on these elements.
First of all, John L. Lewis was the greatest labor organizer o f the 20th century.
By organizing the miners, he also organized a stream of income for further organizing.
The dues and other monies received from the mine workers went into a miners’ bank.
These funds in turn contributed to the future organizing of steel and automobile workers
in the 1930s. Through his personal contacts with miners (his one-on-ones across the
nation), he built a following that allowed him to direct the United Mine Workers (UMW)
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with an iron hand. His salary and role as a special representative of the AFL had enabled
him to travel around the United States and had given him the opportunity to build
relationships with UMW members and their local leaders. From 1910-1916 he built a
political machine within the union (Dubofsky and Van Tine 1987, 189)1
Lewis understood that the UMW needed to be united before it could ever become
an institution respected for its power by the mine owners or government. Aiinsky argues
that Lewis, in building his own power, sought no compromises in his climb to the
presidency of the UMW because compromises dissipated power When unions fail to
organize the unorganized, they pay for their neglect. Lewis knew that he needed to
organize steel and other industrial workers to protect the mine workers' salaries. One
never stopped organizing as did the AFL trade unions. During the 1950’s Aiinsky would
mourn the bureaucratization of the union movement. He had once called unions secular
churches for fighting in the economic realm, but they had lost their hunger for community
involvement and mass-based labor organizing (Finks 1984, 73).
Secondly, Lewis directed the sit-down tactic (controlled conflict) during the 1930s
to build a larger power base. He did not literally direct these uprisings, but he used them
as they occurred. He had no qualms about the sit-down tactic, which distinguished him
from William Green and other labor leaders. Change came with conflict and tension for
Lewis. Aiinsky (1949, 81) referred to the CIO organizing as a crusade. He waxes
profusely over the force of the wave of sit-down strikes that occurred in 1937 (Aiinsky
M oney for organizing was always a concern for Saul Aiinsky, but the
Schwartzhaupt Foundation gave him the resources he needed to organize in California and
elsewhere— it was his bank (Finks 1984, 71).
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1949, 87), showing a keen interest in the sit-down as a negotiating tool and promoting its
use. He also describes the sit-down in great detail and spends time tracing its origin,
which he felt was the seizure o f the mills in the 1892 Homestead Strike (Aiinsky 1949,
90). The sit-down strikers saw their jobs as being their property and sitting down on the
job underscored this right. John L. Lewis, according to Aiinsky, was more succinct in
saying, “Americans have a right to work and a right to a job” (Aiinsky 1949, 93).
The AFL had organized trade locals in the automobile industry but took a passive
position toward the companies because the leaders wanted to reach consensus without
conflict. The workers became so disgusted with the AFL that they burnt their union
books and cards at one point (Aiinsky 1949, 106). John L. Lewis, who was an irreligious
man unlike William Green, believed that conflict was inevitable. Homer Martin, the
president o f the United Automobile Workers Union (UAWU), had been a Baptist minister
but with a propensity to fight. Nevertheless, during the intense negotiations between the
UAWU, Roosevelt, and Michigan Governor Murphy in 1937, Martin fell apart like a
“babbling child.” According to Aiinsky, Lewis saw the ‘37 strike as a clear power
struggle and embraced the battle while Martin wished to avoid it. At this time the
Catholic Church in Detroit, as represented by Rev. Charles Coughlin and Bishop Michael
J. Gallagher, called the sit-down strikers provocateurs and communists (Aiinsky 1949,
113). They feared that John L. Lewis wanted to sovietize the automobile industry
(Aiinsky 1949, 117).
Yet the sit-down strikers had a number o f national religious supporters including
the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the Industrial Division of the Federal Council
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o f Churches of Christ in America, and the Social Justice Commission o f the Central
Conference o f American Rabbis. These groups sent a joint telegram to General Motors’
president William Knudsen to urge him to negotiate with the UAWU (Aiinsky 1949. 119).
Lewis recognized his allies and enemies as the conflict ensued. The allies recognized the
importance of power and accepted the tension of conflict
Thirdly. Lewis always knew the strengths and weaknesses of his foe and had
conducted his research on the conflict at hand. Aiinsky relates that when Lewis eventually
met with Knudsen he simply out-negotiated the GM president and had him agreeing to
recognize the UAWU as the autoworkers' national union. This recognition was only
momentary because the GM hierarchy quickly brought Knudsen to his senses, but Lewis
understood the power of research, using it to overwhelm his foe.2 “Lewis’s success with
Knudsen was partially the result o f careful research. It should be noted that Lewis usually
is well armed with data whenever entering a controversy ’ (Aiinsky 1949. 130).
In addition. Lewis knew how to tap into the justice issue, using the Christian
narrative and tradition, and he made his adversaries feel ashamed. Although John L.
Lewis was not a religious man, he did use Christian symbols and imagery in his organizing.
Rebuking Franklin D. Roosevelt on Labor Day, September 1937, he preached on national
radio:
Labor, like Israel, has many sorrows. Its women weep for their
fallen, and they lament for the future o f the children o f the race. It ill
behooves one who has supped at labor’s table [an allusion to United Mine
2 The Industrial Areas Foundation, Saul Aiinsky’s organizing group, to this day
prides itself on its research, and makes such work as important as the actual actions with
civic leaders.
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Worker campaign contributions to Roosevelt] and who has been sheltered
in Labor’s house to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both labor
and its adversaries when they become locked in deadly embrace. (Aiinsky
1949, 160)
The Industrial Areas Foundation also uses biblical allusions to invigorate its leaders and
gamer the support of the wider community, the have-nots can identify with wandering
Israel, identifying their cause as one o f faith.
During the auto worker sit-down strike in 1937. Lewis reminded Governor Frank
Murphy o f Michigan that Murphy’s father had been imprisoned by the British for his
activities as an Irish revolutionary. He pointed out that Murphy’s grandfather had been
hanged by the British in Ireland. Lewis knew the history o f his foe and shamed him into
acknowledging that laws were not always just. Aiinsky’s dramatic account o f the
conversation between Murphy and Lewis concerns Murphy’s request that the strikers give
up the Chevrolet Plant No. 4 in Flint. Lewis responded that he would first go to the plant.
find its largest window and bare his bosom to the soldiers of 125th infantry that had been
called out by the governor.
Then Lewis lowered his voice. “And as my body falls from that window to
the ground, you listen to the voice o f your grandfather as he whispers in
your ear, 'Frank, are you sure you are doing the right thing?”’
Governor Murphy, white and shaking, seized the order from
Lewis’s hand and tore out o f the room. (Aiinsky 1949, 146)
Lewis believed the union movement would never be a powerful force within the United
States as long as the AFL divided itself into craft unions. He relished power and
understood the necessity of building up power through the CIO to achieve enough
leverage to fight the haves of the United States in the political arena. Aiinsky says that
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1 14
most people are fearful o f power. John L. Lewis “enjoyed both its possession and
application to the resolution o f issues'’ (Aiinsky 1946. 198).
The New Deal provided the thoroughfare that workers needed to march upon the
economic royalists o f the nation.
The power, the frustration, the drama o f the workers, began to flow
through Lewis. He began to articulate for the workers and also for himself.
The CIO was a religious crusade and revolution all wrapped together in
one movement. Its followers and leaders fought with religious fervor and
the fanaticism of new converts. Theirs was a sacred mission, and the road
turned ever left. Lewis became the prophet of this new crusade, and all
liberals and radicals o f every stripe swore eternal fealty to the prophet and
the cause. (Aiinsky 1946, 205)
But Lewis was not a ideologue, and Saul Aiinsky preaches against the evil of ideologies in
his own writings. The labor leader, community leader, all politicians, in Aiinsky’s
estimation, should work on the immediate tactics necessary to win immediate victories.
Aiinsky comments.
Yet with all these criticisms and attacks on the prevailing economic
and political system. Lewis never crystallized it into a creed or working
philosophy. Instead, he went as Jeremiah did. crying in the wilderness and
calling upon some “power somewhere in this land of ours that will be
capable of protecting the worker against the great corporations ” (Aiinsky
1946.207)
Roosevelt’s philosophy was even less substantial than this. Some suggest that both
Roosevelt and Lewis, as outstanding leaders in the field of action and conflict, were overly
concerned with the improvisations and tactics necessary to meet the issues of each
particular day (Horwitt 1989, 101). Lewis as a onetime disciple of Samuel Gompers had
absorbed the Gompers dictum that the labor movement was built by tactics not ideals.
Lewis was primarily a tactician and secondarily concerned with ideals. Roosevelt, too, the
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practical politician, was primarily concerned with daily politicking and maneuvering.
Alinsky believed both o f them were tacticians with little philosophy (Alinsky 1946, 207).
Finally, Lewis controlled the agenda in all his meetings. The actions conducted by
the IAF and other Alinsky-style organizing groups require clear demands and clear
responses. The leaders acting as pinners will ask their questions o f the person being
pinned and then demand a yes or no response. In fact, the demands are worded as
questions that require a yes or no, making the concessions or refusal obvious to all the
participants in the event and those informed by the press. John L. Lewis made this a
common stratagem when dealing with long-winded and evasive adversaries. In the case
o f Roosevelt, the President had a habit of telling long stories and making solicitors feel at
ease until their allotted meeting time had passed, leaving the request unanswered. Lewis,
however, dominated the conversations with President Roosevelt, i.e., controlled the
conversations, and then insisted on a yes or no.
.. Roosevelt was a genius at the art o f evasion, the half statement, the
qualified commitment. With Lewis these tactics were futile. Lewis
stubbornly held his ground, courteously demanding an affirmative or
negative reply. When Lewis caught the President in an untruth, he
indicated as much; and the one thing Roosevelt could never forgive was
Lewis calling him a liar to his face and making it stick. (Alinsky 1946, 210)
The Catholic Church did have its influence on Lewis through the efforts o f Philip
Murray. In 1937, Murray encouraged Lewis not to criticize Spain’s Franco publicly
because the Catholic Church was sympathetic to him. Murray’s request came prior to the
CIO executive board meeting that year. Murray also persuaded Lewis to remain silent
about the arms embargo that denied weapons to the leftist who were fighting Franco
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116
(Alinsky 1946. 202). Yet, Dubofsky and Van Tine argue that Lewis consistently held that
trade unionism and religion could not be mixed (Horwitt 1989. 94). Murray also
advocated industry council plans that promoted strong programs of labor-management
cooperation similar to the suggestions outlined in Ouadragesimo .Anno (Higgins 1993,
136-137).3
The beginning of IAF training invariably starts out with a case study and role play
o f the Peloponnesian Wars to help the trainees experience the use of power in
negotiations. Alinsky remarks that Lewis was interested in the history o f these wars and it
is reasonable to believe that Lewis’s interest was passed on to Alinsky (Alinsky 1946.
364). Trainees at the IAF institute in the 1970s read "Alinsky's biography o f John L
Lewis and T. Harry Williams’s study o f Huey Long— and spent hours discussing how each
had accumulated and used power They read the Federalist Papers. H.L. Mencken. Mark
Twain, and Reinhold Niebuhr, and they talked about the many faces and forms of self-
interest. They studied Thucydides' History o f the Peloponnesian Wars, especially chapter
7, and-role played a negotiating session between the Athenians and the Melians" (Horwitt
1989, 531). I think it is safe to assume that Cesar Chavez read the Alinsky authored
biography o f John L. Lewis (See Levy 1975, 108).
3See Barry Bluestone and Irving Bluestone, Negotiating the Future: A Labor
Perspective on American Business.fNew York: Basic Books, 1992) Ch.9. The description
o f an enterprise compact contains much of the vision of Private Industry Councils.
Employees have a contract with the employer, but they participate in management
decision-making in such questions o f productivity, compensation, and innovation. The call
for joint labor-management is still strong. Walter Reuther, above all others, attempted to
move the UAW in this direction, and the Saturn works at GM are probably the most well-
known example o f the potential.
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Monsignor George Higgins accounts for John L. Lewis’s success in the union
leader’s willingness to go with the rank and file. Militant unionists did not worry Lewis
and he used them while William Green distrusted them and placed his hope in the decency
o f employers. While Lewis saw the passion and anger of the militants, he did not attempt
to dampen the heat, instead, he channeled it into union victories and contracts (Higgins
1993, 135). Lewis’s thinking and behavior influenced Alinsky, and Alinsky passed on the
organizing skills he learned from watching Lewis to Chavez.
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CHAPTER 4
U.S. LABOR 1940s TO 1990s
CATHOLIC LABOR SCHOOLS, BUSINESS UNIONISM, THE UFW. AND
THE PLANT CLOSURES DECADE
At the 1940 CIO convention Philip Murray would promote the CIO’s virulent anti
communist position by calling for a convention wide vote disassociating the organization
from communism and all other foreign ideologies. Murray supported the defense efforts
of the federal administration. In 1941 John Lewis again dominated national news when
the UMW demanded the union shop in the coal mines controlled by Big Steel. This
demand had come before the National Defense Mediation Board which had been created
to prevent labor stoppages in vital industries while war loomed on the horizon. When the
board denied the union shop the UMW made a strike call, and Lewis brow beat Roosevelt
into setting up a tribunal that was in essence pro-labor. The three person tribunal gave the
UMW its union shop, but also cost the labor movement support in Washington and
around the country. The House soon passed a bill that outlawed all strikes over the union
shop or union jurisdiction in the defense industries. Moreover, strike votes in these
industries had to come after a thirty day cooling off period and with government
supervised elections (Dulles 1966, 330).
With the onset o f World War II, labor, government, and management formed a
three point plan for industrial peace: 1) no strikes; 2) create a tripartite board of labor,
118
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management, and public; and 3) peaceful settlement o f disputes. As a whole, organized
labor did support the war effort, and the key to the agreement was the National War
Labor Board whose primary job was to take over all unsettled industrial disputes. The
first problem of the board was labor’s demand for union security, contract clauses
requiring workers to be members of the union. While not calling for closed shops or union
shops, the board ruled that workers would be required to maintain their membership in the
union throughout the life of the contract (Dulles 1966, 335). The second major problem
was the rising cost o f living that wage earners faced. The War Labor Board dealt with
rising costs by tying wage increases to the cost o f living index in what became known as
the Little Steel formula. John L. Lewis continued to fight for his mine workers, pressuring
the War Labor Board and Roosevelt to agree to higher wages and portal to portal pay,
and the union would ultimately prevail despite two government take overs o f the mines.
But each time John L. Lewis beat the government, the public and political responses were
swift. In 1943 the restrictive Smith-Connelly bill was passed; it required a thirty day
cooling off period during which time the NLRB would hold strike votes. The president
was permitted to intervene in any strike when the war effort was affected, as well as take
legal action against the strikers. It also prohibited union contributions to political
campaigns (Dulles 1966,340). Congress overrode Roosevelt’s veto of the Smith-
Connelly bill.
During the war years, the restrictions o f the Little Steel formula handcuffed the
National War Labor Board’s ability to match wages with rapidly increasing inflation. To
circumvent this problem, the Board approved bargaining agreements that improved
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benefits of the workers through health plans, retirement programs, bonus systems and
other such measures (Dulles 1966, 343). Since both labor and capital criticized its work
in interpreting its role too broadly or too narrowly, this government agency seemingly
fulfilled its purpose o f maintaining labor peace during World War II. When Roosevelt ran
for his fourth term as president, the AFL kept its non-partisan position, but the CIO
organized a Political Action Committee (PAC) as a door-to-door get out the vote effort
on his behalf. Called communistic by the right, the PAC definitely aided the Democratic
win.
Post -World W ar II America saw a resurgence of labor demands and 2,000,000
industrial workers on strike by the close o f 1945. President Truman tried to prevent
industrial strife by calling a labor-management conference that ended without success. He
also used injunctions against the United Mine Workers and took over the railroads when
negotiations between railroad workers and the railways broke down. The strikes during
the post-war period solidified labor’s power and its role in the American economy. The
war production demands provided labor an opportunity for expansion. Some clergy
became noted arbitrators and mediators like Msgr. Francis Haas o f the Catholic
University ’s School o f Social Science. He helped settle hundreds o f labor disputes from
the mid-1950s into the 1950s. In 1943 he became director of the federal government’s
Fair Employment Practices Commission, but within a few months stepped down from the
position when named bishop of Grand Rapids, Michigan (Higgins 1993, 31).
Nonetheless Americans were fearful o f the power o f an organized minority within
the political and economic spheres of the country. The AFL during WWII had
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successfully averted strikes on a voluntary basis, had helped defeat foreign aggressors, but
still felt the wrath of anti-union politicians. A strong labor movement scared the royalists.
A House bill passed to protect the rights of employees from the coercive tactics of unions
and limiting strike activity won the approval of congress and a subsequent veto from
Truman. Later Congress enacted the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 by overriding
President Truman’s veto. The Act made it an unfair labor practice for unions to coerce
employees to become union members, required a 60 day notification before striking (a
cooling off period), protected management rights in collective bargaining, and made it
illegal for unions to refuse to bargain. The greatest blow to the union movement was
outlawing the closed shop, making the union shop harder to obtain through complicated
election procedures, and giving the states the ability to ban the union shop (i.e., right-to-
work legislation) (Dulles 1966. 358). The Taft-Hartley Act contained provisions for
Presidential interventions in labor disputes causing a national emergency, the establishment
o f the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and a General Counsel to enforce the
labor laws.
Labor Schools
United States Jesuits had become the largest o f the Society of Jesus’s national
bodies by the 1930s, making up one-fifth of the Jesuit order world wide (McDonough
1992, 5). The heady days of the New Deal and the CIO campaigns to organize industrial
workers pulled Jesuits as well as other Catholic religious into the service of the laboring
class, a class from which many o f them had come. Jesuits first organized labor schools in
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New York, and the effort spread to other Eastern and Midwestern cities. Fathers Joe
Coogan and John Coffield, both Los Angeles diocesan priests, continued this trend with
their labor school work on Brooklyn Ave. in East Los Angeles between 1941 and 1943.
Father Coogan, who had studied at the Catholic University in Washington, brought the
night school, adult education format to Los .Angeles. In addition. Father Bill McIntosh.
SJ, a professor at Loyola University, eventually metamorphosed his labor school work
into a professional school of industrial relations; later, he worked in the field of
human/race relations and taught policeman Tom Bradley, the future mayor o f Los Angeles
(Engh 1997).
Jesuit labor priests attempted to give life to the Church’s social teaching by
providing classes on the social encyclicals, particularly Rerum Novarum and
Ouadraeesimo Anno, and hiring qualified Catholic lay people to teach the intricacies o f
contract negotiations, grievance procedures, and parliamentary rules of order. Leo XIII in
Rerum Novarum permitted Catholic workers to join worker associations to
counterbalance the immense economic power of employers in the late 1 9th century. Pope
Pius XI wrote Ouadraeesimo Anno 40 years later in 1931 to show continued support for
unions and suggest alternative guild-like economic institutions to secure the well-being o f
both employers and employees. The Fordham School of Workers in New York,
organized by Jesuits, rented space to Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement;
the two groups soon went in their own directions. The labor school Jesuits structured
their curriculum with the nuts and bolts o f contract negotiations, labor politics, and anti
communism because the utopian corporatism promoted by Ouadraeesimo Anno seemed
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123
unrealistic in the American context. The Catholic Workers, however, embraced the
corporatist guild ideals that better fit the Christian social democratic milieu o f Europe and
its faith-based union associations.
The labor schools did not fit into the higher education apostolic ideal of the
Society of Jesus, and the labor priests never received the same respect as their higher
education counterparts. However, Father General Wlodimir Ledochowski, who had
supervised the writing o f Ouadraeesimo Anno, wanted to put flesh on the bones o f the
social magisterium. This apostolic work was one attempt among others to achieve
Ledochowski’s goal. Qualified Catholic laymen often taught in these schools because
Jesuits tended to be too theoretical and churchy or the workingmen fell into a pattern of
obsequious timidity with the clergy Indeed, the Jesuits acted like parish priests within the
social setting of labor unionism, always lending a sympathetic ear and a word o f
encouragement. In addition, they normally lectured on labor ethics to underline the
balance between property and the workers' right to associate to better their lot
(McDonough 1992, 101). The Xavier Labor School in Manhattan was the most famous
o f these institutions during this era, in part because o f the power and influence o f the New
York City unions. The Jesuits Phillip Carey, S J. and John Corridan, S.J., who was the
priest portrayed in the movie “On the Waterfront,'7 led the enterprise (Sweeney 1996, 14).
The school served unions from 1941 to 1989, and President John Sweeney of the AFL-
CIO is an alumnus. The Boston Catholic Labor Guild is the only labor school left today.
Peter McDonough (1992, 103) suggests that it was not so much the Church’s
social teachings nor the Communist organizing that took hold of the men’s imaginations.
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but simply the fraternity and camaraderie that developed from ethnic, family, and patriotic
ties nurtured through these apostolic efforts. The schools combined forces with the
Jesuits* Institute for Social Order to provide workingmen ?s retreats on weekends and
family day retreats for married couples The emphasis o f the Jesuits, like the Catholic
social justice crusaders John Ryan and Peter Deitz. focused on the family, the fundamental
social unit They believed better wages, benefits, and working conditions would lead to
better family life. The Jesuits did not promote a rush for power to transform the economic
system, nor did the workers seem to have a desire for such an attempt, but advocated a
sense of fairness within society. When laborers had a living wage, they could care for their
families. The Jesuit attempts at promoting the labor movement from the family up.
through the Institute for Social Order and their affiliated labor schools, had limited success
because they did not confront the most powerful academic, political, economic and media
forces. Catholics and other social activists would only bring about significant change by
engaging those who had the power within the society Furthermore, the gains made in
strong union contracts never benefitted the great number o f workers who did not belong
to unions, particularly minorities and women. With time, the Jesuits and their lay
colleagues lost their teaching roles to the educational programs developed by unions, and
during the 1 950s period o f prosperity, the social justice aspect of the labor movement also
came into question: Union workers were living well.
During these years, the Jesuit labor priests openly admired the communist
organizers for their zeal, and grappled with the lack of enthusiasm o f Catholics for some
non-communist attempt at social change. The emphasis on pastoral concerns in a secular
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context (e.g., the union hail) and a certain resignation to always having the poor at hand
probably impeded further economic change on a grander scale (McDonough 1992, 116).
The Jesuits were clearly not encouraging Catholic union members, as a movement (e.g.,
like the budding civil rights movement), to confront the economic and political elites of the
time to create a new economic system. Economic change was not forthcoming because
the Jesuit vision lacked a greater sense o f urgency, and moreover, the corporatism of
Quadragesimo Anno was arcane to workers and even many labor priests.
In contrast, Msgr. John Ryan during the 1930s saw great hope in the corporatism
of Quadragesimo Anno and promoted the National Industry Councils of the Roosevelt
administration as vehicles to meld Pius XI’s corporatism with the New Deal efforts to
rebuild the economy. Ryan had promoted worker-ownership, worker management, and
profit sharing since writing the Bishop’s Plan for Social Reconstruction in 1919. Father
Raymond McGowan, Ryan’s assistant, had encouraged employer-labor-govemment
conferences since the early 20's (Higgins 1993, 54). The Jesuits and labor school priests,
like management and unions o f the 40's and 50's, had settled into a zone o f comfort in a
transitional method of straight forward collective bargaining. To be sympathetic to the
progressive religious people who desired a more just economic system for all workers.
Catholic union members who prospered during the 40's and 50's lost their passion to keep
the changes o f the New Deal moving. In other words. Catholics were climbing up the
economic ladder and a certain sense of complacency had set in.
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AFL-CIO in the 1950s
Despite the Taft-Hartley Act o f 1947, workers continued to join the union ranks
and by the 1950s one third of the non-agricultural labor force was organized. President
Truman used his presidential power to seek temporary injunctions against mine workers,
steel workers, and longshoremen (Dulles 1966, 363). Strike activity had decreased since
the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act. but labor continued to show its strength and role in
the economy. During these early years o f the Cold War, both the AFL and CIO took
every means to prevent the spread o f communism in foreign lands and within their own
community (Dulles 1966, 366). Labor leaders endorsed the Marshall Plan, encouraged
foreign aid, and backed the United Nations in the Korean intervention (Dulles 1966. 366).
By the 1950s the union movement had become an acceptable part of the American
economic and political scene. The leaders often had better education than their
foreparents, and they became peers with their management adversaries, albeit not social
equals. The bureaucracy of the labor movement put distance between unions and their
members (Dulles 1966. 372). George Meany, president o f the AFL, and Walter Reuther.
the CIO president, came to terms on a no-raiding agreement in 1953 (Dulles 1966, 373).
By 1955 the two federations had agreed to a formal merger with George Meany as
president and Walter Reuther as head o f the Industrial Union Department. Leaders and
journalists saw the merger as a means to prevent racketeering from destroying the
credibility o f labor, to create a unified position against communism, and to establish the
goal of bringing any willing worker into the union ranks no matter color or creed (Dulles
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127
1966, 374). Labor radicals also saw this merger as an end to the communist supported
organizing drives o f the CIO.
In spite o f the benefits of a unified labor movement, the percentage of union
members in the non-agricultural work force reached its apex in 1956 at 33.4 percent
(Dulles 1966, 379). The merger did not automatically produce organizing successes.
Employers became more enlightened, providing better wages and working conditions to
employees, and the South remained very much nonunion. How could attempts at greater
democracy in the workplace find success in a region where civil rights were still denied?
"In many instances the labor leaders themselves, both at the top and at local levels,
appeared to have lost something of the zeal that had marked their organizing activity in the
past” (Dulles 1966,380) The number of blue collar jobs dropped from 40 7 per cent of
the total labor force to 36.4 per cent between 1947 and 1963. At the same time, white
collar jobs increased from 45.3 per cent to 57 per cent (Dulles 1966, 380). O f course
white collar workers were less likely to join unions. Agricultural workers were not
included in these statistics. On the political front the Committee for Political Education
(COPE) campaigned for Democratic candidates and lobbied for repeal of the Taft-Hartley
(Dulles 1966, 381).
Corruption in the union movement was a desultory element for both employers and
employees and had been present in some unions since the early part of the century. The
building trades, longshoremen, truck drivers, and other service workers were more
susceptible to this corruption because of the nature o f their work and the employers'
dependency on it. After prohibition, racketeering and organized crime made greater
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128
inroads into various unions, and the members, employers, and public became more
concerned with the damage that could be done by unsavory figures in industrial relations.
The AFL-CIO attempted to combat this problem with its Ethical Practices Committee
which investigated charges o f rigged union elections, the misappropriation o f money, and
illegal union activities (Dulles 1966, 383). The federal government also followed suit
when the Senate established the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor
Management Field. The number o f corrupt unions was small, but the public testimony and
news reports cast a dark shadow on the entire labor movement. Republicans subsequently
called for strict measures to eliminate corruption, so strict, that Democrats saw them as an
attempt to weaken the labor movement. The outcome of all the political wrangling was
the Landrum-Griffin Act that was signed into law in 1959. The Landrum-Griffin Act did
create the means to protect employees and employers from unscrupulous labor leaders and
organized crime, but it went further and weakened unions by making it illegal for a union
to put almost any pressure on a secondary employer, prohibiting a union from picketing
employers who have recognized a lawful rival union, and giving states greater rights in
administering labor relations over labor disputes deemed insignificant by the NLRB
(Dulles 1966, 387). The latter change made it harder for unions to organize in right-to-
work states. Subsequent investigations under the auspices of the Landrum-Griffin Act
showed union corruption to be much less widespread than had been previously believed,
but the government had further usurped power in the industrial relations field.
During the 1960s the labor movement found itself still able to demand higher
wages and better working conditions but unable to provide job security. At times labor
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129
had the economic clout to win concessions from employers, but this also became a
weakness because the “money grubbing” unionists oftentimes lost public support.
In 1963 a survey of the opinions of 38 union presidents and 47 staff
personnel singled out what were considered the most discouraging features
of the current scene. They first listed such basic factors as automation and
consequent unemployment, the weakness o f union structure, and the loss of
public sympathy. There was also a heavy emphasis in many of the replies
on the lack of the old sense o f dedication to the labor movement. What
was primarily needed, one respondent wrote, was “smaller waist lines,
more vigor, and above all, a better educated and more literate
membership.” (Dulles 1966, 396-397)
Union workers during this period received higher wages, better working
conditions, and a plethora of benefits— health, education, vacation, and retirement. The
increased leisure time spawned the amusement industry with theme parks like Disneyland
and Knox Berry Farm finding a burgeoning market. Blue collar workers were buying their
own homes, sending their children to college, and enjoying a level of prosperity that their
parents had never experienced. Those outside of unions, however, continued to face
poverty, often the result of unemployment. Teenagers, unskilled workers, and African-
Americans suffered the most. Labor continued to back improvements in the Social
Security system (e.g.. Medicare and old age pensions), promote increases in the minimum
wage through the Fair Labor Standards Act, and safeguard unemployment insurance for
the temporarily unemployed (Dulles 1966, 400). Further labor fears in the 1960s centered
on automation that cost blue collar workers their jobs and left them unemployed or
working in low-wage service industries. Longshoremen in 1960 and railroad workers in
1964 won concessions from management that called for the gradual elimination o f jobs
due to automation rather than across the board layoffs.
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During the 1960s labor needed to build up its political clout with the general public
to demand greater employment for all Americans (Dulles 1966, 415). Also, labor and
management began to submit more questions to arbitration, and industrial relations
commentators argued that in the case o f strikes affecting the entire nation, someday a
more refined system o f judicial inquiry and fact finding should be developed-industrial
jurisprudence (Dulles 1966,416).
George Meany was a conservative trade unionist who led the AFL-CIO in
supporting the war in Vietnam and moved slowly to end racial discrimination within the
union movement. This conservatism led to a mutual animosity between organized labor
and the left. On the one hand, the labor movement supported civil rights legislation as a
body throughout the 1950s and 1960s. on the other hand, its own hiring hall practices and
apprenticeship program were often discriminatory (Zieger 1987, 343). The AFL-CIO did
not sanction the 1963 Civil Rights march on Washington and it was Walter Reuther o f the
UAW, rather than George Meany, who took the podium with Martin Luther King, Jr.
The UAW left the AFL-CIO in 1968, and the AFL-CIO lost a progressive voice in
Reuther who wanted more aggressive efforts at organizing and greater involvement in the
civil rights movement (Zieger 1987, 342). As time went on, George Meany criticized the
unwillingness of rank and file members to ratify new labor contracts and argued that the
union leadership ought to have full authority in contract decisions. He even promoted
voluntary arbitration to alleviate strikes. Clearly Meany did not see the AFL-CIO as a
social movement although he was a staunch defender of the union movement in our nation
(Zieger 1987, 345).
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Rural Organizing and Urban Plant Closures
As big labor and big business settled into a comfortable relationship in the 1950s.
farm workers and other low-skilled wage jobs became the focus of interest for religious
activists in the subsequent decades. Vatican II. the religious vocational crisis, the Civil
Rights Movement, the Vietnam War. and other profound social events changed the nature
o f religious participation in the labor movement. As opposed to the years from the
beginning o f the century to the 1950s. religious professionals were no longer engaged in
the labor movement in a systematic fashion. Labor priests and labor nuns responded to
social justice issues (in particular, labor issues) in a much more individual and ad hoc
fashion. Although labor leaders, like George Meany supported civil rights, many liberals
and religious professionals felt that his calls for change were too slow and too timid.
Similarly, priest, brothers, and nuns who were social activists in earlier times (e.g, Rev.
Charles Rice Owen o f Pittsburgh) split with the AFL-CIO over the Vietnam war and U.S.
military support of Nicaraguan contras. Big labor had become too identified with big
business.
Msgr. George Higgins contends that after the great labor organizing o f the 1930s
and 40s, institutional Catholicism played a dimminshed role in the labor movement
because workers had gained union recognition. He believes Church leaders correctly
refrained from becoming involved in the technical details o f contract negotiations or
contract compliance. Religious progressives and union organizers had won their goal of
union recognition for auto, steel, and transportation workers. The activism o f labor
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priests and professional religious turned to those who still remained unorganized, e.g.,
farm workers and garment workers. The U.S. Catholic Conference aided the farm
workers by insisting that U.S. growers accept the right of the workers to have union
representation (Higgins 1993, 63). In a similar fashion, during the Farah Manufacturing
and J.P. Stevens labor conflicts of the 1970s, the Church stood behind the workers’ right
to organize. Both Farah and J.P. Stevens, low-wage southern textile companies, refused
to recognize the unions of their employees and committed unfair labor practices to avoid
collective bargaining. During these two conflicts, sisters, priests, bishops and their
religious councils encouraged the employers to bargain with workers’ unions, offered their
skills to mediate disputes, and asked other workers and congregations to support the
workers (Sullivan 1987, 200-258). With the farm workers and the garment workers, the
Church often faced opposition from Catholic growers (Sullivan 1987, 52) and Catholic
textile executives (Sullivan 1987. 239-240), creating tension in local parishes and dioceses.
In California, the farm workers’ movement was the most evident labor organizing
of the 1960s and 70s. The leadership of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta linked labor
and community organizing and pointed to the influence of Saul Alinsky and Fred Ross.
The organizing of the Industrial Areas Foundation had taken root in Los Angeles because
East Los Angeles Mexican-Americans wanted to bring the dynamism of the farm worker
effort to the urban setting. Ernie Cortes, a former UFW boycott leader from Texas,
organized the United Neighborhood Organizations (UNO) with the help of Bishop Juan
Arzube, Fathers Frank Colbom and Pedro Villarroya, and Sister Mary Beth Larkin. In a
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real way, the Catholic Church supported the farm worker and UNO organizing with
contributions from the Campaign for Human Development.
Farm workers were and continue to be the most impoverished wage earners in the
United States. During the Bracero program (Public Law 78) from 1954 to 1964, U.S.
farm owners and agribusinesses employed thousands of Mexicans to work in their fields.
The government sponsored program permitted the hiring o f poor foreign workers and
therefore blocked wage increases and benefits to native bom migrant workers. Latinos
and other low-income workers faced the onslaught o f even poorer job seekers from south
o f the border, who at least had minimum wages and benefits negotiated through the
auspices of the Mexican government (Higgins 1993, 85). After lobbying from religious
groups, including the Catholic Church, and independent government reports, the House
o f Representatives phased out the program in 1964. Freed from competing with foreign
workers, U.S. farm workers then had an opportune moment to organize.
Although Cesar Chavez learned about justice and injustice during his years as a
child of migrant farm workers, and again as a young man who flirted with the life-style of
pachucos, and then as a Navy enlisted man. Father Donald McDonnell was the one who
taught him the Catholic Church’s social teaching. The San Francisco Catholic
Archdiocese assigned McDonnell to rural migrant ministry, and he met Chavez in San
Jose, California’s barrio “Sal Si Puede.” McDonnell taught Chavez the history o f farm
worker organizing in California and shared the social encyclicals with him. In Mater et
Magistra (1961) John XXIII spoke directly to agricultural workers:
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Nor may it be overlooked that in rural areas, as indeed in every
productive sector, farmers should join together in fellowships, especially
when the family itself works the farm. Indeed, it is proper for rural
workers to have a sense of solidarity. They should strive jointly to set up
mutual-aid societies and professional associations. All these are very
necessary either to keep rural dwellers abreast o f scientific and technical
progress, or to protect the prices o f goods produced by their labor.
Besides, acting in this manner, farmers are put on the same footing in such
fellowships. Finally, by acting thus, farmers will achieve an importance and
influence in public affairs proportionate to their own role. For today it is
unquestionably true that the solitary voice speaks, as they say, to the winds.
(Mater et Magistra 1961. 146)
In the early fifties, Chavez also read works on Mahatma Gandhi and other spiritual
leaders. He had learned personal values o f care, nonviolence, and self-discipline from his
mother and grandmother while growing up in Arizona, and the lives o f St. Francis of
Assisi and Gandhi echoed their voices (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 23).
McDonnell guided Chavez in the living out o f his religious and social justice views by
introducing the young Mexican worker to the methods o f Saul Alinsky and Fred Ross, an
Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) organizer in California. Although Chavez attributed
many UFW victories in California to the support o f religious groups, Msgr. George
Higgins believes these triumphs came from Chavez’s organizing ability. Chavez was first
o f all a community organizer:
Indeed, for three years Chavez gathered the Mexican-Americans in Delano,
a little town in the heart o f the vineyard area, into a closely knit group. He
established a credit union from which his farm workers could borrow the
money so often needed to tide them over. His members also found that by
banding together, they could pool their resources and buy things they
needed at discount prices. In short, the Delano workers learned what
outside union organizers had never been able to teach them. They learned
the lesson o f solidarity, and they practiced it daily in the affairs o f their own
association. After three years, they began asking the inevitable question: If
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unity could bring them cheaper automobile tires, why not better wages and
working conditions as well? (Higgins 1993, 88)
Chavez’s community organizing work started with the Community Service
Organization (CSO) in 1952. Under the guidance of Fred Ross, who had worked with
Los Angeles Mexican-Americans to elect Edward Roybal to the city council in 1949,
Chavez and his friends registered 6,000 Mexican-American voters in San Jose. The
Republican central committee challenged the first time voters at the polls and accused
Chavez of being a communist. In this first taste of civic conflict, Chavez learned that
tension was necessary for change and that the poor in solidarity had to challenge
institutional power (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 26). The CSO and Chavez
organized citizenship classes and registered voters during the anti-immigrant 1950s just as
the IAF and its Active Citizenship Campaign have helped legal immigrants become citizens
in the 1990s He also established a service center to aid the local Hispanic population and
he became adept at one-on-one relationship building through the service center work.
Chavez learned from Ross and Alinsky that the organizer needed to develop personal
relationships with the local people before beginning to organize for change. Since few
Mexican-Americans belonged to unions and many were nominally Catholic or had little
power within the Church, institutional organizing as done in Chicago was futile. Mexican-
American farm workers came together around family relations and personal contacts. The
family was the basic social unit for organizing (Finks 1984, 63). On the one hand, Fred
Ross perfected house meetings as a means of organizing, and ACORN is the best example
o f a community organizing group that continues to work in this fashion. Alinsky, on the
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136
other hand, had always favored organizing around institutions. Both, however, were
clear on the importance o f developing personal contacts.
Cesar Chavez spent a decade crisscrossing California and organizing CSO groups
in Mexican-American communities. He founded organizations in Hanford, Madera, and
Bakersfield while Fred Ross established groups in Salinas. San Bernardino, Stockton and
other California communities. Fred Ross discovered CSO organizer and future UFW
leader Dolores Huerta in Stockton. Huerta, after being hired by Alinsky for the CSO,
became the lAF’s first woman organizer (Finks 1984, 71). As house meetings brought in
interested family members and friends, the organizers began to pick out leaders and
discover the issues that angered the locals: poor housing, inadequate schools,
discriminatory employment practices, the lack o f sewers and so on. The supporters in
time held a convention to found the chapter, elect officers, set up committees for ongoing
organizing, and vote on a plan of action (Finks 1984, 63). CSO, with financial backing
from the Schwatzhaupt Foundation and the AFL-CIO, registered 435,000 voters in the
fifties and sixties (Tjerandsen 1980, 87).
The cross over from community organizing to labor organizing came in 1958 when
Ralph Helstein of the United Packing House Workers of America (UPHW) asked Alinsky
for organizing assistance in Oxnard, California. Helstein had been an important figure in
the organizing of the Back o f the Yards Neighborhood Council. His union had organized
Oxnard lemon packing house workers, but the citrus growers had refused to bargain with
local pickers and hired braceros at illegally low wages. Helstein believed he could repeat a
Back of the Yards/Packing House Workers type of win for the farm workers if Chavez
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established a CSO group in Oxnard. The area’s citrus industry would then be vertically
organized. The UPHW gave the CSO $20,000 for Chavez’s salary (Finks 1984, 171).
Chavez built the local CSO into a powerful organization and began to send members to
the Farm Placement Service to seek work. CSO members documented the rejections
while growers continued to hire braceros. Armed with the facts, the CSO leaders in time
won the firing of the Farm Placement Service Director and gained hundreds of jobs for
local people. In this economic justice fight, the Oxnard CSO initiated picker sit-down
strikes, boycotted stores whose owners kowtowed to growers, picketed the Secretary of
Labor James Mitchell, and marched through the streets behind the banner of Our Lady of
Guadalupe (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995. 29). The work of Justice for Janitors
and the SEIU in the nineties mirror these direct action tactics
Within a year's time, however, all o f the gains were lost. The national CSO did
not allow Chavez to organize a union and without written contracts, growers went back to
their old ways. Internal factions also divided the Oxnard CSO Despite the fleeting
success, Chavez. Dolores Huerta, and Fred Ross sensed that the time was right for a farm
workers union. Chavez knew, after working with the Packing House Union organizers,
that the then common union organizing methods would not succeed with farm laborers
(Finks 1984, 171). These workers had not experienced the organizing successes of Mid-
Western and Eastern blue collar manufacturing workers. They did not come out of the
same neighborhood or ethnic community like the Chicago Packing house workers.
The CSO organizers learned to use Protestant and Catholic churches to find area
leaders. In a more direct manner, Roman Catholic priests promoted a farm workers union
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138
by going to the AFL-CIO for assistance Father Thomas McCullough, a migrant ministry
priest, and Father David McDonnell with Dolores Huerta requested organizing help from
the labor federation, and the leadership responded with the Agricultural Workers
Organizing Committee (AWOC) and a former LAW organizer. Norman Smith. AWOC,
led by Smith and then AJ Green in 1 961, engaged in many strikes in the years up to the
founding of the United Farm Workers. .Although Chavez wanted to lead the CSO into
labor organizing, the leadership felt secure in its civic work, and voted down the proposal
in 1962 (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995. 33-34) During his CSO days. Chavez
became a more focused reader, and he had read the biographies of John L Lewis. Eugene
Debs, and accounts of the Knights of Labor (Levy 1975. 108 ). At this point Chavez
decided to strike out on his own. with Huerta following shortly thereafter, and both of
these organizers left CSO work at great financial cost to themselves. Chavez's CSO work
had taught him the importance of power and his views echoed those of Lewis and Alinsky
Moreover. Chavez sounded like a Niebuhrian Christian realist
I always have had, and I guess I always will have, a firm belief that
if you muster enough power, you can move things, but it's all on the basis
of power. Now I seldom like to go see my opponent unless I have some
power over him. I’ll wait if it takes all my life. And the only way you can
generate power is by doing a lot o f work.
It is unfortunate that power is needed to get justice. That suggests
a lot about the nature o f man. And we also must guard against too much
power, because power corrupts, but it was not one o f our problems then.
(Levy 1975. 109-110)
The UFW began as a workers' association (the Farm Workers Association) and
not a union. The failures o f past union efforts made the farm laborers hesitant to talk of
unions and strikes. Chavez avoided this negative history by building a strong workers’
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139
organization before beginning to even think of making demands on growers. The
association provided loans for members, a burial-insurance program, information on
workers' rights, contact with local schools and hospitals, and a host of other services the
workers sought. Chavez's experience with the CSO and his constant travels helped him
build up support in the farm worker communities just as John L. Lewis gained influence
with mine workers in his early traveling days as an AFL mine workers organizer. The
personal contacts and relationship building led to the ground work necessary to create a
force that could match the growers' power in any future agriculture labor dispute.
Many church people aided Chavez in his work. Rev. Jim Drake of the California
Migrant Ministry', a Protestant ecumenical group, became a key UFW organizer. Rev. Jim
Drake along with Chris Hartmire and Phil Famham, two other Protestant ministers, had
studied Reinhold Niebuhr's theology at Union Seminary in New York. Hartmire says
Niebuhr’s thought simply fit the farm worker movement (Hartmire Interview 1998).
Today Jim Drake is the lead organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation in Boston. In
addition to theological support, the California Migrant Ministry provided financial support
to the farm worker organizing.
After some early labor disputes that drew the National Farm Workers Association
(NFWA) into the fray, a flower strike in McFarland and a rent strike in Porterville, the
NFWA joined the 1965 grape workers’ strike of the AWOC in Delano. Vineyard owners
were paying Mexican braceros $ 1.40 per hour while Filipinos and Mexicans received
$ 1.25 and $1.10 respectively (Griwold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 42). Although
Chavez. Huerta and the other organizers were more concerned about building up a strong
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foundation for this new worker association, after receiving a request for support from the
AWOC, the NFWA voted to strike. Not long after, Walter Reuther came to Delano to
support the strikers and likened their effort to that of the militant UAW efforts in the
1930s (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 50).
Rev Victor Salandini of the San Diego Catholic Diocese had allowed the AWOC
to use his church in El Centro for organizing meetings during the early sixties. During the
grape strike he lobbied in Washington on behalf o f the strikers and helped impede the
hiring of braceros as strike breakers (Sullivan 1987, 43). Rev. Keith Kenny and Rev.
Arnold Meagher flew Cesar Chavez over San Joaquin Valley grape fields to encourage the
pickers to leave their jobs (Sullivan 1987. 42). They were later criticized by Catholic
bishops and growers for their involvement. The Committee of Religious Concern included
Catholic, Protestant and Jewish leaders who came to investigate the situation (Sullivan
1987, 45). After being stood up by growers, the committee held a press conference
supporting the strikers, calling for negotiations, and encouraging greater support from the
AFL-CIO and all people of faith (Sullivan 1987, 50). Rev. Jim Vizzard. SJ, director of the
Washington Office o f the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and an instrumental
force in ending the bracero program, released a statement that the Catholic Church should
support the workers in the dispute. Bishop Aloyoius J. Willinger, C.S.S.R, o f the
Monterey-Fresno Diocese wrote a reply in the diocesan paper. Central California Register.
arguing that the dispute, as it pertained to Catholics, was solely under the jurisdiction o f
the local diocesan bishop (Sullivan 1987, 52). Willinger was sensitive to the influence of
Catholic growers, and editorial writers in liberal and conservative Catholic periodicals
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(e.g., Ave Maria and The Wanderer respectively) would argue back and forth throughout
the dispute about the proper role of the Church.
Cesar Chavez understood the culture o f the Hispanic workers for whom he fought,
and an important element was faith. Although the farm workers included African-
Americans, poor whites, and Arabs, the Filipinos and Mexicans were often Catholic.
Chavez and the workers created a national stir with their march from Delano to
Sacramento.
The march was a tactic Chavez had used with the CSO during the Oxnard
struggle. Besides its practical political value, the march was linked to the
idea of sacrifice. In Chavez's words, “This was an excellent way of
training ourselves to endure the long, long struggle....This was a penance
more than anything else— and it was quite a penance, because there was an
awful lot of suffering involved in this pilgrimage, a great deal of pain.” In
the spirit of the Lenten season, the march became a religious pilgrimage. It
was planned to end on Easter Sunday, covering 250 miles in twenty-five
days (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 51)
Religious people marched with the workers and they celebrated the eucharist along the
way, although sometimes traditionalist Catholics, complaining of such outdoor masses,
picketed the events. The marchers carried banners of Our Lady of Guadalupe and U.S.
and Mexican flags, adding to the color and symbolism. With the help of college students
and religious, the wider public became more aware of the struggle. Urban Chicanos
became politicized and they identified with the Latino farm laborers. The media
responded to the real life drama that the growers and workers were acting out in the San
Joaquin Valley. The AWOC and the Farm Workers Association had joined forces and
calls for a boycott against the producers o f grape products (Schenley Corporation, the Di
Giorgio Corporation and TreeSweet) led to mounting pressure on the growers. As
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Chavez and the workers marched on to Sacramento, the Schenley Corporation, on the one
hand, recognized the Farm Workers Association as the bargaining representative of the
strikers. The Di Giorgio Corporation, on the other hand, supported an unsuccessful
Teamsters organizing effort to gain a sweet heart deal, and did not recognize the UFW for
four more years. By 1966, the activities o f the now merged AWOC and NFWA ( having
become the United Farm Workers Union) had crossed over from community organizing to
labor organizing and had become a movement for social justice at the workplace.
Cesar Chavez’s use o f hunger fasts caused antagonism with his family, UFW
leaders who opposed its religious connotations, and with liberals who saw the act as too
Roman Catholic (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 85). Ed Chambers, o f the IAF.
says that during that time Saul Alinsky believed that fasting was an ineffective tactic
(Chambers Interview 1997). But Chavez’s fast during the 1968 Giumarra farms strike,
after violence had erupted between farm workers and the company, taught the strikers the
importance of nonviolent action and aggressive boycotting. Coming out o f the twenty-
five day fast, Chavez painted a picture of a struggle that pitted the rich against the poor, a
struggle that required self-sacrifice, and a commitment of body and spirit to justice
(Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 87-88). The influence of Catholicism and Gandhi
on Chavez’s use of fasting is clear. He did not engage in hunger strikes which are
attempts to solicit a response from your opponent. One is making a demand. A fast is a
means of personal and communal penance and purification, in effect denying oneself for
the other. The fast was a means o f communicating one’s convictions, according to
Chavez:
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The fast is a very personal spiritual thing, and it’s not done out o f a
recklessness.... a desire to destroy myself, but it’s done out of a deep
conviction that we can communicate to people, either those who are for us
or against us, faster and more effectively spiritually than we can in any
other way. (Levy 1975, 465)
Cesar Chavez’s most successful fasts took the focus off him and placed it on the injustices
suffered by the poor he had organized. He was not making demands on others; instead he
was giving himself to the cause.
The key term is giving, which again suggests the principle of sacrifice as a
guiding force of action. Also, Chavez closely identified himself with other
leaders who demonstrated the suffering/sacrifice principle by their life or
death; Jesus Christ (nonviolent religious leader-martyred). Saint Francis of
Assisi (nonviolent religious leader— practiced extreme poverty and
gentleness), Mahatma Gandhi (nonviolent civil leader— assassinated), and
Robert Kennedy (political leader— assassinated). (Hribar 1978, 295)
The self-sacrifice mirrors the role of the scape-goat or victim theory of social leadership.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition the victim leads by example (nonverbal communication),
and as a victim, the leader has clearly practiced nonviolence (Hribar 1978, 296). The
successful fasts also strengthened the resolve of the workers; they showed more patience
(nonviolence) and hope in their ultimate success (Hribar 1978, 297).
The Catholic hierarchy played a significant role in bringing a resolution to the
ongoing grape boycott at the end o f the sixties. Msgr. George Higgins had written a
statement for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops endorsing the grape boycott.
The bishops, however, decided to appoint an ad hoc committee on farm labor to try to
work as mediators in the dispute rather than endorse the boycott. The committee included
Bishops Timothy Manning o f Los Angeles, Hugh Donohoe o f Fresno, Joseph Donnelly o f
Hartford, and Humberto Medieros o f Brownsville. The labor community knew Bishop
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Donnelly as a labor priest active in supporting the right to organize and farm worker
activists knew Medieros for his pastoral outreach to farm workers in Texas and in
northern states as they followed the harvests. Without much action from Manning and
Donohoe in California. Donnelly, the chairman of the committee, worked with Higgins
and then Msgr. Roger Mahony. the committee’s secretary in California, to attempt to
mediate the dispute (Higgins 1993, 90-91).
Msgr. Higgins’ personal account in Organized Labor and the Church recalls a
period of “endless” meetings between growers and Chavez, individual growers and
Chavez, and Chavez and the farm workers. When the committee began its work in 1969,
the members told the growers that the bishops were not promoting the farm workers
cause but offered their services as a neutral party Msgr. Higgins, however, stated clearly
that the Catholic Church recognized the farm workers right to associate for their well
being.
I. for one. did not go to California as a neutral bystander on the major
ground o f farm labor dispute— the right to organize and bargain
collectively (It seems to me that no one who speaks for the social
tradition of the church can or should claim neutrality on this matter.) Most
of all, we stressed that the only way out of the farm labor crisis was for
growers and workers to sit down together and negotiate bona fide
collective bargaining agreements. The organization of farm workers was
only a matter of time, we told the growers. We said they might as well
reconcile themselves to dealing with the one union that can legitimately
claim to represent their workers, the United Farm Workers Organizing
Committee. (Higgins 1993, 91)
The committee found that some o f the growers were willing to negotiate with the union.
The work o f the LTW and its nation-wide boycott ultimately led to the historic settlement
with twenty-nine major grape growers in Delano on July 29, 1970. The National
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Conference of Catholic Bishops and its five member committee had brought the growers
and the union together for a peaceful settlement after the strike and boycott proved the
power of the organized workers and their movement. Cesar Chavez praised the bishops
for their contribution to the settlement (Sherry 1970, 22).
During the grape boycott. Catholic writer. Rev. Cletus Healy, SJ among others,
wrote that Alinsky was Chavez’s mentor, and that Alinsky clearly flirted with Marxism.
Growers used Father Healy’s pamphlet about the dispute to sully the reputations of both
Chavez and Alinsky with Catholics (Flanagan 1971, 61). Although Alinsky was an
indirect mentor to Chavez, it was Fred Ross who taught Chavez how to tap into his
members’ values of family and faith to meet power with power. Nothing suggests that
communist plots and conspiracies were part of this organizing success. Chavez convinced
antagonists in the 1950s that he was not a communist by requesting endorsements from
local Catholic priests (Levy 1975, 107). He found that the support of Catholic religious
made it easier to defend against accusations of radicalism.
The UFW continued its organizing activities throughout the seventies and eighties.
After the grape strike it immediately faced raiding by Teamsters who signed field work
sweetheart contracts with Salinas Valley vegetable growers. Los Angeles Cardinal Roger
Mahony, then Bishop Mahony of Stockton, played an important part in attempts at ending
this jurisdictional dispute. Over one hundred and seventy-five lettuce and vegetable
growers who had never met with any farm workers’ representatives, signed contracts with
the Teamsters to avoid the militancy and power of the UFW. George Meany and other
labor leaders openly supported the UFW and Msgr. George Higgins, stepping out of his
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traditional role as an advisor to all interested labor groups, denounced the Teamsters for
their underhanded objectives (Higgins 1995, 97-99). The Teamsters would rescind their
contracts but then renege on their no raiding agreements with the UFW. Growers at times
refused to recognize both unions. In 1975 Bishop Mahony participated in the meetings
that brought some peace between the UFW and the Teamsters, and helped the UFW and
growers come together to support a labor relations act for California farm workers. With
the efforts o f Governor Jerry Brown, Assemblyman Richard Alatorre (Griswold del
Castillo and Garcia 1995. 129), Bishop Mahony (Higgins 1993, 99) and others, the
Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) became law in May 1975. Governor Brown
appointed Mahony the first chairman o f the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. The
Teamsters and UFW continued to face off in farm worker elections, but UFW became the
dominant bargaining representative with 198 contracts and 27.000 workers to the
Teamsters 115 contracts and 12,000 workers.
The ALRA moreover became a momentary blessing. Within a year the growers
began efforts to enervate Agricultural Labor Relations Board’s (ALRB) mission to bring
fairness and democracy to farm-labor relations. Higgins (1995, 100) writes: '‘Within a
year, the growers double-crossed the farm workers. They waged a campaign to weaken
the legislation and, for all practical purposes, put the California Agricultural Labor
Relations Board out o f business. The law and its one-sided administration have hampered
the UFW ever since.” As with the National Labor Relations Board, conservative
appointments have defeated the intent o f the Act. The UFW is given limited access to
farm workers; e.g., union representatives cannot enter grower property to meet with
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employees living on the property. The California ALRA like the NLRA requires company
officials and owners to bargain, but the law does not require an agreement (i.e., a
contract). During the ALRB’s first ten years, the Board “had not made a single award for
violation of the labor law” (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 135). After the
Governor Jerry Brown years. Governor Deukmejian followed a conservative line in farm
labor questions and appointments to the ALRB. Unfair labor practice charges and
challenges to elections multiplied, but swift rulings sympathetic to the UFW organizers
and farm workers were not forthcoming. After winning 276 elections in 1976, the UFW
won only 56 elections between 1976 and 1995.
In addition, internal UFW disagreements over the union’s direction and Chavez’s
dominating leadership also led to departures o f proven organizers. Cesar Chavez in the
mid-1980s began to work on mass mailings and educational campaigns to inform the
public of dangerous pesticide use in grape farming (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995,
134-135). Organizing however, was down, and the union had lost significant numbers of
contracts and members. The institutionalization o f agricultural labor law in California
diminished the immediacy o f the economic justice struggle and the wider public lost its
sense o f urgency. With the formalization o f California labor policy, as with the National
Labor Relations Act, the public and power institutions (e.g., churches) saw the labor
question as solved . Overtime, however, powerful hostile forces would neutralize the
law’s original intent.
The UFW had floundered the years before Chavez’s death, but President Arturo
Rodriguez, Dolores Huerta and other union leaders again brought the union back to
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organizing. The 1997 campaign to organize strawberry workers in Watsonville, California
and the march of 30,000 people in support of the organizing (including John Sweeney,
Teamsters President Ron Carey, and Rev. Jesse Jackson) attest to the resurgence of
organizing within the labor movement.
Griswold del Castillo and Garcia (1995, 99) called Chavez the last Jeffersonian.
Yet, like Jefferson’s, Chavez’s ideas contained paradoxes: he sought
cooperation, but understood the need for power: he respected
individualism, but understood that the movement must be built on the
collective: he sought a change o f society, but understood that it must begin
with each person’s humanity. Chavez shunned philosophy and theory
because he knew that in the United States change came from doing.
(Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 99)
The agrarian nature o f the common farm worker reminded intellectuals of Jefferson’s
common man. These were sincere and authentic agrarians who faced wealthy and
powerful agribusinesses (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995, 100-102). The liberal
writers saw the farm workers as a sign of hope, a contrast model. La Causa, in the midst
of .American decay. Chavez was a man who spoke the truth and one could trust him. “His
supporters framed Chavez as a person one could trust, a man with the ideals o f love of
equality, freedom, and justice” (Griswold del Castillo and Gracia 1995, 105). Americans
felt comfortable supporting a cause that resonated with their sense o f decency. Chavez
was a revolutionary in the spirit o f 1776. He was not an ideologue.
Jacques E. Levy, in his book. Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa, spoke of
the farm workers movement as a communal movement. Levy contends that Chavez
organized from a position o f truth. He did not attempt to destroy the self and replace it
with a community: instead he sought the fulfillment o f the self as it is found in the
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community. Chavez did not want Levy to write about him, but to write about the union.
“Chavez was opposed to having an intellectual write an ''autobiography" of him that
would make him into a hero, but he recognized the importance that a narrative o f the
union could have in showing the spirit of collectivity Levy worked with the farm workers
as he wrote his book and Chavez accepted this textual representation" (Griswold del
Castillo and Garcia 1995. 107).
Cesar Chavez was a person who saw a full integration o f the personal and public
self. For instance. Chavez felt that nonviolence required discipline. He recalled Gandhi's
self-discipline:
He had tremendous discipline, both personal and around him He
had all kinds of rules and insisted that they be obeyed So a group of thirty,
forty, or a hundred men at the most was very effective, because they
worked like a symphony. They were totally loyal to him. He wouldn’t put
up with anybody being half-loyal or 90 percent loyal. It was 100 percent
loyal or nothing at all.
Then, of course, there were more personal things, the whole
question of the spirit versus the body He prepared himself for it by his
diet, starving his body so that his spirit could overtake it. controlling the
palate, then controlling the sex urge, then using all o f his energies to do
nothing but service. He was very tough with himself. (Levy 1975, 92)
He believed that the truth eventually triumphs, and that truth is God. While many
.Americans assumed that they had a society of justice, family, respect, and fairness, Chavez
and the UFW exposed an .America of injustice (corporate greed and consumerism),
divisions, disrespect and relativism (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995. 108). To
achieve truth, Chavez fought for social justice and pragmatically used “traditional
unionism” as a means to reach it. Although his pragmatism led him to organize for power,
he knew that a society would ultimately need to pass to some plan o f action for social
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cooperation. His plan was based on political power, struggle and cooperative
development:
Once we have reached our goal [against the growers] and have farm
workers protected by contracts, we must continue to keep our members
involved. The only way is to continue struggling. It’s just plateaus. We
get a union. Then we want to struggle for something else. After contracts,
we have to build more clinics and co-ops, and we’ve got to resolve the
whole question o f political action. We have to participate in the governing
of towns and school boards. We have to make our influence felt
everywhere and anywhere. Political power alone is not enough. Effective
political power is never going to come, particularly to minority groups,
unless they have economic power.
I’m not advocating black capitalism or brown capitalism. What I’m
suggesting [is] a cooperative movement. Power can come from credit in a
capitalistic society, and credit in a society like ours means people. As soon
as you're bom, you’re worth so much— not in money, but in the privilege to
get in debt. And I think that’s a powerful weapon. If you have a lot of
people, then you have a lot of credit. The idea is to organize that power
[of credit] and transfer it to something real. (Levy 1975, 563-537)
Griswold del Castillo and Garcia (1995) comment on Chavez’s Christian perspective in
organizing and economic development:
. . . In this [culture o f social justice], Chavez was closer to theologian
Paul Tillich's New Being o f love and faith and Reinhold Niebuhr's
Christian Realism than to Marx. Castro. Lenin, or the utopian socialists.
Chavez himself said: "I was convinced [that my ideology was] .... very
Christian. That's my interpretation. I don't think it was so much political
or economic.” This Christian democratic vagueness, strong in its appeal,
was weak in guiding policy. A collective movement moves on the wheels
o f ideology, a pulsating vision or a need to implement a philosophical
system, but for Chavez the conceptual system for a just society was not
carried in the collective consciousness o f a movement, but in the
consciousness o f each individual. The new society for Chavez resided in
the heart o f every man and woman as each practiced a life of sacrifice and
charity. For Chavez, only a union in the pragmatic tradition o f Samuel
Gompers (the nineteenth-century AFL organizer) could deliver “bread and
butter” while giving people the opportunity collectively to sacrifice and
commit themselves to a life of charity via union activity. Unfortunately,
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Chavez was not very clear on the direction that his union or the AFL-CIO
should take. (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995. 110-111)
Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta were clear links to the organizing activism of
the 1930s because of their community organizing training and work under Fred Ross and
Saul Alinsky The United Farm Workers movement was the last great labor organizing
campaign in California and for many labor activists in the United States. John Sweeney, in
the 1990s, has returned to California to endorse the strawberry workers organizing in
Watsonville and to capture some of the UFW charism. Organized labor will attract other
people o f good will to the labor movement when they see the AFL-CIO helping to
organize the poorest of workers. The UFW campaign of the 1970s brought together
workers, unions, community groups, students, and people o f faith, and Sweeney wants
this same mix for the entire labor movement in the 1990s and the next century
In the 1970s and 1980s when the UFW was fighting for recognition with the
growers and fighting off the Teamsters Union, the rest of labor was defending against
plant closures and union busting efforts by major U.S. employers. In the 1980s Los
Angeles activists, many times with little support from organized labor, strategized and
protested with workers who faced plant shut downs. This period of national
deindustrialization is chronicled in Bluestone and Harrison’s The Deindustrialization of
America: Plant Closings. Community Abandonment and the Dismantling o f Basic Industry
( 1981). Corporate America had stopped reinvesting in new facilities and equipment in
basic industries and had begun focusing on mergers, acquisitions, and foreign investments.
During the 1970s the probability o f a heavy manufacturing plant closing down in the U.S.
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was 30% and these closings shed 650,000 workers, often union members (Bluestone and
Harrison 1982, 9, 25). (If you included retail closures and other ripple effects, then
Bluestone and Harrison (1982, 26) estimated that 32 million workers lost their jobs during
the deindustrialization period of the 1970s alone.) Some community members and
unionists fought back because they wanted to see employment and welfare built-up rather
than tom down. Other community members criticized union members, who made too
much money and enjoyed too many benefits, and sided with plant managers who
complained of work rules that increased labor costs. At the beginning of the 1980s,
Steelworkers in Chicago made $40,000 per year when the median income was $24,000
(Geoghegan 1992. 87). Heavy industry labor unions in the Midwest, the Northeast, and
California had lived off the victories o f the 1930s and 1940s and the social contract built
between big unions and big business in the 1950s and 1960s. Union officials rightly
contend that companies never failed to earn profits even during years of high wages, yet
companies during the 1 970s wanted the same high returns they earned during the Post-
War II expansion of the 40s. 50s. and 60s. In other words, maximum profit, not any
profit, was always the goal.
Despite popular opinion about the allure of the South, businesses also divested in
the Sunbelt closing factories and moving out of the country at times (Bluestone and
Harrison 1982, 3 1). The foreign competition o f the 1970s and 1980s and management
desires for higher profits changed the rules o f Post-Wagner Act/ Post-War II labor
relations. Capital had become so mobile (as a result of transportation and communication
improvements) that neither unions nor local communities had the means to regulate
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business. Local governments began to focus on lowering business taxes and creating so-
called business friendly environments out of the fear of losing jobs and tax revenue
The time was ripe for a reaction from working people, but labor had lost its
fighting spirit and the general public saw big labor as another special interest group.
Nonetheless, some people did respond to the injustices wrought on workers, families, and
communities shaken by the closings and threats to close. Between 1978 and 1982. 18.000
union workers lost their jobs in Los Angeles with the closures of U.S. Steel. Ford, Max
Factor, and Pabst Brewing plants. Around the state of California in 1980. 150
manufacturing plants closed leaving 37.000 people unemployed (Bluestone and Harrison
1982, 40)
Prof. Gilda Haas, a long time Los Angeles community organizer interviewed in the
LAMAP case study, helped lead the plant closures fights in Los .Angeles during the 1980s.
She was a founding member of the Los Angeles Coalition Against Plant Shutdowns
(LAC APS) which local activists organized in the wake o f large manufacturing plants
closures. The fights against shutdowns became the focus of a few church and social
activists in the late-70s and 80s because no one was defending communities and workers.
Labor organizing to gain union representation in Los Angeles was the exception.
Progressive labor people and their supporters focused their efforts on saving union jobs.
Weakened by the social malaise of the "Me Decade,” many union leaders doubted that
they could stave off plant closures and the effort was left to others.
It is easy to see it now in the way labor has kept its distance from
the plant-closing movement. It is a movement that started outside
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institutional labor: unemployed workers, community groups, church
groups.
My friend Ann, who is a radical, said to me recently, “The plant-
closing thing is so great. It’s exciting, it’s grass roots. So why doesn’t
labor endorse it0 I thought. Why don’t they endorse it0’*
I thought, “Why don’t they endorse it? Why don’t doctors go to the
funerals o f their patients?”
...You cannot strike against a plant closing...
Yet I often think that the paradigm strike of the 1980s is not a strike at all.
it is a plant closing. It has all the anger, the theater, that used to go into a strike,
and it is really the only time when it is safe to throw a brick. People throw bricks,
fight cops, disrupt Sunday services in churches, and spill blood all over the floor.
There is no labor law anymore, nobody can sue or bust the union or do anything to
them now: they are beyond the reach of labor law. (Geoghegan 1991. 247)
Gilda Haas wrote a short pamphlet “Plant Closures: Myths. Realities, and Responses" that
described the corporate decisions to close profitable plants, the struggle o f workers to
keep their jobs, and the community coalitions that took up the fight. She then suggested
the ways other communities might prevent shutdowns.
The closing o f the General Electric (GE) flat-iron plant in Ontario. California (an
L A. regional city), gained some notoriety for the plant closure movement because this
fight to save the plant appeared on the television program 60 Minutes. In 1980. Mary
McDaniel, the president o f United Electrical Workers (LIE) Local 1012, called in the Los
Angeles Coalition Against Plant Closures (LACAPS) when she began noticing signs of a
plant closure: less advertising o f their product, failure to invest in new capital or repair of
machinery, and reductions in overtime and so on (Haas 1985, 5). Although GE initially
told Ontario’s political leaders that the company had no plans to move, GE then
announced the shut down o f the plant in 1981. Political activists, religious leaders, and
government officials came out in support of the 1,000 employees, predominately African-
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155
American and Latina women, because the entire community was going to suffer from the
closure of its third largest employer (Haas 1985, 6). The community alliance to keep the
flat-iron plant open had hundreds of supporters who pressured the company with
delegations, letters, and public actions. They bought advertising in the local paper to
present the worker and community position and marched 2.000 strong through Ontario's
downtown. GE was not losing money. Moreover, a $20,000 union-endorsed survey
would show that consumers preferred metal irons, which disproved GE’s contention that
the market demanded plastic ones. The decision had been made to close and no
supporting evidence mustered by the community would dissuade GE. On February 25,
1982 the plant closed, and another 1.000 people had no work (Haas 1985, 6-7). The
personal and social costs o f plant closures are already well-documented, costs which range
from suicides to long-term unemployment (See Harvey Brenner. “Estimating the Social
Costs of National Economic Policy, 1976).
Haas relates that the L. A. area labor unions were not very militant during the plant
closure years, including the United Auto Workers when the General Motors South Gate
plant was closed in 1982. “The people who organized plant closing coalitions, to a large
extent, were considered dissidents or leftists” (Hass Interview 1997). Much o f the money
to support activists who fought the closures came from religious sources.
So here’s a crisis. This can happen in any crisis. When there’s a
threat o f a plant shutdown, you’re going to lose your job, do you fight? Or
do you hope that you’re the person that’s going to keep your job? If you
rock the boat, do you make it worse? Or do you protect yourself? With
that stuff, and in different situations, people in leadership [positions] or
organizers stop people.
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It doesn’t matter if it’s a community organizer or a labor organizer
Depending on what kind o f an institution you are, if you’re an institution
that’s been doing a lot of organizing over the past decade, which the UAW
wasn’t, in Los Angeles. There was a certain amount of complacency All
of the other shops had been organized for such a long time.
And actually, what happened was through religious funding
sources— not the Catholic Church— Presbyterians. Methodists, and
Episcopalians. (Haas Interview 1997)
The LACAPS people did not receive much support from the Los Angeles County
AFL-CIO Labor Council because the Council’s leaders focused on the building trades.
Mayor Tom Bradley had appointed Jim Wood the Secretary Treasurer o f the Labor
Council to the Community Redevelopment Agency, and the building trades leaders
naturally concentrated on the needs of their members. The downtown construction boom
was fine for trades workers, but no one in institutional labor was seriously standing up
against the plant closures (Haas Interview 1997). In three years of organizing with
LACAPS. Rev Dick Gillett. who co-founded the organization, never had a meeting with
Bill Robertson, the President o f the L.A. Labor Council (Gillett Interview 1997). At the
same time L.A. community activists and workers organized against plant closures, other
groups established nonprofit organizations for similar work around the state and nation.
LACAPS grew out o f the community coalition that fought to keep the South Gate
GM plant open. Rev Dick Gillett of the Episcopalian Church was the first professional
religious leader to become actively involved in the work.
There was a coalition formed to stop plant closures. I was about
the only religious representative in it. The coalition decided to sponsor a
major conference on economic dislocation, and that conference took place
in 1981. It involved sectors o f the church throughout the West, and it was
an international conference which brought people from Mexico and as far
away as Canada. About 500 people came to the conference in Los
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Angeles. It was two days. It had 30 workshops, broad trade union
participation, broad church participation, not the endorsement o f the
hierarchy o f any church but grassroots Roman Catholics, Jews,
Episcopalians, Protestants, and I was the director of that conference.
(Gillett Interview 1997)
You were the only religious representation ?
[Only] in the GM coalition. (Gillett Interview 1997)
Why was there no other religious representation at the time? H ow w ere
religious grou ps participating an d not participating, an d the reasons?
It just doesn’t seem to be, at first glance, a religious issue. And at
that time, too. in the early 1980's, the credibility of labor unions was very
low, following the history o f labor unions, which were not only in decline
since the early ‘70s but seemed to be for the most progressive church
people irrelevant to the major struggles. (Gillett Interview 1997)
What were the other struggles o f the church people ?
Civil Rights, the Viet Nam war, the organizing o f various sorts,
various political issues such as open housing and that sort of thing. And
those were the issues, including the farm workers, which attracted religious
people. And I have my own take, which I guess many others do too, on
the farm workers as an attraction to the churches. And the question can be
asked, why are the churches attracted to, ally themselves with, the farm
worker effort and not with other union efforts?
First o f all, the farm worker effort was well organized and had a
religious component. One has to say that, and it was very heavily in the
public eye. But the churches — I think there was a certain romanticism to
the churches, seeing themselves as alongside the struggling farm worker. It
was easy to identify with the farm worker. It would be hard to identify
with a white-collar worker in an auto plant who was making a lot of
money, and it was going to close, and that auto worker could find work
surely someplace.
And out o f that General Motors coalition, there was a group called
the Los Angeles Coalition Against Plant Shutdown, LACAPS, and
LACAPS got funding from various churches. I have to confess, I can’t
remember where the elements — groups from the Catholic Church put
money into it. But it had staff for two or three years. (Gillett Interviews
1997)
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During these years LACAPS also worked with the UAW members who fought the
closure o f the GM Van Nuys plant. Various religious leaders participated in the struggle
including Catholic Bishop Juan Arzube and Claretian Father Luis Olivares. The decade
long history of the community and labor efforts to keep the plant open is well-documented
in Eric Mann’s Taking On General Motors: A Case Study of the UAW Campaign to Keep
GM Van Nuys Open (1987). In this case, the coalition and its organizing against GM
prevented management from closing the plant much sooner than the company would have
liked. This plant, however, ultimately closed in 1992 like all the others. Mann believes
the campaign always had moral authority, the ethics were clear, but the workers and
community leaders faltered on initiative, public support, and power. GM, attempting to
neutralize the community/labor forces, tried to gain some moral authority by depicting the
UAW and its members as people who would not work as a “team” with management
(Mann 1987, 355).
In the mid-1980s, L.A. community activists also participated in the local and
national Jobs for Peace campaigns. The goal was to encourage the use o f tax dollars for
social programs and not military production. The movement centered on the conversion
o f military related jobs to civilian jobs. Although Bob Robertson o f the Labor Council
said labor was not against defense, he and the L.A. Council supported the initiative as long
as workers in the defense industry had adequate employment protection. The initiative
asked L.A. city voters to require the city council to call on President Reagan and Congress
to free up more money for social goods and to publish an annual report revealing how
much L.A. residents’ tax monies go to defense spending. The effort was the first such
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159
L.A. citizen’s initiative since 1939 and it had the backing of liberal activists, religious
congregations, and local labor unions. The initiative passed (Vollmer 1984, 1).
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Industrial Areas Foundation was also
organizing in Los Angeles. Its community organizing work concentrated on youth
violence, education, insurance redlining, and the upkeep of supermarkets in poor
neighborhoods. The plant closure efforts were not seen as "winable” fights in the IAF
network. The IAF, however, encountered an economic issue that impacted it members,
and the local leaders felt they could win a victory for the community. As early as 1986,
UNO (United Neighborhood Organizations) and SCOC (Southern California Organizing
Committee) leaders had heard discussions and complaints about the inadequacy of
California’s minimum wage. The IAF surveyed members of UNO and SCOC churches
and discovered that 40% to 50% o f the respondents made less than $5.00 per hour.
Moreover, many employers paid these people less than the minimum (Harris 1987. Part II
1). With the decision to seek a higher California minimum wage, the IAF in effect took on
the role of bargaining representative for low-income workers around the state.
The state of California had increased the minimum wage to $3 .35 in 1981 but by
1986 a full-time worker making the minimum earned less (in fact, 33% less) than the
$7,000 per year poverty line figure for a family o f three (i.e., a child, wife, and husband).
In 1986 approximately 358,000 people in California earned $3.35 per hour. Gov. George
Deukmejian had vetoed legislation to raise the wage, but local IAF leaders and organizers
learned that the California Industrial Welfare Commission, founded during the Progressive
era in 1913, had the power to unilaterally raise the amount. The IAF with support from
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local labor unions decided to focus its efforts on the Commission which consisted of two
appointees representing employers, two representing labor, and a fifth member, Muriel
Morse, who represented the public. Although the struggle was fought on many fronts, the
commission and primarily Muriel Morse became the focus of the community organizing
(Corwin 1987, 3).
Employers and state officials first heard the clarion call for a “moral minimum
wage" at the IAF July 1987 convention held in the Shrine auditorium. Seven thousand
people from Los Angeles, the state and the nation listened to Archbishop Mahony.
Senator Edward Kennedy, and others argue that $3 .35 per hour was insufficient for the
care of any family. Kennedy explained that seven million Americans made just the
minimum wage, and 69% of them were adults. Moreover thirty percent of the 7 million
headed their households. Millions of people worked for poverty wages. Lt. Gov. Leo
McCarthy, Attv. Gen. John Van de Kamp, State Sen. Art Torres, and Mayor Tom Bradley
attended the IAF event. The seven thousand participants, including leaders o f the
carpenters and garment workers unions, rocked the auditorium as union officials,
politicians. Archbishop Mahony, Rev. Bill Johnson from Curry Temple, and other
religious leaders lined up behind the campaign (Weinstein 1987, 3).
The Industrial Welfare Commission’s vote on a new minimum wage was set for
December 1987. The IAF members and their leaders had six months to argue their case in
the public square. They sent delegations and protesters to major supermarkets and
restaurants— Vons, Ralphs, Boys Market, and Denny’s— to push these employers to
support a higher minimum wage. The campaigners selected these businesses because of
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their influence with other groups. Bryon Allumbaugh, the CEO of Ralphs, headed the
California Retailers Association. Dan Pierce, the President of Denny’s Inc.. played a key
role on the board of the California Restaurant Assn. The goal was to gain public sympathy
and perhaps employer conversions to bring the commission around to a positive vote.
One by one markets and other retailers began to sign on to the goal of a new minimum
wage o f $5.01 which would equal the 1967 minimum wage in real purchasing power
(Harris 1987, Part H 8).
The IAF leaders transported supporters to the three Industrial Welfare
Commission hearings held around the state and brought Muriel Morse to their own church
meetings as well as to the homes of minimum wage IAF members. Morse was the focus
o f IAF actions, and they influenced her thinking (Weinstein 1987, Part II I).
I was particularly grateful to visit people in their own homes to see for
myself— because I’m at visually oriented person— some o f the problems that
families have with respect to earning enough money in this country o f ours
to do what we should be able to do with our children, and really with our
sense of well-being. (Weinstein 1987, Part II 6)
As the December vote approached, the Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Council.
the California Restaurant Assn. and the California Manufacturers Assn. argued that a
minimum wage increase would cost jobs and hurt business. On December 19. 1987.
however, Muriel Morse cast her vote for an increase in the minimum wage albeit at $4.25,
an amount far short of the $5.01 needed for a truly living wage. Nonetheless, the IAF and
union supporters celebrated a $1,800.00 “Christmas present” to each of the state’s
minimum wage workers.
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This win was unique because the success illustrates the meshing o f community,
labor and church organizing in a common effort during the 1980s. Both church people
and labor leaders believe the IAF organization was the reason for the victory Art Pulaski.
former Pres, of the San Mateo Labor Council and now Secretary Treasurer of the
California Federation o f Labor AFL-CIO, at a subsequent IAF convention in 1996
remarked that the IAF and not labor had won the victory. On the day o f the December
1987 Industrial Welfare Commission vote, IAF leaders in L.A. filled buses with members
and drove all night to San Francisco to attend the Commission’s meeting. The San
Francisco Bay Area unions were to bring members to the meeting, but only a few union
staff people had shown up Art Pulaski recalls:
Ten years ago as a union organizer in San Francisco I was fighting for an
increase in the minimum wage. I was at a hearing, the final hearing of the
state wage commission, that was about to take a vote on the question of
increasing the state minimum wage. I knew in my heart that we were about
to lose that vote and fail to increase the state’s minimum wage and as I
turned to enter the building where we were to have the hearing, suddenly I
stopped, I saw a miracle. It was a revelation o f buses that came rolling
down the street. They were hot and dusty buses that had driven all day and
all night until that morning. Those buses had labels on front. And those
buses from Los Angeles said UNO and they said SCOC. And out o f those
buses poured a wonderful humanity o f people o f the IAF. And they came
into the meeting with state wide support and they demanded an increase in
the state minimum wage. And that day we won the state minimum wage.
One million workers in California received an increase in their wage from
the organizations of the IAF. I knew that the IAF was the most important
organization of people in the state o f California. (Pulaski Olympic
Auditorium Speech 1996)
Father John Seymour was one of the SCOC leaders who rode on the buses to San
Francisco to make the last hour push for a raise in the minimum wage. He supports labor
to this day, but the lack of unionists at the final hearing surprised him. He believes rank
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and file unionists simply did not respond to their leaders at that time nor are they
responding in the 1990s (See Seymour’s comments related to the USC/Justice for Janitors
case study in Chapter 7). If the labor movement is to rejuvenate itself, according to
Seymour, a feeling o f moral force is an essential component.
Just to give you an example [of the weakness o f the labor movement], for
the final decision [i.e., the vote on the minimum wage change] we made an
agreement that we would meet in San Francisco. Organized labor would
have 500 people there, and we would send 500 people up in buses to the
meeting. Well, we organized it. We had ten buses-- or I don’t know how
many buses. We had ten, fifteen buses. And I think we had, actual count,
450, 460. We were just a little bit short o f our quota, but they were there,
and we rode all night on those buses. And we got in and changed and kind
of washed up at some school or building someplace and had a little
continental breakfast and went over to the rally. And when we got there,
we were expecting to see 500 union people, and the only people we saw
were about 30 members of organized labor in San Francisco, and they were
all professional staff I don’t think there was a rank and file guy there.
And they admitted that we were the guys that were carrying it on
this one. But that really showed me how weak they were, that they could
not bring together even a hundred of their rank and file from their own city
for this event. And it was very eye-opening for all o f us, including [IAF
organizers] Mike Clements, Larry Fondation and [Larry] McNeil. It just
really exposed the division between their leadership and their rank and file.
(Seymour 1997)
The IAF had successfully brought together labor leaders and Catholic
Church laity and clerics to achieve a victory for low-wage Los Angeles workers and
Californians in general. This relationship between community, labor, and the Catholic
Church, however, quickly broke down as the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers
Union (ACTWU) began to organize the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s cemetery workers in
1987. Although the Archdiocesan Hispanic ministry office, with the full support of
Cardinal Mahony, supported the Justice for Janitors Campaign throughout the 80s and
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90s, as a result o f the Archdiocesan/ACTWU labor dispute, not until 1995 would the
Catholic Church again take a more forward looking role in local labor relations. Father
Pedro Villarroya o f the Hispanic ministry office became the primary Archdiocesan contact
for the Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project/Alameda Corridor organizing project.
Since Father Pedro Villarroya’s work with LAMAP has been one attempt at mending a
tattered relationship between the local Church and labor. I have left the description of the
cemetery workers’ dispute to the LAMAP case study.
As the Catholic Church, community organizing, and labor organizing moved into
the 1990s. the AFL-CIO leadership was engaged in a struggle to turn around the labor
movement. The growing immigrant population in Los .Angeles had also asserted its own
power with worker led strikes in the drywall industry and at low-wage manufacturing
plants. Chapter five will provide a short overview o f the development o f community
organizing in the United States in the last 100 years to recognize its relationship with labor
organizing and also its distinct nature. Labor organizing will require greater support from
religious groups in the community if it is to succeed Chapter six will then review the state
of U.S. labor law today as one explanation for the decrease in union membership and as a
means to generate greater Catholic support for labor law reform and union organizing in
the U.S.
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CHAPTER 5
FROM LABOR ORGANIZING TO COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
Community organizing has a history that parallels U S labor history and at points
necessarily crosses over into the economic realm, normally the purview of labor unions.
Community lives are impacted by the local economy. In the interest o f providing an
overall view of the interrelationship of labor and community organizing and the Catholic
Church, this chapter presents some feel for the neighborhood/church/community side of
organizing which has led to local organizing in Los Angeles today. The history offers
some points of reflection to compare and contrast the two areas o f organizing, the
workplace and the neighborhood. Community and union organizers normally view their
skills as the same, but in the eyes of an outside observer, the stakes in labor organizing
often appear much higher. Few community organizing groups face conflictive strikes,
injunctions, the level o f state scrutiny o f financing and governance, or state intervention in
actions like their labor union counterparts. The free association of citizens as citizens is
more accepted and more easily achieved in American society than the free association of
workers as workers. On the downside, community organizations are normally more
financially fragile than their union brethren, and they must uncover issues that cross ethnic,
racial, neighborhood, and religious lines— a task which requires patience and persistence.
165
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In our analysis of the daily news, we often make the error of looking at national
figures and their actions without considering the local, or we have concentrated on local
occurrences without fully valuing their national significance. Community organizing
networks have become significant mediating institutions across U.S. society. This
organizing starts with people who know one another, just as labor organizing starts with
co-workers. The NLRA, national legislation, resulted from the local strikes and walkouts
that became a concern to national leaders. Similarly, the War on Poverty in the 1960s
would not have occurred without the actions o f local protestors and community activists
(Fisher 1984, xvii). Neighborhood organizations are formed to protect property values,
improve schools, and maintain peace. They might also be formed to effectuate political
change by working for job development, better health care and a host o f other needs that
are not being met. They can reflect communally what is good (e.g., relationship building
between community members) but they can also reflect problems endemic to our nation
(e.g., racism). They are a mixed bag o f successes and failures, but they are affecting the
direction o f U.S. social policy today. The following pages will highlight trends in
community organizing that have occurred in our country’s history to begin to argue that
labor and community organizing are most likely to succeed when they are a seamless
garment o f activism. The organizing done by the Knights of Labor is not included here
(See Chapter 3), although researchers are now finding the importance o f community
organizing in its success.
Neighborhood organizing really developed after the dislocations caused by the
industrial development of the late 19* century. Cities were tied together through sales and
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production, and they could no longer be considered free-standing economic locales. The
railroads united these centers, and markets became national as well as international (Fisher
1984, 2). After the wave o f rancorous strikes of the 1880s and 1890s, companies had
consolidated themselves and capitalist financiers saw the wisdom and profitability of what
became known as welfare capitalism, a willingness to provide workers with a larger share
of the industrial wealth that they created and sometimes even to recognize their unions
(Fisher 1984, 4; Dulles 1966, 184-187). The social gospel adherents and others o f a
progressive bent worked to create a more stable and harmonious social environment to
improve the lives o f the employees of the great titans. Those who argued the social
gospel view thought that a form of democratic capitalism or socialism could solve the
problems of society if businessmen, unionists, and government officials developed a
Christian perspective in their economic relations. This movement was helpful in securing
shorter work weeks, child labor laws and other similar legislation that benefitted the
impoverished industrial class. The leaders of industry and government, however, did not
face the poor on a daily basis like the settlement workers and muckrakers who brought to
light the oppressive conditions o f the day.
The Settlement House movement that grew out o f Oxford University, where
students lived in halls with the working poor, spread to the United States where Rockford
College student Jane Addams helped establish Hull Settlement House in Chicago.
Between 1891 and 1911, progressive students and workers established over 400 such
houses in the U.S. (Ekirch 1974, 75-76). Yet these houses depended on the philanthropy
of the haves for their work and seldom addressed the underlying political and economic
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structures that caused urban poverty. Corporate liberalism and Christian progressivism
did not have enough public strength to take on political machines or hostile industrial
titans (Woods 1979, 148-149).
According to Robert Woods (1979. 112, 287), the settlement work actually
reestablished a semblance o f social unity by decreasing the confusion of the era and so
aided the haves by releasing any pressure for fundamental change. The compassionate and
generous contingent o f powerful settlement house workers led the tenants and negotiated
on their behalf with housing authorities and the social elite (Fisher 1984, 10). The
activism of these houses benefitted children and their families, but the social service thrust
o f the Settlement House Movement more often meant working within the system rather
than pushing for greater economic and political equality Community organizations in the
1990s are consciously trying to promote indigenous leadership and achieve a balance of
power with the political and economic leaders of the city and nation. Organizers are
trying to prepare iow-income people to act as leaders of their own groups, which is really
a form of “people power.”
Social Work Becomes Professional
During the teens and 20s, the workers in settlement houses and their civil servant
counterparts focused their energies on social service programs rather than agitating for
social change (Fisher 1984, 13). The work took on a more professional bent when
philanthropists and church groups provided financing for some efforts. The community
advocates became social workers who coordinated agencies. The community center
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model developed when social reformers sought the use of schools for after hours
education, health care training, and social and sports activities for neighbors. The
movement originated in New York City under the leadership of Clinton Childs who
solicited the support of politicians, business people, and teachers to open P S. 63 for
community activities after school hours (Fisher 1984, 14).
Childs went on to organize other centers, and the work remained a top down effort
with local people depending on the direction and influence of the community center
directors and organizers. Naturally, political leaders and other power brokers did not
want to see the centers become sites of opposition to the local power structure (Fisher
1984, 16). The centers became hotbeds of activity, promoting the war effort and
patriotism during WWI, but they also became more bureaucratic and professionalized and
thus stymied democratic decision making. According to Robert Fisher (1984, 20), they
became primarily recreational facilities acting as social delivery systems, but not sites of
social change.
A unique attempt at community organizing in the 1920s prior to the Great
Depression was the Cincinnati Social Unit Plan. It was directed by Wilbur and Elsie
Phillips, a socialist husband and wife team, who had earlier experimented with a similar
organization in Milwaukee under its socialist city government. The Unit Plan depended
on elected block coordinators who surveyed residences and in tum brought information to
their block members. The plan was centered on health care and gained the support of
numerous medical professionals and social workers. The health care work helped
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hundreds o f babies in the center’s neighborhood and resulted in greater demands for
services from the residences.
The program’s success led to an attempt to develop a nationwide program, but it
went for naught once the local mayor and businessmen began denouncing it as a Bolshevik
organization (Fisher 1984, 25). Although the Phillips went out of their way to make the
program apolitical, they effectively organized disenfranchised residents, and this became a
threat to the elites o f the city. Father Peter Dietz o f the Militia of Christ corresponded
with the Phillips and supported the social unit plan idea but was not actively involved in its
development. As discussed in Chapter 2, Bishop Moeller asked Dietz to leave his diocese
after hearing complaints from Cincinnati businessmen about his radical views. Community
organizing in our nation’s history has certainly been a political activity because those who
have political power see it as a competitive force in their political lives.
During the 1930s the Communist Party o f the United States of America organized
around neighborhoods but with the intent o f building a truly national organization. It
constructed Unemployed Councils in the poor neighborhoods of major cities and in 1930
its organizers successfully brought out thousands o f demonstrators in Detroit and Los
Angeles. The active members of the council were also the Communist Party members
who directed the local council and inevitably provided the support for neighborhood fights
(e.g., stopping evictions, gaining relief funds for the unemployed) (Fisher 1984, 38).
Communists did not support some legislation which would have helped the most
economically and socially disenfranchised workers because the support might have broken
any Communist ties with the conservative labor movement. For example, the communists
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hoped to organize both blacks and whites, but sometimes remained silent on legislation
that would have made race discrimination in unions unlawful (Fisher 1984, 44). In other
words, the circumstances at times forced the communists to weigh the cost of offending
one group of disenfranchised Americans to maintain an influence on another
disenfranchised group They could organize blacks in the neighborhood and whites at the
workplace, but they could not build solidarity between the two.
The Old Left communists had had limited success in radicalizing some protest
participants by helping them see the fundamental economic and political problems within
American society. They tried to link work place issues with community/neighborhood
issues, but they organized less in the neighborhood as they sought greater clout in the CIO
(Fisher 1984, 44). The international revolutionary vision of the communists had the
weakness of focusing too little on the local concerns. Local communities and workplaces,
the communist leaders feared, were too unstable for long term organizing and therefore a
national effort, concentrating on CIO leadership, became their goal.
As discussed in Chapter 3, Saul Alinsky’s organizing was union organizing in the
community which he used to call the social factory. He had worked for one year as a
volunteer CIO labor organizer in 1937. and when hired to organize a local group o f youths
in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood, he ended up organizing the adults of the
area — communists, church leaders, union men and women and others. Alinsky sought out
already established groups to build a broad-based organization rather than attempting to
create a new association o f disparate members. In July 1939, with the help of Joseph
Meegan, who directed the neighborhood’s recreation center and area leaders, Alinsky
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developed the democratic structure of the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council. The
organizers scheduled the inaugural congress of the council to occur two days before the
planned strike of area packing house workers who lived in the neighborhood. Alinsky and
Meegan had gained the support o f the packing house union for their venture and the
support of the local community for the union. The first Back of the Yards congress then
voted to endorse the union’s campaign, and within two days of the vote the union and
packing houses had settled their dispute with the workers who gained a 41% wage
increase (Breckenfield I960, 210). 1
Alinsky, although much more conservative than the socialist and communist
radicals o f his era, had trouble with fund raising. The wealthy knew that his methods
created conflict, embarrassed civic officials, and built power for the have-nots. For
instance, on more than one occasion Alinsky sought funding from the Rockefeller
Foundation without success. Early in his efforts, Alinsky had an intermediary approach
John D. Rockefeller HI with a funding request, but Rockefeller’s response was that
Alinsky’s work was a bit too “rugged” for the foundation and that the foundation worked
with “benevolent” or “welfare” organizations (Alinsky to Macy’s, August 27, 1945).
There is a possible parallel between the Los Angeles Manufacturing Action
Project (LAMAP) and the IAF in 1990s, and Alinsky’s work on the behalf o f the
packinghouse workers in Chicago. Can community support motivate employers to
increase wages or recognize a union? In the Chicago case, everyone was employed in the
same industry and lived in the same neighborhood. In Los Angeles’ Alameda Corridor
workers are employed in various industries and live in multiple L.A. communities.
Alinsky’s method included: a skillful dynamic organizer, a democratic community-based
organization, winning power, flexible tactics, and the avoidance o f ideology (Fisher 1984,
48-49). LAMAP director Peter OIney has the skills o f a union organizer and the flexibility
of a community organizer, but can he and LAMAP build an integrated front to organize
together?
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Robert Fisher (1984, 55) argues that Alinsky used the conflictive tactics of the
communists in achieving his ends, but rejected the ideology o f the communists because
people would not accept their party line. The Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council
went on to win numerous victories for the community: lunch and recreational programs
for its youth, an infant welfare station, and recognition o f a warehousemen’s union by a
recalcitrant employer Nonetheless, the Council became increasingly conservative with
time and by the 1950s it had become a neighborhood protection group that was working
to keep African- Americans out of the community. Fisher (1984, 57) calls Alinsky a
supporter of liberal capitalism and, because of Alinsky’s pragmatic bent and his use of an
already ensconced leadership, contends that political education never really took place in
his work.
Alinsky-style organizing is unquestionably helpful for any group that wants to gain
a public hearing and power. Fisher’s fear is that power alone is not helpful if the
participants have not received some education in politics and economics. The question, of
course, is, “Whose version of politics and economics?” One, for instance, might complain
that the economic and political views taught by IAF organizers resonate with those held by
the Catholic Church and therefore reject other ideas. Similarly, without some form o f
popular education, groups may turn around and use their new found power to oppress
other people. The long-standing complaint against the Back o f the Yards Neighborhood
Council was the group’s endorsement o f presidential candidate George Wallace.
Even church members have complained of the mistreatment of others by faith-
based community organizations. An extreme but not uncommon example of this problem
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is faith-based organizing to close down a homeless shelter or soup kitchen in a poor
community The community groups argue that the centers attract more problems for the
neighborhood. You have the poor organizing against other poor. A low-income
neighborhood that is well organized can be a not-in-my-backyard neighborhood just like
any rich one. To sympathize with Alinsky’s method, he took people where they were and
did not try to convince them to follow political ideologies (e.g., communism) that they
found suspect. Although Alinsky promoted popular education (Alinsky 1946. 155-173),
the demands of organizing and his impatience led him from community to community
without providing the necessary education in political economy. Despite such
shortcomings, we can cite the successes of Alinsky, but few remember the histories of
ideological purists.
According to Fisher, Alinsky-style community organizing assumes that the
capitalist democratic system works and the poor need only leam how to become a focused
self-interest group, like businesses, unions, or educational institutions to achieve their
ends.
The Back o f the Yards Neighborhood Council did succeed better
than most working-class neighborhood organizations because Alinsky was
a most effective mobilizer, fund raiser, and trainer. His shrewd political
instincts and tactics enabled him to select skillfully from his experience with
professional social work, the CIO, and left-wing organizations to fashion a
populist organizing style more militant, democratic, and effective than the
social welfare approach of the settlements but less threatening to
established power than that o f the Communist Party. (Fisher 1984, 58)
Alinsky-style organizing promotes a form o f civic republicanism that can appear
reformist or accommodating for critics like Fisher. Nevertheless, the method attracts
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people and increases the participation o f the “have-nots” and the “have-some-want-mores”
in our society. Fisher is correct in asking, “Who (e.g.. organizer, church, synagogue,
union) is leading whom (e.g.. community members, institutional leaders)?” Considering
the power of wealth and special interest groups in our society, one must argue for the
participation of poor and middle class people in civic affairs, while recognizing their mixed
motives, because some participation is worth more than none. Moreover, the members of
the community organizing groups become aware of the internal politics and sensitive
issues in a short time, and they make their own decisions about involvement.
The Alinsky influence is primary to this investigation of the link between
community, labor and the Catholic Church, but other forms o f community organizing have
occurred in the U.S. without Alinsky’s influence or Catholic institutional participation.
The community organizing in the U.S. is much more amorphous than labor organizing.
Throughout the first half o f the 20th century, neighborhood improvement associations
grew with urban and then suburban development. These associations had a long history
starting in the late 19th century as outer hubs developed in major cities because of the
construction of trolley lines. Those who could afford to live farther from the downtown
were the wealthy, but they too needed the resources of the city to extend sewers, pave
streets, collect garbage, and secure other costly amenities. The first associations
originated in an effort to bring neighbors together to secure city services (Fisher 1984,
74). By WWI the number o f African-Americans in northern cities had doubled and
neighborhood associations became less concerned about improvements and more
concerned about keeping African-Americans out of their areas (Fisher 1984, 76). They
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formed covenants to exclude blacks from neighborhoods until the U.S. Supreme court
ruled against such covenants in 1948 (Fisher 1984, 78).
Two years after the end of WW1I, eighty-five per cent of the savings built up by
Americans had been spent. The economy was in part supported by market expansion,
easy credit and growth industries (e.g., electronics), but Truman also used the Soviet
threat and the spread o f communism to keep the economy humming through defense
spending— a Keynesian militarism (Fisher 1984, 63). The Cold War environment also
made it much more difficult to organize because working people and community leaders
feared that they might be accused o f being communists or communist sympathizers. (The
FBI investigated Cesar Chavez after disgruntled local civic leaders accused him of
communist activities during his voter registration work for the CSO in San Jose,
California.) Economic expansion and the condemnation of communism and any
seemingly communist leaning people— liberals, the poor, and progressive unionists— cast a
shadow on more radical community organizing (Fisher 1984, 64). It was at this time that
the CIO disaffiliated communist controlled unions and merged with the conservative AFL
(Dulles 1966, 368).
In 1950 the United Community Defense Services (UCDS) began neighborhood
work under the auspices o f the National Social Welfare Assembly and the Community
Chests Councils of America. It was a conservative organization that reflected the anti
communist and defense oriented outlook of the war industry and the federal government.
During this period, large communities sprang up in rural areas around the United States as
a result of defense spending; e.g., the Savannah River site atomic project in South
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Carolina and the naval testing grounds in China Lake. California. The UCDS worked in
these areas to promote the construction o f adequate housing, good health care, and
recreational facilities (Fisher 1984. 69). UCDS saw its work as essential to national
defense because it promoted democratic participation at home, creating trust among its
participants.
In the 1950s integration became a prominent national issue and racism persisted
particularly in white areas that bordered ghettos. Groups in Houston told their neighbors
to hold tight and not to sell their properties and tried to buy property as clubs to prevent
African-Americans from purchasing homes (Fisher 1984, 79). Community and
neighborhood organizing arises out o f self-interest, and this self-interest, if not rooted in
more universal values, may lead to injustices in the name of community.
After both world wars, the African-American migrants to cities numbered in the
millions. The consolidation o f farming land that resulted from technological advances did
more to push African-Americans into cities than industrial jobs did in attracting them from
their rural homes (Fisher 1984. 94). In the 1950s these rural immigrants faced the harsh
realities o f inner city living with high unemployment, low incomes, and dwindling
resources for maintaining infrastructure as the affluent moved out. In 1964 “one third of
all black residents in Los Angeles were unemployed” (Fisher 1984. 95). The race riots of
the 1960s revealed the level o f poverty and despair that African-Americans felt in what
was not truly an affluent society (Fisher 1984, 94). Michael Harrington in The Other
America: Poverty in the United States documented the extent o f the national problem,
estimating that 40 to 50 million Americans lived in poverty (Fisher 1984, 93). According
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to some, the federal government and business leaders quickly responded with palliative
measures (e.g., the Great Society effort) to squelch the energy and social consciousness of
an angry people.2
The 1960s and Community Organizing
The Civil Rights movement o f the 1960s did not attempt to build long-term social
organizations, but attempted to gain the support of sympathetic political and economic
power brokers. Community members wanted equal opportunities for work and education.
Out of this movement arose the efforts o f the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The young college
age members o f these organizations grew up in liberal and progressive families and often
attended the best colleges and universities in the country. They did not look to the Old
Left for guidance because it had been decimated by the Cold War years or because it failed
to provide the methods and styles o f organizing needed outside o f the urban industrial
workplace. SNCC and SDS organizers often found themselves organizing more rural
communities although the Economic Research and Action Project, significantly funded by
the United Automobile Workers and led by the SDS, concentrated on ten cities (Fisher
2 George Givens (Interview 1994), an Industrial Areas Foundation organizer in
South Central Los Angeles, recalls that radical street organizers like the Sons o f Watts
were also quickly co-opted by the establishment when they became directors o f social
outreach programs and aides to city officials. He disagreed with the radical rhetoric of the
Sons o f Watts when they tried to recruit him, but felt justified in his skepticism when they
too became part o f the local political establishment. In his community work he learned
that organizing is hard work which requires constant reorganizing o f oneself and others
and that some independence from the local establishment is a requirement.
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1984, 98). Some o f the 60s student organizers became the founders of organizing
committees and networks in the 1970s and 1980s; e.g. Harry Boyte o f the New American
Movement.
The community organizing that occurred in the 1 960s had its occasional successes
but was by and large a failure. Anti-authoritarian leaders who did not want to create any
new ‘‘systems' attempted to organize without any structure. Robert Fisher (1984, 100)
lists the characteristics o f this organizing style: the organizer was a catalyst, not the leader;
the people being organized made all the decisions; the organizational structure of the
community group was loose (rotating leaders at meetings, everyone had keys to the office,
etc.); nurture local leaders; and develop personal relationships with the community
members (know them!). Being with poor people, the student organizers did learn of their
difficulties and became inspired by their leadership; e.g.. seeing their courage in registering
to vote. Yet the work was criticized by African-American intellectuals for being formless
and without structure (Fisher 1984. 102-103).
The students, working for nothing, and exhausted from working without rest, had
no means of recuperating from their efforts and over time burned out (Fisher 1984, 108).
Organizing around issues like garbage removal and welfare rights, women organizers were
successful at bringing poor women together much more than male organizers were in
uniting poor men (Fisher 1984, 104). Finding work for men was a greater challenge than
demanding the elimination of rats in a neighborhood, receiving welfare benefits, or getting
government mandated food stamps (Fisher 1984, 104). Nonetheless, women worked on
pragmatic needs and achieved concrete victories. The organizing never reached a level of
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institutional viability but the organizers and community people learned and developed from
the experience.
In the mid-1960s the federal government’s civil rights efforts had begun to have a
greater influence at local levels, when civil rights became acceptable and important to the
power brokers of American society. Once again the grass roots efforts had produced a
response at the national level, but national efforts would also in turn begin to have more
impact on local work. The SNCC became more radicalized in supporting black
nationalism while the SDS turned to the anti-war movement. The new left was still not a
coherent national force and this meant national reforms but no fundamental changes in the
social structures that produced poverty and racism (Fisher 1984, 107). Progressives still
did not wield power like their more conservative counterparts.
The Great Society efforts o f the Democratic administration would offer a base of
organizing that provided greater local participation and leadership. The Community
Action Program (CAP) and its Community Action Agencies (CAA) gave community
service groups, local governments, and in many cases activists the funds needed to find
answers to their area’s social problems. Ninety percent of the funding was federal, and the
goal was promoting neighborhood decision making to address neighborhood problems.
The Democratic Party had lost its white political support in the South because of its
progressive desegregation work and, although non-partisan, these groups worked
overwhelmingly in African-American locales, gaining electoral support for the Democrats.
These programs, established by President Johnson’s Economic Opportunity legislation of
1965, helped set the ground work for electing African-American mayors throughout the
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country. The number of African-American mayors went from 0 to 108 between 1968 and
1974. In addition, numerous community workers and organizers gained employment in
the public sector through these agencies (Fisher 1984, 119).
From its inception, CAP met with serious opposition because the city mayors
appointed Community Action Agency board members who often did not reflect the
demographics o f the community being served. In cities with strong civil rights roots and
vocal leaders, city governments found that they had to respond to the demands and
questions o f community agencies, and, therefore, the local establishment found itself on
the defensive (Fisher 1984, 115). Fisher (1984, 115) argues that the Democrats, who
pushed for the Economic Opportunity Act and its subsequent agencies, saw the
community organizing as similar to the labor organizing that was unleashed by the Wagner
Act in the 1930s. In their minds, those who became involved would be sympathetic to the
Democratic party at election time, but public confrontations with organized poor
constituencies in a few urban centers made all politicians anxious.
Although CAA's may have not been as advocacy oriented as some sympathetic
historians contend, in part due to bureaucratic roles the agencies had to complete, they did
make the established centers o f power re-evaluate the purpose of the work. The Office of
Economic Opportunity under political pressure began making changes.
It agreed to make private arrangements with mayors in fifteen cities
to clear all CAP grants in their areas through city hall. It passed regulations
prohibiting partisan political activity and the employment of those in
“subversive organizations” and not o f “good character.” (Fisher 1984.
117)
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In 1967 the Employment Opportunity Act was amended to require all CAA
agencies to have a board o f 51 members divided evenly among government officials, local
democratically selected members from the impoverished community, and local business
and charitable community leaders (Fisher 1984. 118). The sometimes confrontational
character of the CAAs became nullified by the bureaucratic and social service nature of the
restructured agencies (Fisher 1984, 118). Saul Alinsky called the War on Poverty “a prize
piece o f political pornography” (Horwitt 1989, 472). He believed common people would
never be given maximum feasible participation in their communities. The “welfare
industry” did not give people power because the poor were not organized to threaten the
power holders.
Warren Haggstrom. a Syracuse University social work professor, obtained funding
from the Office of Economic Opportunity for the first CAP project. Fred Ross who
moved to Syracuse to participate in the organizing, and his student organizers (who had
attended seminars conducted by Alinsky), successfully brought together the city's small
African-American community and raised the ire of Syracuse’s political leaders. Although
Alinsky’s reputation did not help the project, the radical participatory part o f the work,
letting poor people lead organizations, led to the end o f the Syracuse project and to a
political backlash against CAP as a whole (Horwitt 1989, 478-480).
Once Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, the death knell rang for any advocacy
work through these federally funded community groups. In 1972, Richard Nixon signed
legislation that ended federal grants to cities and towns and replaced funding with block
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grants that local governments administered. In effect, the marginalized communities
would not have any participatory role in determining the use o f monies.
The organizing during the 1960s re-established the left in the United States and it
also prepared the way for more participatory democracy in later decades. While the Old
Left had focused on industrial organizing, less consolidated industrial production and a
generally more conservative labor movement led to organizing in poor communities in the
70s, and 80s (Fisher 1984, 109). The Pacific Institute for Community Organizations
(PICO), the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and
the Industrial Areas Foundation (all national Alinsky-style organizing networks) took on
these new opportunities to organize in low-income communities. The efforts of student
organizers had also been too unfocused in some cases, and in other cases poor
communities needed to have control over their own organizations and direct their own
power.
The 1970s brought high inflation and unemployment simultaneously. While the
economy in the 1960s had been one o f continued economic growth in spite of civil unrest,
the 1970s saw a severe downturn in economic growth and a business community which
feared economic contraction. In 1973 the real wages of Americans reached their apex and
then began their steady descent to the present day— pax Americana, the American century
for some, only lasted from 1945 to 1973. Unemployment in the early 1970s increased
75% and specific areas around the country suffered severe shocks from layoffs and plant
closures (Fisher 1984, 122; Bluestone and Harrison 1982, 25-48). The response o f big
business was to criticize big government, its social welfare programs, and deficit spending.
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A conservative free market position that sought fewer government controls on
corporations and greater tax breaks for these corporations began to take shape around the
country. On the one hand, the media and corporate propaganda suggested that only
business could lift the national community out o f its economic doldrums. On the other
hand, the 1960s had made the public suspicious o f all economic players, including business
people, and, as a consequence, citizens looked upon community organizing as a means to
make demands on big government and big business. We then reach a point of exponential
growth in neighborhood-based and congregation-based organizing groups.
The movements of the sixties had changed people’s political consciousness.
Even those who opposed movements learned about the value o f active
participation in realizing and expanding what is possible. A sense of
grassroots self-assertiveness was a central legacy of the decade. People
were energized and empowered by the events of the decade and not about
to forget their dreams or acquiesce responsibility to either government or
big business. (Fisher 1984, 123)
During the 1970s, community groups fought highway expansion in urban centers,
demanded jobs for inner city residents, and further exerted their influence in the local
political world. The activists were now members of churches, schools, unions, and other
mediating institutions. Out o f this community organizing has grown a populism that
neither kowtows to the elitism of traditional liberalism nor fully accepts the Marxian social
analysis of the left (Fisher 1984, 127).
Alinsky Community Organizing in the 1980s and 1990s
Harry Boyte saw the populism o f the 1970s and 1980s as more pragmatic than the
movements of the 1960s when no organizational structure developed. These community
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organizing groups educated new leaders, valued the traditions o f the community, and
remained non-ideological. They sought the support and cooperation of a broad-based,
multi-ethnic community— e.g., not solely the African-American population nor the young
student population. The leaders — Harry Boyte (New American Movement), Wade Rathke
(ACORN), Heather Booth (Midwest Academy) often gained their experience during the
1960s although they had altered their views of political work and how they worked with
community members (Fisher 1984, 128). Just as Saul Alinsky criticized the radicals o f the
1960s, the new populist movement has taken his more civic republican bent.
The Alinsky-style organizing became more acceptable to conservative
commentators and politicians in the 1960s because it did not accept the radical rhetoric
that was de jure for the time. Charles Silberman in Crisis in Black and White argued that
this form of organizing would solve the race issue in the United States (Fisher 1984, 129).
After the government created civil rights legislation and equal opportunity offices, the
Alinsky organizations began to move into economic development work, a fundamental
shift producing more service oriented organizations rather than action groups. Fisher
argues that the organizing work was no longer confrontational and pro-active but fell into
a developmental, cooperative state. The Alinsky groups helped the more middle class and
upwardly mobile black population while poor blacks continued to face adversity. TWO in
Chicago and FIGHT in Rochester (both started by Saul Alinsky’s organizers) became
service centers administering programs like Head Start, federal job training institutes, and
federally sponsored low-income housing projects. Once the bureaucracy set in, the
organizations became less people driven and more bureaucrat driven. A clear example o f
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the political ineffectiveness o f TWO occurred when acts o f arson and developer purchases
took away the East Woodlawn neighborhoods from the poor and gentrified the area.
TWO could mount no campaign to save low-income housing as it had done a decade
earlier.
Alinsky’s methods have been altered by ACORN, PICO, and the IAF. Although
Fisher calls these groups neo-Alinsky organizing, I believe Alinsky’s "conflictive,” power
building methods still dominate. Today organizations in the Alinsky tradition build multi
ethnic groups and they see community organizing as inevitably connected to national
issues such as education and welfare. The IAF and PICO continue to demand from
communities large initial outlays o f money ($200,000 to $300,000) to hire an organizer for
a minimum of three years, and the IAF has been very successful with Hispanics working
along Catholic diocesan lines. Both groups, however, are constantly striving to bring in
numerous religious traditions and ethnic groups. In 1997 the IAF is promoting a
community organizing group in West Los Angeles and is requesting a minimum of
$200,000 to get the organization off the ground.
Congregation-based community organizing has worked in the last twenty years
because organizers tap into the power of the people’s culture and traditions. The radical
left of the 1960s lost touch with the traditions and family concerns o f the great majority o f
people (Boyte 1980, 8). The communities that need organizing are tied to historical
identities and particularities which abstract political theories often disrespect. When
Alinsky-style organizers go to work, they teach the community to fight for “winable”
change rather than revolution. The organizer enters into the free spaces o f the
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community— the church, home, and school— where the dominant culture has not
rationalized relationships or collectivized the populous (Boyte 1980, 36). Then this
human catalyst organizes people for power, builds leadership within the community, and
works to win the specific fights.
It will be in the free space and democratic spirit o f community organizing that
citizen groups and labor begin to overlap in ways that are reminiscent of the community
organizing that occurred with the Knights of Labor in the 1880s. Corporate America has
led Americans to believe that what is good for the corporation is good for America.
People are more often seen as consumers than citizens, but community and labor
organizing groups are holding out a different view o f civic life, and with these groups
democratic participation is growing (Boyte 1980, 176).
A discussion o f the development of community organizing in the United States is
incomplete without some comment on the Association o f Community Organizations for
Reform Now (ACORN). ACORN is a national organizing institution that uses Fred Ross,
Sr.’s door-to-door method of bringing together neighbors to work on a single issue; it
does not focus on the already positioned leaders within the neighborhood or their
institutions. This work in the 1970s quickly built up state-wide and national structures.
The Campaign for Human Development of the Catholic Church (CHD) has been an
ongoing financial sponsor of ACORN, and in 1984 the National Conservative Political
Caucus called CHD a left-wing foundation because o f this relationship (Delgado 1986,
222). ACORN’s local work can be seen as a “training ground” for national actions
(Fisher 1984, 135). These struggles, however, are not simply actions against elected
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officials— the goal is broad-based participation in the electoral process. ACORN wants to
make political decisions rather than limiting the organizing activity to making elected
officials responsive to the community. ACORN has sent delegates as voting blocks to
Democratic and Republican Conventions (Delgado 1 986. 146-152). In 1984 ACORN
endorsed Jesse Jackson for President and ran his campaign in New Hampshire (Delgado
1986, 172). This foray into the Rainbow Coalition won greater sympathy for ACORN in
the African-American community but the registering o f voters and other support work did
not strengthen the network (Delgado 1986, 175). Obviously such efforts have both
benefits and costs. ACORN is an nonprofit partisan organization. This status limits
funding sources and, therefore, major funding comes from membership dues.
ACORN has had a significant impact on the organizing efforts of the Service
Employees International Union (SEHJ). In 1979 with the support of Wade Rathke,
ACORNS’s primary intellectual leader, a few of the network's organizers began to
organize low-income restaurant and cafeteria workers. They found that some labor unions
were willing to collaborate in their campaigns, and they scored victories in New Orleans,
Boston, and Detroit. Out of these efforts, ACORN formed the United Labor Unions
(ULU), and this group received financial and social support from the Teamsters,
Operating Engineers, and SEIU. Two former welfare rights organizers at SEIU, Gerry
Shea and Bill Pastreich, helped institutionalize a relationship between SEIU and ACORN
and, as a result, brought the tactics and style of Alinsky organizing into the union. This
certainly contributed to the rejuvenation of SEIU and it further illustrates the effort to
meld community and labor organizing. The ULU locals in New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago
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and Boston have become SEIU locals (Delgado 1986, 175-177). Alinsky learned from
Lewis the work of organizing and Alinsky influenced groups like the UFW, ACORN, and
the IAF. These groups are now helping the U.S. labor movement to regain organizing
strength.
ACORN had preserved and improved the organizing spirit and tools o f the 1930s
and 1960s, and SErU knew how to negotiate and administer union contracts (Delgado
1986, 175-176). These types of relationships between community groups and labor
unions are key to making unionization once again a means of economic development in
the U.S. The IAF with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees has developed a similar community/labor hybrid in Baltimore called BUILD.
The AFL-CIO has also tried to create community/labor alliances through the “Jobs with
Justice” program, an in-house effort, but this organizing vehicle has not had much o f a
presence in Los Angeles in the 80s an 90s (Smith 1996, 5).
“Neo-Alinsky” populism (Fisher 1984. 140) relies on the expertise of the organizer
which critics believe leads to masses of people being pushed and pulled by the organizer.
The participants fail to understand why the capitalist democratic system is not working for
them and do not learn how to achieve needed changes.
Moving from one victory to another in rapid succession is easier than going
slowly, giving people political education, and having to deal with some
very sticky problems. Victories guarantee that the organization will
survive, and a strong argument can be made that people learn best from
firsthand experiences. But given the deemphasis on political education and
ideology, it is not always clear whose traditions, whose hopes and dreams,
whose community the new populism supports. Whose traditions are
supported, for example, when new populist organizations refuse to take a
stand on busing for school integration or on abortion? (Fisher 1984, 141)
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The strengths o f community organizing can. therefore, be used for both good and
bad results. One hopes that maintaining a faith-based perspective gives moral stability to
the organization; it is the keel which stabilizes the organization Robert Fisher s retort
might be that some congregations are just as racist or reactionary as many other
organizations. The criticism of the new populism lies in the ideologies that direct it.
Folkways and traditions can be used to maintain a status quo that discriminates against
various segments o f the population (e.g.. women). For this reason, education about class,
gender, and race are still important to community organizing (Gordon and Hunter 1978.
9-26). Fisher is correct when he points out that Alinskyites avoid difficult and divisive
issues like abortion, sexism, homosexuality and so on. but perhaps they should and.
moreover, perhaps the communities do not agree on these issues in any event. One would
suspect that most broad-based organizations do not address certain issues. This is
particularly true if you are working with communities who follow a religious tradition.
History shows that communists, although not religious, failed to bring up the racist
tendencies o f some labor unions when trying to curry labor's favor On the whole the
Alinsky-like organizations are racially mixed, faith diverse, often led by women, and surely
have gay participants.
A new populist movement will only take hold if its members begin to see their lives
improved with tangible changes. People who increase their self-esteem from community
victories will participate more in democratic activities. They will want to assert their
power and their sights will be raised. People remain in these organizations because they
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have a purpose and vision that they cannot live out as individuals. Their work or schools
have not provided the opportunity to live for something larger than themselves.
Community organizing groups develop out of a wide variety o f political
perspectives. They are sometimes radical, sometimes traditional or sometimes simply
moderate in their political positions. The organizers bring people together using some
basic techniques which are always being adapted and altered. The organizing always takes
place within a larger historical context. The economic and political scene at the national
level directly impacts local organizing. People become involved when national
occurrences have a substantial impact on their everyday lives (Fisher 1984.161).
Community organizing can be weak when it simply buys into political liberalism and
allows power brokers to co-opt a community's call for change by responding with
piecemeal concessions. In some cases civic leaders appear to respond to the community's
demands, the people are silenced, and energy is lost— one might recall the Rebuild LA
program, the L A. civic leadership’s answer to the 1992 riots. It has produced few -
memorable results. The organizing needs a broad vision but too radical o f an agenda
denigrates the traditions, relationships, history, philosophy and religion o f a people.
Better that people first build relationship through one-on-ones and then find common
problems that need a solution.
A solid organizer is key to the work. He or she must be an educator in the
political process, a director o f community actions, and a developer o f indigenous
leadership. The most radical or most progressive activists organize very few people. Once
organizations form they begin to concentrate on survival and those directing the
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organization become more ensconced in their roles. The organizer and leadership have to
foster an environment of self-subordination (or better yet, service to others) to guard
against membership selfishness or inactivity. In the labor organizing world, the unions
became formal institutions and members saw the union bureaucracy as a means to service
their needs. In the 1990s new community and labor organizers have vocations and foster
vocations within their communities. Over the last 100 years Americans have seen the
development o f various types of community organizations. The groups not dependent on
government financing or control have the space to engage the political and economic
power brokers o f the community with some equality. If they are to gain influence in the
economic realm, they must see greater common interest in building community/labor
groups while paying attention to the basic values of the people.
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CHAPTER 6
LABOR ORGANIZING AND LABOR LAW IN THE 1990s
To be sure, the decrease in the percentage of the organized workforce over the last
forty years is due to many causes. Baby boomers flooded the job market and in absolute
numbers more o f them had lower skills and less experience than an earlier generation.
Unions have historically had a difficult time organizing unskilled workers because
employers can easily replace them with new employees or technology. More women are
now in the workforce than in the past, and unions have either not tried to organize them or
the women have seen little to gain from union representation. The labor unions
themselves contributed to their decline because they became service organizations
monitoring benefit plans, focusing on grievance claims, and maintaining contracts rather
than organizing new workers. Union jobs also disappeared from the American economy
as mature industries like steel and automobile production contracted. For example, in the
1980s GM downsized by 150,000 workers. During the same period, the United Auto
Workers' membership lost a total o f 500,000 jobs at various manufacturing companies
(Reich 1992, 213). On the one hand, the monolithic bureaucratic enterprises like GM with
thousands of middle managers and tens o f thousands o f production workers in the U.S.
had begun their downsizing by the 1980s. On the other hand, horizontal webs of design,
production, processing, and distribution sites were replacing them.
193
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A global economy, with developments in communication and transportation, has
replaced national economies. Robert Reich (1992, 154) contends that a people’s standard
o f living now depends on “ 'the skills and insights’’ that they contribute to the world
economy and not their stake in particular companies in their own land. Reich adds that the
skills required for ‘problem-solving, problem-identifying, and strategic-brokering” can
increase with experience. A problem-solver might be a software engineer developing a
new code while a problem-identifier has found a customer need for this creation. The
strategic-broker brings the two together and creates an environment where they have the
resources and freedom to think differently. Once a project is completed, they are free to
form new combinations with other symbolic-analysts as Robert Reich calls them.
The symbolic-analysts might work as individual consultants, belong to small
creative strategy firms, or work as project directors for corporations. They are the project
strategy consultants, systems management engineers, the product planning directors, and
other highly creative and multi-skilled employees/consultants that see little need for union
representation. They prefer to work in teams that coalesce and disband as projects appear
and disappear, are normally rewarded well, but would just as well work for the sheer
enjoyment of creating. They sometimes only meet across the electronic media or settle in
“symbolic-analytic” zones like Los Angeles (Entertainment and Media), Silicon Valley
(High-Tech), and San Diego (Biotechnology) (Reich 1992, 239-240). Unfortunately,
according to Reich, these are people who tend to secede from low-income and unskilled
communities. Although this chapter focuses on labor law to explain the percentage
decrease in union membership, most commentators realize that many workers, like
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195
symbolic-analysts, are far from interested in union representation. Clearly, problems with
U.S. labor law only explain part of the decline in the percentage o f workers unionized, but
history shows the imbalanced development and enforcement of labor law over time has
contributed to labor’s downfall. This chapter discusses how labor unions might change to
improve their organizing work, the present legal impediments to organizing, and suggests
how labor, community, and faith groups might bring some balance to the U.S. economic
system. I believe that the Catholic Church has a role to play in promoting labor organizing
and the protection o f workers’ right to organize, because just wages and working
conditions benefit God’s sons and daughters, especially the poor.
The United States still has routine production workers (i.e, traditional blue collar
workers), which Reich estimates as one-fourth of the working population, and in-service
workers (e.g., janitors, housekeepers, hotel workers, nursing home personnel, etc.) that
account for 30% o f the workforce. The number o f in-service personnel is also increasing
(Reich 1992, 176). These employees normally have limited education and skills and work
in jobs that have set hours, close supervision, and hourly pay. In some cases, unions have
not attracted these people for the reasons suggested above, but the newly reorganized
AFL-CIO counts them all as potential union members.
Since the late 1950s the percentage of union members in the non-agriculture labor
force has declined from 35% to 14%. During the 1950s and 1960s, large U.S.
corporations working in expanding global markets could afford to accept the collective
bargaining relationship initiated by the New Deal, particularly with the limitations placed
upon it by the Taft-Hart ley Act. Unions also became comfortable with management
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196
because times were good. When the United States became a net importer in 1973 and a
new generation of management staff had taken leadership roles, the old give and take of
collective bargaining become more troublesome to business. By this time, labor had long
lost its role as a spokesperson for the industrial downtrodden, and it faced its own crises
o f give backs and downsizing.
Anti-labor legislation and court decisions have prevented successful organizing.
The 1970s and 1980s saw a continual erosion of labor's role in the United States
economy. In the late 1980s unions were winning fewer elections than at any time in the
history of the National Labor Relations Board. The winning percentage was in the 70-
80% range in the 1950s, but by the 1980s unions won less than 50% of NLRB
representation elections (B.N. A. D aily Labor Report 241 (Dec. 18, 1989); A-l). Labor
unions have also had a bad public image because of media accounts of corruption,
although the Landrum-Griffin Act makes them the most highly regulated democratic
organization in the United States. In fact, the conviction rate for employer white collar
crimes is many times higher than that for union officials, but this comparison does not
receive much public attention (Freeman and MedofF 1984, 214). Moreover, numerous
studies have shown that union members have more confidence in the labor movement and
its leaders than those who do not belong to unions suggesting that participation quells
fears (See Freeman and MedofF 1984, 145).
Yet, Labor unions have also suffered losses because their entrenched leaders have
failed to maintain the tension between employees and capital. Moreover, these leaders did
not aggressively try to organize women and minorities as they entered the workforce and
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197
were likewise unable to organize in the south. Research indicates that one-third o f the
decline of union success in NLRB elections has occurred because the unions have failed to
organize more (Freeman and MedofF 1984, 229). The real dollar amount of organizing
funds set aside by unions decreased 30% from 1953 to 1974 (Voos 1981, table 1-3).
Unions gave up their competitive stance when negotiating with management. Eric
Mann (1987, 247-249; 374), who chronicled the fight to keep the Van Nuys. California
GM plant open (1982-1992), criticizes some United Auto Worker leaders for too quickly
conceding to management’s demands for greater worker cooperation and flexibility in
work rules. The threat o f foreign competition became the big stick for GM when it made
its demands although GM was losing much o f its competitive edge by over investing in
high technology which proved to be too much too soon (Mann 1987, 70-75).
Unfortunately for big labor, these technological changes in various workplaces would
eventually push the demographic dominance away from blue collar manufacturing workers
to white collar managers o f the techno-structure.
Finally, the employers of the United States have a fundamental antipathy for
organized labor and will sometimes use unlawful means to prevent unionization or bust
already existing unions (Craver 1993, 5). In the 1980s, Freeman and MedofF(1984, 237)
concluded from statistical studies that management opposition led to one quarter to one
half of the union losses in representation elections. The researchers used NLRB unfair
labor practice data to determine the chilling effect of unlawful discharges and other forms
of harassment. James Gross (1995) contends that the original intent o f the Wagner Act
was economic democracy through free elections and not employer versus unions electoral
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campaigns. Since the punishment o f employer violators o f the Act is minimal, oftentimes
simply a posted notice stating that the employer agrees to cease and desist from unfair
labor practices, union organizers have called the NLRB’s unfair labor practice notices
“hunting licenses.” Employees see the notices as veiled threats, defeating the notices’
original intent.
Labor lawyer and writer Thomas Geoghegan puts it bluntly:
I doubt today if any group of workers can form a union if their
employer is truly determined to resist. The main reason is, employers can
pick out and fire all the hard-core pro-union workers. They can do this
flagrantly, almost admit they are doing it, yet can be assured they face no
legal sanction for it, except maybe, possibly, having to cough up a tiny
sliver o f back pay, some $2,000 or $3,000 a body: and this is much later,
three or four years from now, long after the drive is over and the union is in
ashes. (Geoghegan 1991. 252)
Ineffectiveness o f the National Labor Relations Board
Senator Robert Wagner, a Democrat from New York, authored the National
Labor Relations Act because he believed in industrial democracy (Gross 1995, 11). But,
after the rapid growth of unions in the mid-1950s, the NLRB and the courts handcuffed
labor unions with rulings which limited strike activities— making sit-down strikes,
slowdowns, and quickie strikes illegal. In 1938 the courts also decided that employers had
the right to hire permanent replacements for their striking employees, consequently,
further damaging the effectiveness of strikes (Craver 1993, 29). Later in the 1970s,
inflationary wage spirals prompted employers to seek wage concessions or to look for
low-wage labor in other locales. Some employers moved facilities overseas and others
established new sites in the South. Industrial democracy is only a fantasy if management
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unilaterally decides to move plants over the wishes o f the employees and their
communities.
With a smaller percentage o f the work force organized, the unions have less
economic and political clout, and management’s political lobbyists have underscored the
latter weakness in the resounding defeat o f any labor law reforms (e.g., the defeat of
legislation outlawing permanent replacements for workers on strike). Unions have
successfully backed broad-based social legislation like the Civil Rights Act o f 1964, the
Voting Rights Act o f 1965, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1971, but have
normally failed with special interest legislation like the Labor Law Reform Act o f 1978.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act of 1988 (WARN), the legislation requiring
plant closure warnings, passed because enough communities and workers complained
about the devastating shock o f plant closures during the 70s and 80s. The great political
power of unions in the United States, however, is a myth (See Freeman and MedofF 1984.
206). In the case o f economic clout, one finds fewer employers participating in national
labor agreements (e g, the National Master Freight Agreement) or even considering these
agreements when setting wages and benefits for their unorganized employees (C raver
1993, 36). Despite the successful 1997 UPS strike, where Teamsters members won raises
and protected full-time work from part-timers, unions are becoming less o f an economic
or political force in the nation.
An obvious corollary to the drop in union membership is a decline in strike activity
and other forms o f organized economic power (McConnell 1990, 130). The merger mania
o f the 1970s and the buyouts of the 1980s created conglomerates, weakening union
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200
effectiveness, and creating greater dependency for ail employees (Craver 1993, 37). When
capital is controlled by a few people, these powerful figures are capable of withstanding
labor actions while the funds and spirit o f employees and communities oftentimes quickly
dissipate. Leveraged buyouts and unfriendly junk bond financed takeovers during the
1980s often meant huge layoffs to cut costs and payoff debt. Since thousands of
employees had little connection amongst themselves, outside o f their common effort to
increase profits for their employers, solidarity in the face o f mega-deals was too little, too
late. Unions and employees protected by a pro-active collective bargaining labor policy,
the original intent o f the NLRA. would have at least had a more unified voice in these
actions.
Demographics will undoubtedly impact any new labor organizing. Women
constituted 45 percent o f the labor force by 1979 (United States Department o f Labor,
Employment in Perspective: Women in the Labor Force 1979. 133). Research concludes
that women are just as favorable to unions as men (Freeman and MedofF 1984, 28), and
they have many reasons for wanting to organize. They cannot successfully organize,
however, when unions cannot reach them about their message at the job site or employers
barrage them with anti-union views. For example, gender discrimination in compensation
is a fact, and if the union movement is to attract women, laws must adequately protect
their collective activity. Gender discrimination has not ended with case by case litigation,
therefore women need legal protection for their concerted actions, normally union activity,
to achieve some wage equity. At the end o f the 1980s, women made 60 to 65 percent of
the wage of males working in the same job categories (Hamermesh and Rees 1988, 347-
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201
590). Although the wage gap is closing (some argue women now make 73% of men’s
salaries), a decrease in the hourly wage for males explains 82% o f the closing of the
gender gap (Mishel, Bernstein, and Schmitt 1996, 146). In other words men, who have
also lost the protection o f unions, are seeing their wages stagnate or go down in real
terms, so women appear to be catching up. In addition, 80 percent o f women workers are
employed in the low-wage areas o f health care, education, clerical work, domestic work,
and light industry (Balser 1987, 21). If laws adequately insured the rights o f women to
organize and speak as one voice, we would see significant adjustments for wages and
benefits in these occupations.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and the renewed labor movement, if they are to
successfully organize, need to address the growing population o f women and minority
workers, particularly those engaged in service sector work. Unions have helped insure
wage equality because union wage policies favor equal pay for equal work across an
industry, lower inequality within particular businesses, and reduce the inequality between
blue and white collar workers (Freeman and MedofF 1984, 78). SEIU Local 1877 in
California, for example, is organizing janitorial workers and in doing so is also organizing
the janitorial service employers. In Los Angeles, in the 1990s, SEIU Local 1877 has won
industry wage standards but only after circumventing the NLRB and taking its demands
for union recognition directly to employers and the community. This militant union has
made the decision not to use the NLRB because the NLRB’s processes too often work
against an organizing campaign.
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The workforce is aging and unions will have to look to the self-interest o f this
cohort. The elderly are financially worse off than the young and therefore will continue to
work as long as possible Those over 65 who lived alone in 1986 had a median income of
$7.731 which was 45 .8 less than the income for those people between the ages of twenty-
five and sixty-four who lived alone (Staff of Senate Special Committee on Aging 1988. 39
Table 2-1). Unionized northeastern states also continue to lose manufacturing work to the
southern states as employers look for lower wages and better tax breaks. The union
movement will have to make greater efforts to organize in the South and the Southwest
(Craver 1993, 40). Both o f these socio-economic realities suggest that labor organizing
and the resulting unions might provide greater economic security and development for
people.
The industrial relations world is never without conflict. It is always a case of self-
interest, no matter the extent of progressive human relations policies, because without a
strong union one party is always subordinate to another. Since the passage of the Wagner
Act in 1935 and the establishment of the NLRB. employers have always resisted
bargaining with organized employees. Although no longer able to order employees to sign
yellow-dog contracts, employers can disseminate anti-union materials that misrepresent
unions {M idland N ational Life Insurance Co.. 263 NLRB 127 (1982). implicitly threaten
economic injury because o f competitive disadvantages, and engage in anti-union
representation campaigns that border on the illegal Statistics show that despite the
Roosevelt legislation which was favorable to labor, the number of unfair labor charges and
illegal dismissals of union sympathizers has increased with time while the number of union
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election victories and percentage o f union members in the workforce have decreased. In
1955 workers and unions filed 4,500 charges against employers alleging violation of their
right to engage in concerted activity under Section 7 of the NLRA, in 1980 the number of
such charges was over 3 i.000 fWeiler 1990. 238)
The union movement, as fashioned by the NLRA and subsequent labor law. has
not become a counterbalance to corporate economic power; without strong and clear
sanctions, the Act is simply a nuisance that can be circumvented by the hired guns of the
legal profession. If employers can still get their way despite the NLRB. then unorganized
workers see no value in jeopardizing their livelihoods in organizing drives which might
lead to high personal costs The number of NLRB representation elections dropped from
7.296 in 1980 to 3.749 in i985 (Weiler 1990. 238 n. 18). In addition, while in 1957 the
Labor Board demanded reinstatement for 922 workers whose employers had terminated
them for union activity in 1985 the number o f such cases increased to 10.905 (LaLonde
and Meltzer 1991, 994 Table 7). The legal environment of industrial relations in the
United States points to a more sympathetic view toward management and owners' rights
than employees' rights. The willingness of companies to break the law to avoid unions,
e.g. the increase in terminations for union activity, is a reflection of a cavalier attitude
toward the law. In the last twenty years union decertification elections have doubled in
number, becoming a tool for employers who would rather have a union voted out than
have facilities relocated to avoid collective bargaining (Goldfield 1993. 52 Table 10).
Many trade associations also play a significant role in teaching employers the means of
avoiding unionization or turning out already existing unions: the National Association of
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Manufacturers, the American Hospital Association, and the National Retail Merchants
Association among others (Goldfiefd 1987. 190-191).
The industrial relations environment found in the United States is quite different
from the more progressive arrangements found in Europe. European unions often bargain
for wages and working conditions in nationwide or regional industries, and they include
the wages and working conditions o f unorganized employers. Unions also have greater
freedom relative to employers in using secondary boycotts and other solidarity measures
In Finland. Denmark and other European countries, unions have successfully organized
McDonald franchises through the use of secondary boycotts, turning back milk deliveries
and other suppliers at the restaurants. European labor laws make such worker
cooperation and solidarity possible while the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act (and later the
Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959) made such cooperation illegal in the United States,
handcuffing union organizing and securing employer power (Craver 1993, 50).
Corporations were instrumental in preparing the Taft-Hartley Act and winning its
passage. Gerald Morgan, an employer attorney, was paid to draft the Hartley bill by the
Republican National Committee and he helped with the final version of Taft-Hartley. The
legislative sponsors also received support in writing the bill from Theodore Iserman. the
General Counsel o f the Chrysler Corporation (U.S. Congress House, 1949, 1160-1168).
The bill was to allow employees to refrain from joining a union, but wrapped in the
rhetoric o f "equality” (a lone employee has equal power and rights vis-a-vis her employer),
it ended the promotion o f collective bargaining as a labor policy. Unions and collective
bargaining still exist, but any dream of industrial democracy with a system o f industrial
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jurisprudence to sustain the endeavor quickly faded in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s. Few
people then or today honestly believe that the individual employees are on equal footing
with their employers; contract-at-will relationships do not provide an employee voice
equal to that o f the employer. Later, rather than compromise on amendments to soften
the Taft-Hartley Act, organized labor lost its bid to repeal the legislation in 1949. and the
Taft-Hartley has impeded industrial democracy to this day.
Labor unions, free associations, suffer from a distorted U S myth o f equality and
merit that protects the haves who have more education, greater health care, better living
environments and surplus capital from the have-nots who have fewer and less of all of the
above. The poor and the rich are not treated as equals. In the last 20 years wealth has
become more concentrated in the United States (See Mishel. Berstein, and Schmitt 1996.
10) and, yet, the media, civic officials, and others focus on the few corrupt and ineffective
labor leaders when addressing union representation questions or industrial relations
conflicts. At the same time the real wages of American working people continue to fall
and downsizing unilaterally eliminates thousands of jobs at the cost o f a dwindling middles
class.
Craver (1993) argues that unions need to build their organizations around the great
majority o f unorganized. Business unionism does not attract new members when people
feel it will cost their employers a competitive edge. If, however, an entire industry is
subject to common wages, working conditions, and benefits through collective bargaining,
then unions have provided palpable benefits and the unorganized will note the difference.
Working to influence state and federal legislation is one way in which unions can gain
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membership. By pressing for better wages and working conditions across an industry or
region, workers outside the labor movement will discover the value of representation.
Just as labor unions have fought for higher minimum wages, occupational safety and
health standards, and civil rights, they can fight for daycare legislation, national health
care benefits, the protection of retirement funds and other similar concerns. Unions will
not grow in influence unless their leaders realize that unionized firms are at a competitive
disadvantage when other companies do not have equal employee costs, and that industry
wide measures prevent cost advantages (Craver 1993, 65).
Although demographic changes and union ineptness have contributed to the
downfall of organized labor, the primary culprit is a national labor policy o f union
representation and collective bargaining that is bankrupt. Labor laws have failed to
protect employees engaged in organizing and have unfortunately discouraged some unions
from even attempting to organize. If employers and the state protected the original intent
o f the NLRA— industrial democracy— workers would have true participation in the decision
making surrounding their work lives. Plant moves, the subcontracting of work, poverty
wages, the lack o f health benefits and other similar work related concerns, impact workers
and communities. Unions and community groups will have to organize together to
educate the present national workforce and press for equitable labor laws. This will
require moral encouragement and network building through religious groups.
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Labor Union Initiatives
In Europe unions bargain for the unorganized and organized alike because
negotiated wages and working conditions become industry wide standards. The difference
in labor costs among companies and employers becomes insignificant and. as a result.
European business people are less adverse to unions at their firms. The U.S. labor
movement has avoided explicit statutory fights out of the business unionism tradition that
reigned supreme in the first half o f this century. Craver (1993. 65) notes that the most
rapid development o f union membership in recent years has been in the public sector
where many statutory provisions set the parameters for collective bargaining. AFL-CIO
President John Sweeney praised the BUILD community organization of Baltimore for
winning passage o f a living wage ordinance. Unions and faith communities joined
together to insure living wages for employees contracted by the city. In the rush to escape
collective bargaining agreements, public bureaucracies and municipalities (like Baltimore)
have tried to subcontract work to low-wage firms. Unions, faith groups, and other
community activists can protect wages and working conditions by lobbying for laws that
recognize the need for living wages. City officials have to respond to civic groups and
local unions because cities cannot move their operations to low-wage countries. They
might try to escape paying living wages by subcontracting work to the private sector, but
the public will not allow such moves without a response. City councils in Baltimore
(1995), Boston (1997), New York (1996) and Los Angeles ( 1997) have passed living
wage laws after community and union groups protested the subcontracting of city work to
low-wage private employers (See Silverstein 1997, D5).
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Union officials and community groups lobbied for the passage o f the 1988 Worker
Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act which requires employers to give employees a
60 day warning prior to the closing of a plant. This warning period gives unorganized as
well as organized employees the opportunity to search out the means o f keeping the plant
running or time to look for employment options prior to losing their jobs (Craver 1993.
66). The labor movement could wage a similar legislative effort to provide job retraining
and placement for all employees losing production work to overseas workers or to new
technology. A worker’s years of experience on a job would act as a portable voucher that
would be used for retraining and relocation costs.
If all workers are recognized for the dignity o f their humanity, then unions will
make efforts to promote the care of their children, to rehabilitate drug abusers, to provide
adequate health care for every worker’s family, and to encourage full employment in the
society at large. The labor movement has always been the catalyst for movements to gain
shorter work weeks, and as employers attempt to increase work weeks through calls for
greater loyalty and commitment, unions can demand shorter work weeks, flexible hours,
and job sharing to create greater employment (Craver 1993, 67). The labor movement, if
it is to survive, needs to be more active on the behalf of all working people, creating ties
with those groups that promote greater justice at the work site like the NAACP,
MALEDF, AARP, and others (Craver 1993, 70). More importantly local unions benefit
from relationships with the Association o f Community Organizations for Reform Now
(ACORN), IAF, the Pacific Institute for Community Organizations ( PICO) and other
community organizing groups by solidifying ties with local civic organizations, churches.
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and local leaders. All of these groups have affiliates in Los Angeles County or Orange
County as well as around the nation. They are rooted in the Alinsky tradition of
community organizing which requires the development o f personal relationships, the
mentoring o f leaders, and the coordinating of citizen actions to create social change.
Even though unions would take on a greater role in promoting improvements for
unorganized employees throughout a region or industry, they could also work with
employers who have organized employees to contain costs while securing good wages and
benefits for their members. Unions would advocate the normal bread and butter issues of
health and dental benefits, parental leave, job sharing, and other work related issues. The
unions become the first line o f defense against technological job displacement, downsizing,
plant relocations, and subcontracting o f work. When these management decisions are
warranted and inevitable, the unions advocate for the transfer and retraining o f members
(Mann 1987, 365-368). Farsighted unions and their members could support job tenure
agreements that preserve employment (Craver 1993, 72). As in Germany, unions should
urge the development of job training centers for industries, using the knowledge and
financial resources of the employers in those industries to jointly prepare qualified and
creative workers for the future. Industry wide sponsored training protects individual
employers from bearing the cost o f training workers tor a mobile workforce (Hilton 1991,
34).
PICO organized communities to demand school to work training in San Diego,
centering around biotechnology, and in Oakland, focusing on aviation. Unions lose their
influence and their civic leadership if they do not participate in these efforts. Clearly, in
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these cases civic society is impacting the world o f work. COPS, the IAF affiliate in San
Antonio, Texas worked with the local government and businesses to train residents for
jobs through Project Quest. Project Quest organized for job commitments from
companies to guarantee employment upon completion of the program. The organization
found that as many as 2.000 jobs went begging in San Antonio each year because
businesses and schools had made no connection.
School-to-work programs and job training linked to labor market needs offer
greater possibilities to middle and low-income people (Wilson 1996. 217). However, no
panaceas exist. Germany’s heralded job training program is losing ground to foreign
competition. Rather than employ people at home, German companies are finding it
cheaper to use foreign workforces. Germany’s apprenticeship program is not producing
flexible workers who will constantly upgrade their skills and there are more applicants
than jobs (Business Week. September 16, 1996, 60). This is a cautionary note for
community, labor, and church groups who create new education and training ventures
without building the power needed to win the presence and full cooperation o f business
leaders. Some companies already sponsor training programs to increase skills capacities
but also to gain the good will of the community. Most companies do not have
departments of corporate ethics, but they all have public relations or community relations
staffs; i.e., departments with gentle names that deal with matters o f social justice (See
Jackall 1988, 15). Power only understands power. Unless labor and community groups
come to corporate America with significant social and spiritual capital (i.e., solidarity and
moral authority), corporations have the financial capital to withstand assaults on their
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211
decision making. Labor unions have to organize once again and both community (e.g.,
churches) and labor groups must campaign for labor law reform to reestablish the original
intent of the Wagner Act.
Rebuilding Unions As An Economic Development Policy
Labor unions face a plethora of obstacles in their organizing today. One is the
amount o f money necessary in an organizing drive. Hector Delgado (1993, 106) estimates
that it cost $500,000 to organize approximately 250 workers at a water bed factory in Los
Angeles in 1985. If unions continue to lose dues paying members, then they will not be
able to muster the funds for further organizing efforts. Unions will also need to
concentrate their organizing activities on those cohorts that are growing in the labor force:
women, minorities, the elderly, and white collar workers (Craver 1993, 73). Family
incomes did not decline further during the 1980s because women worked 35% more hours
in 1989 than they did in 1979 (Mishel, Bernstein and Schmitt 1996, 5). Married women
have a reason to organize because they need to work to supplement their spouse’s
incomes to maintain a family’s standard o f living. Similarly, the average male worker
watched his real hourly wages drop 6.3% between 1989 an 1995. “The failing wages that
the blue-collar, non-college-educated workforce experienced throughout the 1980s, then,
have gone upscale toward the end of the 1980s and through the first half o f the 1990s,
spreading to higher wage, white collar men and to middle aged women” (Mishel,
Bernstein and Schmitt 1996, 7).
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Of course, management will continue to combat unionization, using the behavioral
sciences and other intellectual and financial resources, to discourage unionization; e.g.,
promoting the prejudiced view that only non-professionals and lower class people join
unions (Craver 1993. 73).1 Unions will have to educate those they wish to organize in the
sophistication and dynamism found in well-educated unionized workers.
Craver (1993, 76) advocates better selection and training o f union organizers. As
workers become more sophisticated, and management techniques for battling unions
become more advanced, the labor movement needs to find well-educated, charismatic
organizers who will truly be peers with the people they organize. (Walter Reuther and
Cesar Chavez were examples of these kinds o f leaders although Chavez's formal
education was limited.) The training is not simply in labor law and union salesmanship,
but also requires competency in speaking, relationship building, leadership training and a
host of other teachable skills (Gray and Kombluh 1990. 95). A college education is
important but it is still advisable to have a person who has also worked in the particular
vocation that is being organized (Craver 1993. 76). Experience and studies reveal that
personal contact is the best way o f gaining positive responses from workers. Mailers
seldom lead to significant support, personal telephone calls are somewhat better, but
1 Personnel policies sometimes misapply Maslow’s hierarchy o f needs to promote
intrinsic rewards (higher order rewards) rather than extrinsic ones like raises, hoping to
save on labor costs. “Management consulting is also rooted in the application of social
science to help managers establish control o f the workplace. This process has included, to
name only a few examples, the extensive and haphazard use o f psychological tests to
ascertain worker characteristics in both blue- and white-collar workplaces” (Jackall 1988,
138).
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house calls are the best means of winning union campaigns (Wheeler and McClendon
1991, 66).
Community-based organizing, as practiced by ACORN, PICO, and the IAF,
focuses on one-on-one meetings. One-on-one’s and house meetings are successful means
o f attracting new members to the community organizing work. The organizer or leader
meets a neighbor or parishioner without immediate designs other then getting to know the
person. Yet the conversation is focused, it is not a therapy session or a gossip visit. Who
is this person? What is her self-interest? After learning more o f a person, the seasoned
listener knows what will move the neighbor to act and take a public role. Is this someone
who can lead with training? Oftentimes the organizer or leader finds that the person
shares common community concerns and from this awareness spring the issues that lead to
organizing. Labor organizers have much to learn from this process which requires
committed volunteerism often based on religious conviction. Unions necessarily organize
around specific economic issues and union campaigns, pulling people in and out as the
need requires.
The idea is not to simply tell workers that they will make more money if they join
a union, the goal is to teach them that they have dignity and that they should have some
voice in the destiny of their work life. People who feel forgotten or left out want a voice
in the work process because they too often feel like machines rather than human beings.
The success rate o f union campaigns is greater for elections with 50 or fewer workers (50
percent win rate) than with elections held for bargaining units of 500 or more employees
(28 percent win rate) (Bureau of National Affairs “Unions Today: New Tactics to Tackle
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Tough Times” 1982, 1 00-101). Although unions might prefer to organize larger
bargaining units because o f economies of scale, the trend in service employment is many
small groups of workers spread over wide areas, an example being the elderly care/home
care workforce If unions can organize such a work group on a regional basis, then the
unions will also have greater resources to organize that many more workers (Craver 1993,
76). In California many o f these elderly-care jobs are held by African-Americans.
Filipinos, and Hispanics. people with strong ties to their churches.
Unions have recently had greater success at organizing women relative to men. and
surveys suggest that minorities are by and large amenable to union representation.
Statistics show that in workforces which are primarily female, unions win approximately
60 to 66 percent o f their representation elections (Bureau o f National Affairs. Labor
Relations Reporter, Dec. 9, 1991 476). In one survey. 69% o f the minority workers said
they would support a union at their workplace (MedofF 1984. D-2) As the workforce
ages, unions need to promote positions that are advocating the rights o f an older
population. Unions can fight for job sharing among senior employees and greater part-
time job opportunities (Craver 1993, 81).
White collar workers and service workers are unorganized because they have often
looked at themselves as being management or above the blue collar workforce.
Employers have used this weakness to fight the unionization of white collar workers.
Globalization and sophisticated technology, however, have driven a greater wedge
between management and these workers because management rules from hierarchical,
bureaucratic positions without even the semblance o f collegiality with subordinates
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(Craver 1993, 84) Low level clerks could once aspire to higher positions within a
company but today even college educated white collar semi-professionals cannot find
clear career paths for advancement. Just as the labor movement organized industrial
workers in the 30s and 40s and public sector employees in the 60s and 70s, it can now
focus on these technical, scientific, clerical and service employees o f the 90s who are
feeling much less than fulfilled (Craver 1993. 84). Low level managers often see
themselves as no more than glorified clerks (Jackall 1988. 75).
Labor Organizing Must Occur in the Wider Community and Include
Demands for Economic Democracy
If workers have an interest in labor unions, but their employers are not organized,
the National Labor Relations Act offers few benefits other than limited protection for
those who wish to aid an organizing campaign. When an organizing drive is unlikely, it is
better for sympathetic employees to consider becoming associates of a union. They
become members o f the AFL-CIO just as they would have joined the Knights o f Labor or
a fraternal organization that did not necessarily represent them at their workplace. The
association status can give them greater knowledge o f their rights at the workplace,
provide legal counsel, and perhaps offer benefits like discounted health plans, credit union
privileges, and greater political clout. A dues paying associate in turn makes the
organization a more viable economic and political organization. Worker associations are
part of United States labor history and to this day professional associations — the American
Dental Association, the National Education Association, the American Bar Association
and other similar groups— act as advocates for their members (Craver 1993, 87). In some
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216
cases. like the National Education Association, the organization has taken on the role of
bargaining agent for some of its teachers. These groups will unify a dispersed group of
workers, providing another means of bringing people into the union community. The goal
is to show people that there are gains to be made when they are unified at the work site, as
people become more confident in their rights and capabilities, they will take on greater
roles in the labor movement.
The AFL-CIO has already established the Union Privilege Benefits Corporation
which offers associate membership to interested workers (Craver 1993, 87). They are
eligible for discounted credit cards, low interest home financing (Fiorito, Gramm and
Hendricks 1991. 103) medical insurance (B.N. A., Labor Relations Reporter Jan. 19, 1987,
40) and other valuable benefits.
The NLRA offers a minimal sanction for building union and labor power within the
economy; it is not, however, a pro-active law. Workers are still threatened by economic
layoffs, technological developments, permanent strike replacements, and longer hours.
The strike weapon has become less powerful because of these very same factors, a readily
available pool of unemployed or underemployed, technology that substitutes for
employees as in the communication industry, and employers who have fewer qualms about
hiring strike replacements or moving facilities (Craver 1993, 90). How is organized labor
to respond to the loss o f power in the strike weapon?
Unions can respond with community-wide campaigns on the behalf o f workers.
They can fight for statutory provisions that permit joint management labor councils and
cooperative management while guarding against anti-trust violations or the co-option of
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217
labor groups by employers. Laws permitting shop level emptoyee-employer cooperation
will build the labor movement while again maintaining the understood tension between
management and labor. The use o f union pension plans to punish the enemies o f labor or
reward its friends will also increase labor’s political and economic strength (Craver 1993.
91).
Public campaigns include picket lines against recalcitrant employers. These picket
lines could include the representatives o f various organizations and groups who are
friendly to the affected workers. Union leaders must notify local media o f these events to
gain public support and sympathy for justice questions centering on the dignity of work.
Boycotts against employers create immediate business losses and hurt long-term market
share. Communities that form pro-employee coalitions can force employers to respond to
the concerns o f the wider local community (Pope 1991. 889). In the face o f global
competition and a more highly educated workforce, the labor relations field must
ultimately move from an adversarial relationship to one built around cooperation.
Companies need cooperation at all levels o f the enterprise to increase production
efficiency, product quality, and customer service. Workers, semi-professionals, and
professionals all want a creative say in the destiny o f their organization so that they have
some control over their own job security and future rewards. Companies that fail to meet
these demands will fall behind. Research shows that unions lower turnover and, with
slowdowns, union members experience temporary, not permanent lay offs (Freeman and
M edoff 1984, 120). In addition, the pressure o f a union forces management to tighten
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production standards and quality to maintain profits. Clear rules rather than paternalism
lead to greater responsibility on everyone’s part (Freeman and Medoff 1984, 15).
On the one hand, labor officials who take the position o f simply asking for more
without working to create more are jeopardizing the competitiveness of their members’
employers. On the other hand, the unionists fear that shop level and division level
management promotion of cooperation is simply a means to lull workers into believing
that management hears and understands them. David Mann (1987) describes GM’s
promotion of the ’’team concept” formula of cooperation as an alternative to a strictly
enforced collective bargaining relationship with the UAW. For many auto workers the
team concept simply meant speed-up (Mann 1988, 291). A voice without power is empty.
Unions must protect the interests of their membership while promoting the profitability of
the enterprise.
The point is basic. The parties in a relationship will sometimes take advantage of
each other if they are not held accountable to each other. Collective bargaining
agreements, like constitutions, are not perfect or above manipulation, but they help keep
parties honest. The industrial democracy promoted by Senator Robert Wagner and F.D.R.
by means of the NLRA was an attempt to give workers a voice in their work lives and
insure economic development for all. When workers and their labor leaders built 'Too
much power,” employers and their political sympathizers passed the Taft-Hartley Act of
1947. Similarly, over the past 60 years the political appointments to the National Labor
Relations Board and adverse decisions by the board members and federal courts helped
shift the balance o f power back to corporate America. To regain their political and
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economic voice, workers and their community sympathizers have to organize for power
vis-a-vis today’s global enterprises. This means using social and spiritual capital from
community and religious leaders to leverage against the financial capital of the haves.
Ultimately, more people will receive the fruits of their labor balancing out the financial
capital available to this society and this may mean a return to the original intent of the
NLRA.
Union/Management Cooperation
Barry Bluestone and Irving Bluestone (1992. 218-246) argue for “enterprise
compacts” rather than union/management contracts. They support the union movement
and argue that joint employer/employee compacts work best when unions are present to
represent the workers’ position. The enterprise compact removes management-rights
clauses from collective bargaining contracts and opens all company decisions to discussion
and agreement between managers and employees. In essence, the compact is based on
trust while traditional contracts have been based on adversarial relations. The compact’s
goal is to increase the wealth o f stockholders, managers and employees while providing
greater employment security for workers (Bluestone and Bluestone 1992, 219).
Management always has to divide its loyalties between shareholders and employees which
necessitates a union role in worker advocacy (Bluestone and Bluestone 1992, 28).
The unions provide trained members, they force management to become more
efficient because o f their demands for greater wages and benefits, and union products
normally have a higher quality (See Freeman and M edoff, 1984). Gain sharing, profit
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sharing, and joint decision making give employees a true stake in the enterprise. Industrial
relations has moved from the open industrial conflict o f the 1 9th century, to a welfare
capitalism that attempted to buy employee trust, to collective bargaining which centered
on wage and working conditions, to scientific management which implicitly saw the
employee as another tool, to a human relations attempt at calling employees self-managers
without giving them ownership (e.g., management by objectives and quality circles), and
finally to a view that companies will no longer have employees but contracted work
forces.
Bluestone and Bluestone (1992. 218-246) argue that the enterprise compact is the
best means to integrate employees into a joint ownership position vis-a-vis management,
but this will only occur where companies maintain their own workforce. The employees
are still not owners as they would be in a worker-owned firm; the shareholders are
owners, but the next natural step will be employee ownership. This, of course, depends
on the willingness of employees to throw in their lot with the organization as working
owners and take the risks o f ownership These labor sympathizers believe that the union
can act as the employee representative in contractual matters while the employee
involvement councils and committees will support the worker in his role as producer
(Zwerdling 1980, 176). As the methods of employee relations have evolved since the
industrial era, life at the job site has also evolved. Firms start with committees discussing
production questions at the shop level, this method o f interaction develops into larger
work groups (perhaps division planning), and then firms find that employees play a role at
the Board level (Zwerdling 1980, 2-3).
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To regain its role in the American economy, labor unions will have to have a
greater impact on local, state, and national elections. If economic power is lacking, as the
relative number o f union members decreases and their money power diminishes, then
political power (use of the ballot box) becomes essential. During the 1980s business
interests controlled the White House and the judiciary making it easer for companies to
defeat pro-labor legislation and business attorneys to argue for the status quo (Craver
1993. 116). In the 1981 President Reagan in effect fired the nation’s air traffic controllers
for their union activity In 1988, a conservative Supreme Court made it more difficult to
win cases alleging violation of one’s civil rights (e.g., in hiring) by arguing that blatant
discrimination had to be shown for Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to be effectuated
(Craver 1993, 116).
The labor movement needs to mount an educational campaign to demonstrate to
middle managers, workers, and the unemployed that the distribution o f wealth in the
United States is lopsided.2 The few owners of capital continue to benefit from tax breaks
and a favorable business climate while the middle class and poor face regressive taxes on
gasoline and other essential purchases. Many Americans have no health care, and they
work for employers who indirectly gain from the insecurity their employees face. The
union movement needs to educate the electorate about these injustices to elect politicians
who are favorable to the concerns o f workers (Craver 1993, 116). If unions have less
2 The South Bay Labor Council in San Jose, California has already introduced such
a campaign through the Working Partnerships program. Researchers, with the advice of
academics and public officials, have created a statistical portrait o f the economic status of
Silicon Valley residents. The report provides ample evidence o f economic inequality in
one o f the nation’s most prosperous areas (Benner 1998, 3).
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money to give to political campaigns, they have much more people power than their
business counterparts.
Union members and labor sympathizers can become precinct workers, participate
in voter registration activities, and operate phone banks (Delaney and Masters 1991,
318). Further labor organizing will also increase dues and the stability of unions so that
they in turn can raise funds through Political Action Committees to help elect sympathetic
politicians (Craver 1993, 118). Although nonpartisan, community organizing groups
benefit labor by naturalizing citizens and registering voters, and they educate community
members in their civic responsibilities. When these citizens are poor and forgotten, they
will vote in their self-interest--electioneering is not necessary.
Today’s global economy requires unions to work on an international level. In the
past United States unions promoted a business union perspective world wide, placing a
greater emphasis on defeating communism and promoting capitalism than improving the
lives of workers. The AFL-CIO’s foreign efforts have often been linked to Central
Intelligence Agency activities. With the downfall of Communism and the loss o f well
paying manufacturing work to other countries, the AFL-CIO has to take responsibility for
greater labor solidarity or pay the consequences at home. This means that American
companies that move work abroad and then ship products back to the United States,
without any significant benefits to American consumers, should be penalized in some way.
Items produced for the U.S. market should be produced domestically.
American companies that need to develop foreign facilities to sell their goods in
foreign markets are not the culprits. Companies that move abroad to save labor costs and
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then sell the same products at the same price at home are treating their American
employees unjustly. Some amount o f the product’s content should be manufactured in the
United States (B.N. A. D aily Labor R eport Dec. 16, 1982, A-4). Rigid trade barriers
could be disastrous for both domestic and foreign workers. Companies will inevitably
move abroad if profits warrant a move, but the labor movement can lobby for legislation
for retraining and job placement for those who suffer from these moves. Regular import
duties are a source of funds for this work (Craver 1993. 120). Commenting on the
withdrawal of President Clinton’s fast-track legislation. President John Sweeney said.
“Americans understand that the question is not whether we will or should trade— o f course
we should. They understand there is no turning back from our increasingly global
economy. ..[but] the message is clear. The next generation o f trade policies must respect
people as well as property and factor in workers’ and environmental concerns along with
business interests’’ (Peterson 1997. A23).
Organizing in developing countries must be vigorously supported or employers
will take advantage of unorganized workforces. Much o f this work is initially human
rights work but as countries become more developed the labor movement will need to
look for common goals in wages in working conditions. One must ask if a family can be
supported humanely given the cost of living of a particular locale (Cox 1971, 568). The
right to a living wage has been basic to Catholic social teaching since Rerum Novarum.
The international labor movement would also benefit from the collection and publication
o f data: making wage comparisons, discussing organizing activity, projecting changes in
industries on a world wide basis along with any other useful research material. These data
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resources build a greater knowledge o f the interlocking nature o f the world economy and
provide bargaining information useful at local levels with multinational corporations. With
greater knowledge o f the influence o f local bargaining on international business, unions
can prepare themselves for a transnational bargaining position (Craver 1993, 123).
Moreover, as free trade agreements are reached between countries, unions will have to
seek out their foreign counterparts for joint positions on wages and working conditions
(Craver 1993, 124). To prevent global companies from simply moving to avoid pro-labor
regulations, unions will have to promote legislation that has international enforcement.
The European Community, the North American Free Trade Countries, and others need to
create legislation for the 21st Century that will protect workers across borders (Craver
1993, 125).
Leual Decisions that Have Severely Limited Labor Organizing
The weakness o f the labor movement is due in part to a constant loss of the right
to concerted action because of legislation and legal interpretations by the NLRB and the
federal courts. Pro-business board members and judges have over time made labor policy
in the United States weighted in favor o f employers. From the very beginning of the
NLRA. the Supreme Court during the New Deal sought to give employees some rights at
the workplace but, remaining a conservative group, never wished to see labor unions
controlling business decisions. In NLRB v M ackay Radio dr Telegraph Co. (304 U.S.333
1938), the court ruled that strikers could be replaced by their employers which
underscored the contract-at-will view o f employee relations. The employers remained the
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owners of the means o f production. According to the Supreme Court, the employer did
not interfere with the concerted rights o f the strikers if the employer dismissed them and
refused to rehire them at the end of the strike. Strikers might retain the right to first recall,
but the employer did not have to dismiss strike breakers so that strikers could regain their
previous jobs. Congress had given the right to strike to employees but the Supreme Court
made this right a fragile one (Craver 1993, 132).
In 1982, the federal courts permitted employers the prerogative of giving
replacement workers super seniority so that they would in effect be rehired after layoffs
before striking employees. In addition, the Landrum-Griffin Act o f 1959 refused striking
employees the right to vote in NLRA representation elections after one year off o f their
jobs which meant that decertifying unions became simpler (Craver 1993, 133). In Trans
W orld Airlines, Inc. v. Independent Federation o f Flight Attendants (489 U.S. 426
1989), the Supreme Court permitted less senior flight attendants who had crossed picket
lines to work to retain higher positions that they worked in during the strike. This gives
striking union members with lower level jobs an incentive to return to work and destroys
the effectiveness o f the strike and union (Craver 1993, 133). Senator Wagner's intent
with the NLRA was industrial democracy, but no democracy exists when employers can
destroy any counterbalancing free association o f workers.
Congress enacted the Labor Management Relations Act (Taft-Hartley Act) in 1947
after numerous strikes and work stoppages o f national interest. It was a means o f reigning
in the concerted power o f laboring people, particularly a John L. Lewis dominated labor
movement. One o f the most problematic restrictions was against secondary boycotts
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which called for injunctive relief for the employer if the union picketed the employer’s
suppliers or customers. Moreover, the suppliers and customers could seek monetary
damages in court for the boycotting. The secondary boycott is an essential tool to
bringing recalcitrant employers to the bargaining table and is commonly used by European
unions. The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act o f 1959 outlawed hot
cargo agreements which kept employers from accepting business or doing business with
struck companies. This act also limited representational picketing in organizing campaigns
and thus severely limited the ability to organize nonunion workers.
For example, in 1996 the University o f Southern California administration sought
an injunction against the Service Employees International Union because the janitors
demonstrated on campus rather than against ServiceMaster, the subcontractor who was
their legal employer. USC does not have to negotiate with the union and it can seek
injunctive relief to prevent the union from demonstrating on its campus. The university
has escaped its responsibility as an employer, albeit an indirect employer.
The Labor Management Relations Act so narrowly defined “employee" that low
level supervisors and contracted workers would no longer be included in collective
bargaining units. Oftentimes supervisors are supervisory only in name and are more
closely related to their fellow workers than management, and, similarly, people are called
contractors although their relation with the employer is more like that o f an employee
(Craver 1993, 134). The intent o f the NLRA was to give all people who suffered from the
economic realities of wage labor the right to organize. In A llied Chem ical A lkali
Workers Local I v. Pittsburgh Plate C lass Co. (404 U.S. 157 1971), retired employees
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were not allowed to bargain over their pension plan because they were not considered
employees by the court. It is more difficult to organize white collar workers because the
Supreme Court has ruled that managerial employees are employees who ‘formulate and
effectuate management policies by expressing and making operative the decisions o f their
employers” (NLRB v Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U.S. 267. 288 1974) and. consequently,
professors who have no control over working conditions and wages have been denied the
right to organize (Craver 1993. 135: NLRB v. Yeshiva University, 444 U.S. 672 1980).
The NLRB and courts have made it harder to organize by permitting broader
interpretations of tactics and methods used to thwart concerted activity. For example,
employers are allowed to have greater freedom in writing anti-union propaganda because
the employees are mature enough to decipher truth from falsehoods (M idland Natl. Life
Insurance Co., 263 NLRB 127 1982). In the past, an employer who committed egregious
unfair labor practices during a union organizing campaign could be forced to recognize the
union as the collective bargaining representative of the employees even though the union
could not show majority support in the bargaining unit (NLRB v. C issel Packing Co., 395
U.S. 575 1969). Now the union must show proof that it had majority support before the
unfair labor practice occurred to become the bargaining agent for the employees (Gourmet
Foods, Inc., 270 NLRB 578 1984). In the past, an employee of a nonunion firm could file
an unfair labor practice charge if the employee believed he was discriminated against for
complaining to a state or federal office about unsafe working conditions or other similar
concerns. Now the employee must show that his complaint to the agencies was done as a
group action (M eyers Industries 268 NLRB 493 1984). In the past, a nonunion
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employee could ask for another employee to be present at a disciplinary meeting and
receive the protection o f the NLRA, now the Board will only aid employees denied
representation who are under a collective bargaining agreement (Sears, R oebuck & Co.,
274 NLRB 230 1985).
NLRB rulings have now made it easier for employers to justify runaway shops. In
some cases the employer need not even bargain with a union over a plant closure because
the union can not offer anything that would deter the closure— e.g.. wage concessions
(First National M aintenance Corp. v. NLRB 452 U.S. 666 1981). If the union has no way
of satisfying the employer’s demands, and this can be broadly or narrowly interpreted,
then the employer can make a unilateral decision about the jobs of sometimes hundreds of
people (Craver 1993, 137).
The Labor Board and courts have also weakened unions by making it easier for
free riders to take advantage o f the unions' strengths or weaknesses. For instance, a
member might enjoy all the benefits won by a union during good times, but then quickly
resign from the union and cross a picket line during difficult times. In the past, unions
could limit member withdrawals and resignations to maintain unity during difficult
moments, this was an internal union matter voted upon by the membership. Now the
unions cannot discipline strikebreakers once the labor dispute has been resolved (See
Pattern M akers' League o f North Am erica v. NLRB. 473 U.S. 95 1985).
Unions are prohibited from using member dues payments for organizing other
workers or financing civil suits that are not directly related to the bargaining unit from
which the dues are obtained (Ellis v. Brotherhood o f Railway, Airline & Steam ship Clerks
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(466 U.S. 435 1984). Although the work life of organized employees is dependent on the
ability of unions to organize nonunion workers, the Labor Board and courts have thrown a
stumbling block in the path o f further organizing. Similarly, membership dues cannot be
used for political lobbying and activities, but instead must be limited to concerns that
directly affect the bargaining unit. In addition, the Labor Department has proposed more
onerous accounting procedures to account for all dues monies (Craver 1993, 139).
Reform of U S. Labor Policy
So what kind of labor law reforms must labor unions and their supporters solicit?
Clearly, to enhance the democratic tradition of the United States by fulfilling the vision o f
the Wagner Act, labor unions and workers need greater support from the judiciary,
congress, and the president (Craver 1993, 39). The Act must be broadened to include new
types of employees particularly those who are contract employees but work as if they were
employees of the contracting firm. A further example would be the home care and
housekeeping workers who have become ubiquitous in our urban centers. Supervisory
employees who have at the most marginal management prerogatives and power should not
be excluded from collective bargaining units nor should other white collar workers who
are only managers in name. Those people who have the ability to hire and fire are the only
true managers that are not part o f the rank and file. Supervisors who make
recommendations on hiring decisions or dismissals often do not have the final say and,
therefore, should not be considered part of management (Craver 1993, 140).
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The resurgence of the U.S. labor movement will depend on the ability of union
organizers and the fairness o f representation campaigns and elections. To permit the
dissemination of information that even intimates the loss o f jobs because of union activities
should be prohibited. Employees are not in an equal position with employers under the
contract-at-will employment relationship. Employees will be fearful of voting for a union
if they feel the employer will withdraw his offer of employment in retaliation. During
campaigns union representatives should be permitted access to employees to promote the
union’s positions just as the employer can call assemblies, use intercom systems, and find
other means of getting out the employer’s position at the workplace. This equal access,
however, should be reasonably limited so that production and other business concerns are
not adversely affected. At the moment employers can deny employees the right to
promote the union during work time while telling its supervisors to campaign against
unionization at the same time fNLRB v. United Steelworkers, 357 U.S. 357 1958). The
representation election process only became dominated by campaigning when the free
speech of employers superceded the freedom of association protected by the Wagner Act.
Employers can hold captive audience meetings during the pre-election period while unions
are given no similar opportunity What about the right o f employees not to listen to the
anti-union views of employers, views that discourage collective bargaining, the original
intent o f the Wagner Act (See Gross 1995, 105-106)?
The union should be given the means to present its positions, means that are not
inordinately difficult to achieve; for example, the use o f prominently displayed employer
bulletin boards in a facility, inserts in paycheck envelopes, and equal time at assemblies
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while the election campaign is being fought. To level the industrial playing field, unions
should be given the names and addresses of unit employees as soon as they can show that
30% of the bargaining unit has signed a union authorization card Today elections are
often delayed for months while the union, employer, and NLRB haggle over the extent of
a bargaining unit~a single group o f craft employees, a division at a plant, an entire facility,
low level supervisory personnel, etc. Employers campaign against unions and delay
elections because these efforts work. “The evidence that company campaign activities
affect election results is substantial and, on the face o f it, compelling. Both labor and
management practitioners agree that what the company does is important, and companies
back this belief by spending time and money on NLRB elections" (Freeman and Medoff
1984, 236). Delays in elections permit greater time for employers to bend the law with
unscrupulous tactics and create a poor environment tor fair results. If ballots are
separated by contested work groups or debates center around the exclusion or inclusion of
a supervisor, the ballots can be cast and held until rulings are made at a later time. In
effect, the Board’s present procedure delays elections and gives the employer opportune
time to use its dominant powers to unfairly sway the electorate (Craver 1993, 143).
The use of strike replacements has also destroyed the balance in economic power
that the National Labor Relations Act sought for workers in 1935. The framers of the Act
gave the masses of workers the right to act in concerted activity because no one employee
could ever match the might o f any one employer. Yet, after President Ronald Reagan
replaced the air traffic control strikers in 1981, we have seen a steady increase in this
means of suppressing the organized actions of workers (e.g., at Caterpillar tractor). To
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regain the balance achieved by the NLRA and preserve its original intent, employers
should not be allowed to replace strikers until after a reasonable amount of time. Or
perhaps employers could use managerial personnel and temporary employees to keep
production flowing, but no hiring would occur until after one to three months had elapsed
and permanent hiring could only occur when the employer demonstrated a lack of
temporary help (Craver 1993. 144). The employer would necessarily feel the need to
come to some agreement with his employees rather than seeing the strike as a momentary
frustration until new employees could be hired. One of the great injustices o f NLRB v.
KTacKay Radio Telegraph ( 'o., the precedent setting case for striker replacements, is
that employers use it during union representation elections to threaten people with the
possibility of being replaced if they strike (Pollitt 1991, 306-7). Moreover, Ronald
Reagan’s NLRB appointees ruled that aggressive picketing and verbal threats were
grounds for discharge while employers were free to engage in vitriolic anti-union rhetoric
and make subtle threats (Gross 1995, 264). Congress defeated a bill prohibiting striker
replacements in 1991. a sign that political work must be done along with education o f the
general public.
To be effective social organizations in the economic realm, unions need the right to
take their position to secondary employers and employees to exert pressure on the struck
employer. This means Section 8(b)4(B) of the NLRA which prohibits labor organizations
from requiring any person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise
dealing in the products o f any producer, processor, or manufacturer to win a labor dispute
or force recognition o f a union, must be made less stringent (Craver 1993, 145).
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Informational picketing at secondary employers businesses (e.g.. retail outlets) and the
boycott o f the primary employer’s product is legal, but union workers at other
establishments cannot refuse to handle the products o f the struck employer. Congress
passed the Wagner Act, in part, to stop top down organizing (by refusing to handle struck
goods) by giving protection to concerted activity. The Landrum-Griffin Act further
destroyed the tactic by outlawing secondary boycotts by the employees o f neutral
employers. In effect, worker solidarity is defeated by the law (Gross 1995. 142-144).
Yet the sympathy and cooperation o f other workers at other sites has a role to play
in economic disputes. Workers who handle raw materials being delivered to the struck
employer should also have the right to refuse to support an employer involved in a labor
dispute. Similarly, unions should be allowed to bargain for hot cargo agreements with
employers, agreements that give union workers the right to refuse to supply a nonunion
customer with materials for production and the right not to handle products from a struck
supplier (Craver 1993. 146). Craver (1993) offers an interesting point o f view. If
employers find these measures draconian perhaps they would agree to binding arbitration
for unsettled contract disputes. An independent panel chosen by labor and management
could determine the last best offer for individual contract points or the entire contract.
Employers might also be offered the option o f economic strikes without work stoppages.
The employees would have 25% o f their salaries deducted for the duration o f the work
stoppage and the employers would give up 25% o f their revenues. If strikes were settled
quickly the funds would be returned to the two parties, if the strikes continued for an
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unreasonable period, the money would be transferred to an agreed upon nonprofit
organization or the public treasury (Craver 1993, 143-147).
The NLRA needs to be amended so that concerted activity can be broadly
interpreted to include the protection o f individual employees who file charges with federal
agencies over unsafe working conditions, discriminatory practices, illegal wage and hour
agreements, and other similar injustices. Non-union employees should also have the right
to bring a second person into any disciplinary hearing and, therefore, be engaged in
concerted activity that falls under the jurisdiction o f the Act (Craver 1993, 147).
Collective bargaining should be open to all decisions that have a potentially
adverse impact on union members— layoffs, plant closures, new technology, subcontracting
o f production and so on. This perspective underscores the change from workplace
contracts to workplace compacts. The contract-at-will relationship is not balanced when
the parties bargain from unequal positions. Employers can now refuse to bargain about
certain issues (e.g., subcontracting) because they are a sigtrificant change in the nature and
direction of the business and refuse to bargain about other decisions because they are not
im portant enough to the collective bargaining relationship (Gross 1995, 262). If all
parties are recognized as stakeholders dependent on the success o f the company then
employees need to be involved in major decisions that adversely affect their lives. The
Section 8 (d) of the NLRA should be amended to require employers to bargain over issues
that have been traditionally assigned to management rights clauses, that is, anything that is
not expressly written in the union contract. Once a person is employed they become part
o f an organic whole which they feed and feeds them. A stubborn employer can deny
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concessions, but the employer must hear and respond to the concerns o f the workers
(Stone 1988, 86-87). If labor unions cannot bargain over such important issues as plant
closures, job reductions or subcontracting, then other workers will not see any purpose in
acting as a unified group of people and the labor movement will play an even smaller role
in a so-called democratic society. Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz has spoken
publicly several times about the importance of a viable labor movement for any democratic
society(Silk 1991, C2).
To maintain the strength o f their organizations, union members should be allowed
to sanction members who have crossed a picket line during a dispute and this requires an
amending o f Section 8(b)( I)(A) o f the Act which prohibits the coercion o f employees to
join or refrain from joining a union. (Again. Reagan appointees to the NLRB expanded
the secondary boycott limitations to make it unlawful for unions to require the firing of
members for crossing strike picket lines to work (Gross 1995, 264)). The amendment
would include the right o f striking employees to resign their membership and go back to
work after a reasonable period o f time had elapsed. The NLRA would come closer to
fulfilling its original intent if it were to permit unions to use dues and other fees for
nonpolitical and nonideological purposes. If unions could use some fees and dues from
one bargaining unit to organize other bargaining units then organizing would increase and
unionized businesses could not be undercut by the unorganized businesses. In addition,
the Act should make it permissible to support litigation that promotes safer work
environments, stops job discrimination, or helps many other justifiable needs o f all
workers. The money may not be used for direct bargaining unit concerns, but it indirectly
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benefits all bargaining units (Craver 1993, 149). Similarly, unions should have the right to
use dues and fees to champion legislation that will enhance the lives of all workers; e.g.,
propositions to increase minimum wages. Unions, however, would be prohibited from
using such monies for political parties or candidates. It is a matter of promoting one’s
issues— higher minimum wages, safer job sites, long term employment— not particular
people.
The National Labor Relations Board has no punch at the moment. The remedies
for workers and employers adversely affected by union unfair labor practices are more
immediate and harsher than those faced by recalcitrant employers. For example,
companies can request immediate injunctive relief, and the Labor Management Relations
Act requires priority action, for cases in which the union is allegedly engaged in secondary
strikes or other such activity. If the Board does not respond forth with, the affected
employer can file a charge with the local federal court to force the Board into action
(Craver 1993, 150). Unions can request injunctive relief under the NLRA to halt
employer unfair labor practices, but the Board is not required to seek such injunctions as it
is required to seek them for employers (Craver 1993. 151). There is a fundamental
imbalance in the remedies available for both parties under the Act. Since the Labor Board
is a paper tiger for employers, employers are much more likely to commit unfair labor
practices because the minimal costs from facing an unfair labor practice are more certain
than the costs of bargaining with a union representing its employees. When the unfair
labor practices occur during a union organizing campaign, a pallor normally falls across
the organizing efforts, and the union cannot gain majority support. Although the employer
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actions may have been illegal, he cannot be forced to bargain with the union if the union
does not have a majority (See G ourm et Foods. Inc., 270 NLRB 578 (1984)). The
employer has won by breaking the law at a minor cost to him.
When employers have committed unfair labor practices against employees and the
Board upholds an unfair labor practice charge, the employer is required to reinstate any
discharged employees and pay back wages. This is hardly a punitive measure, while
employers who violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (Craver 1993, 152) have to pay
double back pay to the employee victims. Craver (1993) suggests that tripling back pay
awards would be a greater deterrence to unlawful discharges during union organizing
campaigns. In the 1980s less than 20% of the employees reinstated to their jobs after
Labor Board decisions were still working at their companies after two years (Weiler
1983, 1792). Since the law has not changed one can assume a similar percentage today.
It is clear that even with the NLRA employers are normally getting their way in industrial
relations.
Those employers who commit egregious unfair labor practice charges during an
organizing campaign are still subject to remedial bargaining if the union can show that it
had a majority o f the bargaining unit’s support before the employer’s violations. Yet court
cases take time and the support for the organizing is eroded. In those cases where
employers are ordered to bargain with a union without a representation election, less than
40% of the employers ever sign a contract with the union— delays, aversions, and more
delays defeat the intent o f the NLRA (Weiler 1984, 1795 and n. 94.) Section 10(1) of the
NLRA should be amended to give priority action and injunctive relief for employees who
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are discharged for their union activities (Craver 1993, 152). This will deter the negative
effect of employer dominance and interference in the democratic rights o f their employees.
The NLRA should be permitted to make remedial bargaining orders when it can be shown
that the union was more than likely to have gained the support o f the majority of the
bargaining unit if the employer had not engaged in unfair labor practices (Note 1987, 617).
After a remedial bargaining order or board certified representation election, the
Board should be allowed to seek injunctive relief when an employer refuses to bargain
with the employee’s representatives. The injunction would be sought under an amended
Section 10( 1) and compensatory damages for gains that could have been won could be
ordered under an amended Section 10 (c) (Craver 1993. 153). The NLRA has to be given
enough punch so that employers do not feel comfortable trying to use Labor Board and
Court proceedings for their unfair labor practices to delay unionization.
In the area of arbitration, over the last fifty years the Labor Board has moved to a
broad interpretation of when it will defer unfair labor practice cases to arbitration
procedures found within the collective bargaining agreement. In Speilherg Manufacturing
112 NLRB 1080 (1955), parties who wished to have the Board defer to an arbiter’s
decision on unfair labor practices would have to demonstrate that the proceedings and
decision were fair and regular (Craver 1993, 153) In 1984 Olin Corp. 268 NLRB 573,
the Board decided that an arbiter’s decisions did not have to be wholly consistent with the
NLRA and that the party losing the decision had the burden o f proof o f showing that the
decision was not essentially palpable with the Act. It has now become the responsibility of
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the losing party to prove the decision was wrong rather than the winning party proving
that the decision was right (Craver 1993, 154). This weakening of the Labor Board’s
responsibility in deciding unfair labor practice cases has resulted in inconsistent legal
principles, and calls for a return to the Speilherg M anufacturing precedent. Section 10
(a) of the Act should be modified to standardize the Speilherg view of arbitration (Craver
1993. 154). Section 10 (a) should also be amended to protect individuals from losing
their rights to Labor Board protection when submitting unfair practice issues to a
contractual grievance-arbitration procedure. It is appropriate for the Board to defer cases
that may involve refusal to bargain issues but it is inappropriate when the issue directly
impedes upon one’s Section 8 (a)(1) and Section 8 (a)(3) individual rights to concerted
activity. The employee should have the right to have Labor Board attorneys present his or
her case before the IVLRB (Craver 1993. 155).
The proceeding chapters have discussed the Catholic Church’s role in community
and labor organizing in the past. This chapter has described why labor, with the whittling
away of collective bargaining rights, has less than 1 1 % of the private sector workforce
organized. The following cases studies will discuss what labor. Church, and community
organizing groups are doing to increase the economic well-being o f U.S. citizens by
encouraging organizing and new economic thinking. Justice for Janitors/SEIU Local
1877, the first case study, gives one example of the difficulty o f organizing a union in the
U.S. today and provides evidence o f the importance o f building relationships with
community groups and the Catholic Church.
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CHAPTER 7
JUSTICE FOR JANITORS AT USC-SEIU LOCAL 1877'
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organizing drive at the
University of Southern California demonstrates how labor, community, and the Catholic
Church share a common interest in the organizing o f low-income workers in Los Angeles
today. The Justice for Janitors campaign and the Service Employees International Union
have been at the vanguard of labor organizing throughout the U.S. in the last 15 years.
Although the organizing at USC was not part of a wider Justice for Janitors campaign,
many of the strategies used at USC came out of the campaign. This case study, therefore,
begins with a description of Justice for Janitors in Los Angeles, a campaign started during
John Sweeney’s SEIU presidency in the 1980s.
Justice for Janitors organizers have consistently used aggressive but nonviolent
tactics (e.g., marches, nonviolent civil disobedience, and street dramas) in their work.
They normally perform a thorough research of their opponent/employer by looking at past
history, customer relationships, and economic data to determine areas o f vulnerability.
Their campaign is long-term because the union seeks unilateral recognition from
employers rather than quickly signing up interested employees and requesting a NLRB
'During the research for this case study, SEIU Local 399, based in Los Angeles,
merged with Local 1877 then based in San Jose, California to become a state-wide local.
I use both union local numbers in this case study
240
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election for certification. Moreover, the campaign is built around community support,
often from religious people, to isolate the company as a bad employer. In Los Angeles.
Catholic religious actively supported Justice for Janitors in the 1980s and 1990s.
The description o f the USC janitors' history and their struggle to form a union
provides evidence to support the argument that U.S. labor law fails to give workers
adequate protection for their concerted activity. First o f all. USC outsourced its janitorial
work to save labor costs. Employers, like USC. who cannot move their production
centers to low-wage countries try to cut costs by subcontracting work to other companies
who then have the burden of employee relations. The USC janitors had tried to unionize
six times in the past, using the NLRB election process, and had failed each time. In the
most recent attempt with SEIU Local 399. even though the union offered to present union
membership cards to both USC and the subcontractor for verification of the union's
credentials, both institutions refused a card check. SEIU. therefore, continued its
community campaign to gain union recognition.
The history o f the USC campaign should be read in light of the description o f U.S.
industrial relations and labor law in Chapter 4. and with an appreciation o f the organizing
tactics of the United Farm Workers under Cesar Chavez. Eliseo Medina, an Executive
Vice-President o f SEIU, the most important SEIU official on the West Coast, learned to
organize under Cesar Chavez and Fred Ross. Medina's interview establishes that Justice
for Janitors and its tactics, e.g., the tapping of religious support, make the campaign the
urban equivalent o f the United Farm Workers movement. Mike Garcia. President o f Local
1877, describes in his interview the difficulty of organizing unions today and the need to
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increase community support to achieve victories He feels that individual Catholics are
helpful to the work, but the Catholic hierarchy is not supportive enough.
The case study then turns to a description of taith-based community organizing as
developed by the Industrial Areas Foundation in the 1970s. The IAF was one of the most
successful organizing networks throughout the 1 970s and 1980s when unions were under
attack. In the 1970s a shift had occurred in the IAF leadership’s thinking when nationally
known IAF organizers began to give greater weight to the faith traditions in the
communities and congregations where they organized. The IAF no longer organized
around churches simply because they had people power, they organized around them
because they had deep values. This shift is interesting in light o f Cesar Chavez’s own
appreciation of faith as a factor in LTFW organizing and becomes significant tor organizing
today when so much activity in Los Angeles centers around Catholic Hispanics.’ SEIU
Local 1877 has supported the IAF financially to promote voter registration, but Local
1877 has not tapped into the IAF’s vein of social and spiritual capital to advance basic
labor organizing.
As one reads the case study narrative, one must ask if SEIU Local 1877 or labor in
general knows how to engage faith groups who do not espouse the cultural values of the
moment, particularly with regards to non-economic justice issues: e.g., “personal”
’The L. A. Catholic Archdiocese estimates that 70% o f the Hispanics in its three
county area are Catholic. This means L. A. County’s Hispanic Catholic population is
roughly 2,723,113 people in 1998 or over one-fourth of the county’s population. If 44%
o f the LA. County Hispanic population, as during the 1990 U.S. census, is foreign-born,
then the Catholic/Hispanic/lmmigrant population in L.A. County is roughly 1,198,169
residents.
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morality issues. The interviews given by Father John Seymour, an early Justice for
Janitors supporter, and Kay Deely, a former SEIU organizer, suggest that some labor
organizers see people o f faith as useful to immediate union wins but do not necessarily
understand or accept their positions about the integrity of the total human being. Issues
like marital infidelity, abortion, or gay “marriages” can become areas o f contention if time
is not taken to consider a faith tradition’s perspective. Yet Kay Deely and Eddie Iny, a
SEIU Local 1877 research organizer, believe faith and/or “spirituality” have something to
offer to the work. How the organizers understand the teachings o f the Catholic Church
(and other religious groups) will influence their organizing and its outcomes. Labor
unions might learn from the lAF’s work with congregations. The IAF network is sensitive
to the values of all its affiliated denominations and will not move on issues or endorse
causes which many of the members find problematic. The case study will then end with
the author’s analysis of the present and potential role of the Catholic Church in SEIU
organizing.
Justice for Janitors is one example of the merging of community and labor
organizing in Los Angeles and across the nation in the last 15 years. In the early 1980s,
Steve Lemer and other Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organizers, with
the support of then SEIU Pres. John Sweeney, designed the Justice for Janitors campaign.
They created successful city-wide organizing drives in Denver, Pittsburgh, and San Diego
and in 1987 SEIU national organizers brought their campaign to Los Angeles. During the
1980s Los Angeles highrise landlords, unlike other employers, could not move their
“production” centers to cut labor costs. These owners rented office space to international
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corporations and contracted their buildings’ maintenance to janitorial firms. SEIU Local
399, in the 1980s, had bargaining agreements for the workers of cleaning subcontractors
who maintained nine of the largest downtown LA . office buildings. Per their union
agreements, these union members made as much as $7.00/hr (Baker 1990, B8).
Over time, however, the influx of Central American and Mexican immigrants had
made nonunion cleaning contractors like Century Cleaning and Bradford Maintenance low
price competitors. The number of organized janitors had dropped from close to 100% to
30%, further jeopardizing wages, benefits and union jobs (Banks 1991, 22). The average
SEIU Local 399 member earned $5.80 per hour with health care, sick leave, and paid
vacations while nonunion immigrant janitors sometimes earned the minimum wage o f
$3 .35/hr. with no benefits. The average nonunion janitor wage was $4.00/hr in 1988, the
same year building owners in downtown Los Angeles earned over $500 million in rent
(Mann 1988, M3).
To maintain some control over the price o f labor and prevent the loss o f union jobs
to nonunion workers. Local 399 had no choice but to organize the unorganized. The
campaign had a design that followed the pattern o f many community-wide organizing
drives not unlike those led by the Knights of Labor, the CIO in the 1930s, or the United
Farm Workers. In fact, some of the key national organizers leading the effort, e.g., Jono
Shaffer, started their organizing careers as community organizers. Shaffer had concluded
that community groups point to city hall as the source o f their economic problems, but
these problems normally start with “bad developers, bankers, and corporations” that for
their own ends direct a community’s economic decisions (Banks 1991, 17-18).
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Shaffer’s [view] portrays an emerging vision of union organizing that
represents a dramatic departure from the way most unions have been
organizing workers for the past 40 years. Borrowing from the citywide
structures o f the Knights o f Labor in the 19* century, a new breed o f union
organizers is experimenting with a brand of unionism that may ultimately
recast labor as a community-wide movement which tackles workplace
issues. (Banks 1991, 18)
Banks (1991) has identified six characteristic of the new community-wide
organizing. The starting point is the involvement of community groups that are natural
allies in an effort to improve the well-being o f the community. These are civil rights
groups, ethnic associations, small businesses, student groups, religious congregations,
schools and other similar institutions. The campaign makes contact with the leaders from
these groups to point out the areas o f mutual self-interest in organizing the workplace.
Just as John L. Lewis and Saul Alinsky isolated the enemy, the campaign must identify a
certain employer or employers’ association as the bad guy. "We are the good guys,
employer X is the bad one.” The coalescing o f these allies creates greater power and
fortitude for the workers who are essentially community members just like their
employers.
Secondly, as the campaign progresses, the involvement of community groups,
particularly groups o f faith, becomes essential for swaying public opinion. Once these
people o f conscience have embraced the unions campaign, it becomes their campaign as
well. The community groups are asked to make personal and financial sacrifices to
achieve a win, and they take up the fight with missionary zeal. Victory is a moral
imperative. If ministers, nuns, rabbi’s and other religious leaders support the campaign,
how can workers and their allies be wrong about the employer? But it is not enough to
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say the campaign has the moral high ground. Community organizers, particularly those
trained in the Alinsky-style of organizing, draw out the enemy from his lair to heighten the
tension and make the conflict clear to the public. The labor/community organizer o f the
1990s follows this path by organizing marches, employing nonviolent civil disobedience,
and starting boycotts— all tactics practiced by the Civil Rights Movement and the United
Farm Workers. “Tactics start out mild and escalate in intensity as the campaign gains
strength. This strategy appeals to the supporters' imagination, and it throws opponents
off balance, constantly worrying them about what will happen next" (Banks 1991, 20).
To reach a point o f creative tension that leads to change, the community unionists
normally need to have both union and nonunion workers heavily involved in the campaign.
This third characteristic o f community campaigns builds worker solidarity because union
workers organize their nonunion counterparts (Banks 1991, 19). They discover common
immigrant status, ethnicity, faith, and personal histories. The mutual organizing raises up
new leadership within the union, and members take a more active part in building a strong
union. Members begin to see the union as a vehicle to create personal power through
organized power and not as an institution whose purpose is to serve its members. If a
worker comes into the union through a community organizing campaign, the worker
should see herself as a stakeholder in the institution. When workers are leading the effort
or are active followers, students, clergy, politicians, and local organizations are more
willing to take part.
The fourth characteristic is the resolve to bypass the normal NLRB election
apparatus unless it serves the campaign; e.g., the tactical filing of unfair labor practice
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charges. As discussed in Chapter 6, management has dominated the Board’s election
procedures to such a degree that the percentage o f organized private sector employees is
now close to 10%. No other industrialized country in the free world has such a low
percentage o f its private sector workforce in unions. Power only understands power.
Unless the “bad” employer feels that the community organizing will hurt the company’s
business or institution, the employer will not take the workers, union, and community
seriously. If the unfriendly employer clearly discriminates against the workers for their
union activity, the campaign’s best strategy is calling for unilateral recognition by the
employer (Banks 1991, 19). Prior to the Wagner Act, workers in the U.S. only gained
union recognition by employer capitulation and this was true for California’s agriculture
workers up until the passage o f the ALRA in 1975. Today a union’s refusal to petition for
a government supervised election frustrates recalcitrant employers and their attorney’s
because employers prefer deferring to the NLRJB and waging anti-union campaigns or
fighting the union in the courts.
The fifth characteristic of community unionism is investment in long-term
organizing. Since the passage of the NLRA in the 1930s, unions have fallen into a rote
form of organizing, selecting only clear cut organizing opportunities and moving from job
site to job site. Like businesses, union administrators want to see a return on their
investment in organizing and, therefore, look for short-term results rather than preparing
the groundwork for greater success. The new campaigns ordinarily require financial and
human resources from the international to help a local develop the mix o f membership,
community, and political support to succeed. Campaigns occur over years (commonly
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248
four to five years) rather than months. While a campaign may start with international
union assistance, the local organizers (paid and volunteer) begin to generate their own
funding and perfect their skills to claim ownership of the work (Banks 1991, 20). If the
effort comes at some cost to the participants, they will protect their gains. This principle
is the “iron rule” taught by the Industrial Areas Foundation at its national training: “Never
do anything for another that he or she can do for himself or herself.” Winning the
campaign is in the self-interest o f every person involved. The campaign’s community
backers have to make a similar investment or they do not identify with the workers over
the long-run. They, too, need to make personal and financial sacrifices.
The sixth characteristic o f the community campaign is solidarity across unions.
The community unionists attempt to strengthen relationships with other local unions to
secure endorsements and animate sympathizers (Banks 1991, 20). Although quid pro quo
relationships happen in the beginning, over time the sharing o f stories and strategies
hopefully build ongoing ties across unions. In 1997 the AFL-CIO initiated a “Union
Cities” campaign to encourage internal contact between unions in central labor councils
and joint contact with external community sponsors. The LAMAP multi-union campaign
attempted to go one step beyond active mutual support to joint organizing, but the project
was too much and too soon in this period o f reorganizing within the AFL-CIO.
Nevertheless, the labor movement has reached a new low in its history that demands
greater solidarity among unions.
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Father Luis Olivares was an early Roman Catholic supporter o f the Justice for
Janitors campaign in Los Angeles and the immigrants welcomed his presence. When
asked if the janitors could organize themselves, Oscar Mejia, a janitor, responded:
I'm sure o f it. In El Salvador when I was in the unions, the death squads
killed most o f our organizers and even Archbishop Romero. Here we have
Father Olivares [pastor of “La Placita,” the Catholic church at Olvera
Street] and political leaders on our side and at least we have the right to
speak. We are unified and our victory is just a matter o f time. (Mann
1988. M3)
Father Pedro Villarroya and Sister Diane Donoghue have accompanied the Justice
for Janitors effort into the 1990s by attending marches, press conferences, and planning
events with the janitors and union organizers (William 1995, Bl). From 1988 to 1990 the
campaign leaders met with workers, unions, politicians and community groups. Mayor
Bradley endorsed their activity, and the L. A. city council passed a resolution of support
(Mann 1988, M3 )
The paid SEIU organizers established a strong shop steward council in the
downtown area to begin to collect data and share information on the threat o f nonunion
janitorial firms. Union members were going to lose wages, benefits, and perhaps jobs.
Through this education and leadership training, they underscored the importance o f
systematically contacting the janitors working for nonunion contractors. Once the union
members became more conscious of the crisis, they became organizers of the unorganized
(Banks 1991, 22). Then SEIU Pres. John Sweeney and the AFL-CIO President Lane
Kirkland also helped bring media attention to the janitors’ plight by joining them in rallies
at Pershing Square in the heart of the city (California AFL-CIO News 1989, 1).
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The union janitors, professional labor organizers, and community volunteers began
to make house visits with nonunion janitors or meet with them at work. The one-on-one
visits allowed the workers to tell their stories and share the difficulties o f their present
jobs. The organizers kept data on wage and hour violations or unsafe working conditions.
They used this information to educate the nonunion workers about their employment
rights and to inform the public of employer abuses in the janitorial industry; e.g., working
overtime without pay (Ybarra 1988, 4). When workers were willing and violations were
flagrant, the Justice for Janitors staff helped them plan work stoppages. Managers and
supervisors faced groups of prepared workers who had often signed union authorization
cards. If the employers reacted with firings or other discriminatory acts for union activity.
Local 399 filed charges with the NLRB, CAL-OSHA, and the Labor Department, while
the workers walked off their jobs, striking against unfair labor practices. Employers,
particularly uninformed, cost-conscious employers, became frustrated with the legal
process and attorney fees.
While the union’s attorneys pressured them on the legal front, the janitors and their
supporters held noisy demonstrations disrupting the solemn building lobbies and pricking
the consciences of corporate tenants. Sit-ins, Ieafleting and raucous marches (by workers
and community supporters) raised the level o f tension and conflict until public pressure
forced the nonunion employer to recognize the union. In December 1989, Jono Shaffer,
dressed as Santa Claus, visited Century City office buildings and gave pairs of rubber
gloves to lobby receptionists because the nonunion maintenance contractors had refused
to supply gloves to their employees (Baker 1989, B2). Justice for Janitors also had a
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sister, self-financed community organization called Friends of Justice for Janitors which
helped assemble cadres of community leaders to meet with contractors and building
managers (Banks 1991,23).
By 1989 the campaign had spread to the Century City offices buildings. The
struggle to organize these workers led to the violent confrontation between janitors and
Los Angeles Police Officers on June 15, 1990. One hundred janitors began an unfair labor
practice strike against their employer International Service Systems (ISS), a Denmark
based, building maintenance company on May 30. These janitors, with a court order
permitting a demonstration in the public space o f a Century City skyscraper, marched with
300 supporters along Olympic Blvd (California AFL-CIO News 1990, I ). The police,
after hearing reports that the janitors would dump plastic bags of trash at the building’s
entrance and stop traffic, blocked the marchers and ordered them to turn around. Having
their permit, the marchers held their ground. "That triggered a standoff that ended with
police clubbing and shoving the crowd back toward the [Beverly Hills] park" (Baker
1990, B I). The Los Angeles evening news broadcasted scenes of marchers being
repeatedly beaten by police as they tried to stand up and retreat (California AFL-CIO
News. 1990, I). The police arrested 40 marchers, 16 people required medical attention,
and one woman janitor miscarried as a result o f her beating.
Public outrage was immediate. Mayor Tom Bradley throughout his political career
had the support of organized labor, and Jim Wood, the assistant executive secretary of the
Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, was one of the march leaders. He was also the
head of the Community Redevelopment Agency as a Mayor Bradley appointee. SEIU
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Pres. John Sweeney called for a full investigation into the melee and flew to Los Angeles
to participate in a second march one week later The janitors at the time of their strike
made $4.50/hr without benefits while downtown union janitors made $5 80/hr with
benefits (AFL-CIO News 1990. 2). The media attention brought greater public awareness
o f the janitor's cause and the threat o f a sympathy walkout of organized ISS janitors in
New York. Ten days after the confrontation and after negotiations in New York and
Chicago. ISS agreed to recognize Local 399 as the janitors' collective bargaining
representative. The agreement immediately raised the janitors' pay 10% to 15% and
included ISS’s formerly nonunion janitors in the downtown area (Baker 1990, BIO). The
Justice for Janitors campaign had successfully organized 90% o f the building service
industry in downtown L A. and Century City (Banks 1991. 24) Mayor Bradley also
called for a police commission investigation into the June 15. 1990 clash. The commission
found that police officers were "overzealous" in chasing down the marchers and that the
union members "were less than forthcoming" in their plans (Serrano 1990, B 1). In 1993
the Los Angeles city council agreed to a $2.3 million out o f court settlement to the union
for the L A. Police Department actions.
In February 1996. at the request o f the employees. Local 399 met with disgruntled
University o f Southern California janitors to listen to their employment complaints. USC
had announced an agreement to subcontract its custodial work starting March 1 to
ServiceMaster, a national building maintenance firm that had other contracts with the
University. The janitors met with Local 399 representatives because they feared layoffs
and the loss o f benefits. One week after their first meeting, using a Justice for Janitors’
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community unionism method, 130 protestors dressed in red Justice for Janitors t-shirts and
carrying picket signs, circled the university and stopped at Bovard Hall asking to meet
with USC President Steven Sample. Uriel Manzo. a USC janitor, stated. ' The custodians
main concern is their job security and the fear that they will lose their benefits” he also
added, “for 30 years o f work, you get $9,000 [in annua] wages]0" President Sample was
unavailable, but Maurice Hollman. executive director of Operations and Maintenance,
later said that USC janitors interviewing with ServiceMaster and meeting their
employment criteria would be retained in addition to receiving USC severance benefits
Many o f the protestors were Local 399 members from other areas o f Los Angeles
attempting to maintain industry standards that they had already won (Ung 1996. 1-2)
USC transferred its janitorial work to ServiceMaster on March 1 and union
supporters in the custodial department continued their organizing efforts with Local 399
The janitors had tried to organize before, at least once with the Teamsters, but each
attempt had failed when the union used the customary NLRB election/certification process
(Stallworth Interview 1997). In April the janitors and the union intensified their demand
for union recognition although USC was no longer legally the employer, by this time
ServiceMaster had cut back pension benefits, health care benefits, and most importantly
for many o f the workers, eliminated the 15 years o f service tuition-remission plan for
janitors and their families. On April 13 Local 399 and Hotel Employees and Restaurant
Employees Local 11. then engaged in contract negotiations with USC. held a joint
demonstration on the USC campus during President Sample’s “University Day " speech to
students, their families, and alumni. The janitors and food service workers stood up. held
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signs, and started to chant during Sample’s speech. The chanting became too loud for him
to continue, and he told the USC marching band to play the SC fight song (Candaele
1996, 18). After the demonstration, USC campus security told the demonstrators to stay
off the campus. When Gary “Strawberry” Stallworth, a twelve year USC janitor and a
Local 399 supporter, walked back on the campus, the USC police arrested him.
ServiceMaster fired Stallworth the following week.
Our plan was just to demonstrate. To let the parents know how the
University was treating the custodians. When you get hired, they say you
are part of the [USC] family. Are we all family? We worked around the
University. If you are staff, university students, or alumni, it is like a
“family affair.” So our intent was to let the parents and the students know
what USC had done to the custodial department. (Stallworth Interview
1997)
Stallworth also recalls that with earlier organizing attempts, the managers made a
point of visiting the workers on the job when they heard talk of a union.
Before the union was brought up it was hard to get an appointment with
[the managers] but when [the workers] were talking about the unions, they
were there, smiling, shaking hands, bringing you coffee and donuts, like
that was going to solve the problem. So apparently every time the union
was around, they would make up promises, and then when they [the union
organizers] would leave, you would not see put into motion any o f the
stuff... And if it were put into motion, it was temporary and then it would
in time vanish. (Stallworth Interview 1997)
After the “University Day” demonstration USC went to court and obtained a
restraining order against Local 399 and Local 11 barring any further disruptive
demonstrations by the unions on campus (Candaele 1996, 18). The court order permitted
limited numbers of union supporters to meet on campus, but they had to limit protests and
leafleting to no more than 20 people outside of the university’s gates. This created a free
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speech controversy on campus when the university used the restraining order to stop (JSC
students from holding support events for the janitors (Trendowski 1997, 6).
Justice for Janitors organizers and (JSC workers continued to intensify their
protests but staged them across the street from the campus. Protests also continued at
(JSC Norris/Cancer Research Center in East Los Angeles where 30 former USC janitors
had also become ServiceMaster employees. Local 399 by May 1996, had filed numerous
unfair labor practice charges against ServiceMaster for discharging 17 workers since the
March 1 subcontracting start date. Los Angeles police officers arrested Justice for
Janitors supporters in May when the protestors blocked a street off campus during the
Spring 1996 graduation ceremonies. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge subsequently
extended the restraining order against the union. The USC janitors supporting the
organizing then voted to engage in a short “surprise” strike to protest the firings (La
Opinion 1996, 1A).
In October 1996 the janitors and their supporters held a rally for their campaign at
St. Vincent’s Catholic Church. Father Pedro Villarroya secured the church hall for the
janitors and the site became a starting point for future marches. Sister Diane Dongohue, a
St. Vincent’s Church leader, had also become more involved in the dispute. She became a
supporter because area residents worked as USC janitors, including one who worked part-
time for her Esperanza Housing Head Start program.
How d id you become involved with Justice f o r Janitors at USC?
It absolutely came home to roost on us. First of all because we
have a lot o f contacts with USC. They gave us $25,000 for the child care
center downstairs. We have members o f the faculty who are on our board.
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We have had numerous back and forth relationships with the university as
well as concerns about their outsourcing because again people in this
neighborhood work at USC with the understanding that they have health
benefits, that they had a career ladder in terms o f promotions, and most
important that there was tuition remission. It meant a big deal. When the
outsourcing happened with ServiceMaster, the contractor who took over
the janitorial work, all those things went. And we have people in the
neighborhood who have lived here for many years and it was a real loss.
The janitor that was hired by Head Start downstairs and the Head Start
over at Via Esperanza worked four hours in each place and he had a full
time job at USC with benefits. That job went. When that job went he hit
the ceiling because he lost his job, he lost his benefits, he was on a long list
o f hires [.vie] to be considered [for rehire]. (Donoghue Interview 1997)
At the St. Vincent community support meeting, Julia Lopez, a USC/Norris janitor
and a member o f a base community at St. Raphael’s Catholic Church, called the [USC]
Trojan family' motto a lie. She had worked at USC/Norris for 16 years and 7 o f those
years as a ServiceMaster employee. She was earning a “little under $6.00 per hour."
Other speakers included city council member Jackie Goldberg and Cynthia Cranford, a
leader o f the Janitors’ Student Support Committee at USC (Santos 1996, 1).
Throughout the campaign, SEIU Local 399 organizers, supporters, and members
visited ServiceMaster workers at home and on the job to learn the workers’ views and
teach them how to organize others. Joah Lee, a SEIU organizer, explains.
My position title is organizer... I am one o f the people who
communicates with the workers and that is communication in terms of
specific things like when we are going to have a big march. But also as
organizers we play the role o f listener. With communication we find out
what is going on. Our primary role is really to make relationships with the
workers and to agitate them... help them, encourage them, the people, to
be leaders and to really take a stance (Lee Interview 1996).
On October 24, 1996, 150 Justice tor Janitor supporters and USC janitors marched
once again outside the campus demanding better wages and benefits and publicizing the
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unfair labor practice charges the union had filed against ServiceMaster. Students from the
Support Committee, a Catholic priest, Esperanza Housing staff and members o f the Bus
Riders Union joined the march (Santos 1996, I).
Just before Christmas vacation, 100 o f the USC janitors struck for 24 hours. The
Los Angeles Times and La Opinion. Los Angeles's daily Spanish language paper,
published extensive articles describing the dispute and photographs showing Los Angeles
police officers arresting eight protestors for blocking traffic on Jefferson Blvd. State
Senator Tom Hayden had accompanied the marchers (de la Cruz 1996, B 1) The Los
Angeles Times quoted janitors as fearful of losing their jobs for supporting the union and
upset that ServiceMaster had targeted union supporters with additional work. Henry
Lacher, ServiceMaster's manager at USC, acknowledged the employees right to union
representation but added that no one had approached him to discuss an NLRB election
(Chuang 1996, B3). Petitions for NLRB elections often lead to recognition delays and
aggressive anti-union campaigns, making it hard to maintain worker solidarity.
When the Spring Semester in 1997 resumed so did the Justice for Janitors actions.
Local 399 advertised a January 30 community meeting just off the USC campus. The
meeting brought together about 30 community members to discuss the campaign and its
escalation. In mid- February the AFL-CIO Executive Committee would hold its annual
meeting in Los Angeles and union leaders from around the nation were coming to L. A.
On February 18, 1997 the week of the national convention, USC janitors walked off their
jobs. While SEIU claimed 80% of the janitors struck, ServiceMaster put the figure at
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30% and contended that some of them janitors returned home because o f threats from
union supporters (de la Cruz 1997. 21).
On February 20 three hundred marchers and strikers led by SEIU President Andy
Stem and national vice-president Eliseo Medina protested the harassment o f union
supporters by ServiceMaster. At the com er o f Hoover and Jefferson the marchers
blocked the street. Eliseo Medina and a dozen organizers and students sat down in the
street as the police ordered the marchers to disperse. State Senator Tom Hayden and
Andy Stem began to speak, but march marshals guided them away as the police pushed
forward. The police then arrested the sit-down protesters, loaded them onto a USC bus,
and jailed them for “remaining at the place o f a riot.” The presence o f the nation’s union
leaders in Los Angeles, the march, and arrests bolstered the strikers who stayed off their
jobs for five days. Julia Lopez, a USC janitor and Local 399 supporter, and other
immigrant workers had met earlier in the week with Vice-President AI Gore to share their
stories about the organizing obstacles workers faced in the United States (de la Cruz
1997, Bl).
During the week, both the USC Office o f Business Affairs and supporters of the
janitors purchased full-page advertisements in the Daily Troian. The Office of Business
responded to statements made by the union about poverty wages and employer
intimidation. The Office called these assertions fiction and countered that SEIU had
denied the employees an NLRB election.
A regular NLRB procedure exists for setting and holding an election to let
workers themselves determine, by a secret ballot, what union, if any, they
want to represent them... But Local 399 has still not asked the NLRB to
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259
hold the election which would legitimate their claim to represent janitors
working at USC. (Daily Troian 20 February 1997, 7)
The SEIU Local 399 supporters wrote an open letter to President Steven Sample.
The letter concluded:
As a university that extols its “Commitment to Community," USC must
recognize that their employment practices have a direct impact on
neighborhoods adjacent to the university. Poverty jobs mean poverty in the
community. USC must ensure janitors and other campus service workers
receive livable wages, decent benefits, and that everyone’s rights as
workers are protected. The best way to guarantee these standards is
through a union contract. (Daily Troian 20 February 1997, 5)
Thirty area religious and community leaders signed the letter including one rabbi, a
Methodist minister, a Lutheran pastor, an Episcopalian priest, a United University church
minister, and five Roman Catholic church leaders. The Roman Catholics were Sister
Diane Donoghue (Esperanza Community Housing), Father Greg Boyle (Mission Dolores),
Father William Delaney (St. Agnes Church pastor). Father George Stevens (St. Vincent’s
Church pastor), and Eric Debode (Los Angeles Catholic Worker leader). Later in the
week, the janitors and their supporters held a candle light vigil at St. Mark’s Lutheran
Church where Pastor Brian Ecklund had offered coffee, donuts, and spiritual support
during the walkout. Saturday February 22 Justice for Janitors demonstrators marched
once again at USC/Norris Center. The strike ended on Monday February 24 with yet
another rally outside the USC campus.
SEIU Local 399 was sticking to the campaign formula o f Justice for Janitors by
avoiding the NLRB unless the law served the union’s purposes and by increasing public
pressure on both USC and ServiceMaster. In March 1997 the union and janitors (130 of
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260
them) then called for a community-based election because they felt the university and
ServiceMaster had not acknowledged the one week strike as a sign o f union support.
SEIU Local 399 told the janitors’ supporters that NLRB elections are easily tainted and
often stalled by employer tactics. The union asked community leaders, clergy men and
women, and USC faculty members to monitor the polling places. Father Bill Delaney, an
IAF leader, from St. Agnes Church and Father Bill Messenger, the USC Newman Center
pastor, monitored polling places. The USC Student Support Committee circulated a
petition asking ServiceMaster and USC to respect the results and community groups made
calls to ServiceMaster and USC asking for their cooperation. On March 17 and March 18
ServiceMaster employees voted in the community sponsored election on the USC campus.
Again the Los Angeles Times. La Opinion, and the Daily Troian reported the election
results.
Council members Jackie Goldberg, Mike Hernandez, and Richard Alatorre and
State Senator Tom Hayden participated in the vote count and announcement on the steps
of Los Angeles’ City Hall. One hundred and thirty two janitors voted for the union, five
against, two ballots were ruled invalid and thirty-four janitors abstained (Ung 1997, 1).
ServiceMaster’s USC manager, Henry Lacher. called the vote a farce because the election
was not NLRB conducted and certified. USC janitor Manuel Rocha commented:
We have voted by our own will and 34 did not want to. Before we
tried to unionize ourselves when we still worked directly for the university
and they intimidated us and we lost. How are we going to accept the labor
board [NLRB] when we have had a bad experience with it? (de la Cruz
1997, 3B)
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In a Daily Troian full-page advertisement, Vice-President Tom Moran continued to
call for a NLRB election (Daily Troian 19 March 1997, 3).
Local 399, which had now merged with Local 1877, kept up the pressure for
unilateral recognition of the union. On April I, 1997, Local 1877 organized a press
conference for Tom Hayden and Dolores Huerta across the street from USC They
protested the University's commissioning of a Cesar Chavez memorial for the campus
while permitting the mistreatment of university workers. Huerta commented that instead
of commissioning statues, the university should respect the janitors’ desire for union
representation.
Three days later Local 1877 President Mike Garcia offered to drop the union’s
demand for recognition by a simple union authorization card check and instead petition for
a NLRB election. Garcia’s letter to ServiceMaster and USC had qualifications: 1) the
bargaining unit included both the main campus and USC/Norris; 2) an election would be
held no more than 3 weeks from the petition filing; 3) prior to the election the parties
would agree not to engage in unlawful retaliation against employees supporting Local
1877; 4) the union would not be denied reasonable access to ServiceMaster employees on
the campus; 5) neither party would file objections to the election; and 6) if the union were
to win, contract negotiations would begin within two weeks of the election and if the
union lost, SEIU 1877 would cease organizing the janitors (Garcia 1997). Mike Garcia
and the janitors who supported the union believed that they could win a NLRB election
even if ServiceMaster had three weeks to wage an anti-union campaign.
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ServiceMaster and Local 1877 agreed to the expedited election. ServiceMaster
brought in labor relations consultants to present the company’s preference for a nonunion
environment.
Service Master responded with a series of mandatory employee meetings,
ranging from 20 to 45 minutes, twice a week. According to Alberto
Chavez [a USC janitor], managers would raffle off $100 bills and days off
at full pay, then warn the janitors that the union would take money their
families needed and call strikes o f days, months, and sometimes years.
(Lee 1997, LA Weekly)
Local 1877 organizers and USC janitors stepped up their house and job site visits
to maintain the union adherents’ spirits, to gain the support of doubters, and to negate the
affect o f nay sayers. On May 23, 1997, in a NLRB conducted election, the USC campus
janitors voted 107 to 79 for union representation, and the USC/Norris janitors voted 16 to
1 1 in favor. In the previous ten years the janitors had voted in six NLRB elections and
each time the union lost. During the campaign ServiceMaster had discharged 19 workers
including 12 publicly identified union activists. The NLRB, however, found no labor
violations (Lee 1997, LA Weekly). The USC janitors’ bargaining committee and Local
1877 met with ServiceMaster for another seven months before reaching a contract
agreement in January 1998. The workers and their supporters had to stage one more
march during the negotiation period to demonstrate their resolve. As discussed in Chapter
4, many employers will simply prolong the bargaining for a year until workers who dislike
the union can file a decertification petition with the NLRB. ServiceMaster and USC
realized that Justice for Janitors was not going to go away. The janitors gained union
recognition, job security, wage increases, and health benefits among other rights and
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benefits. ServiceMaster obtained a management rights clause and won a no strike/no
lockout provision that frees the company and USC from any more embarrassing marches
for justice.
Justice for Janitors. SEIU Local 1877 and the Catholic Church
The Justice for Janitors Campaign and locals like SEIU 1877 are organizing
around the community, and religion plays a role in this work. Eliseo Medina, International
Vice-President of SEIU and the leader o f SEIU on the West Coast, came to California
from Zacatecas, Mexico with his family in the 1950s. His father had worked in the San
Joaquin Valley fields prior to the family moving north. They settled in Delano. California
where Eliseo went to school from the fourth to eighth grade. Like the rest o f his family,
he started picking grapes, peas, peaches and other crops when he ended his formal
education. When the Delano grape strike started, he was a 19 year old picket captain.
The union then assigned him to the DiGiorgio Fruit Corporation campaign, and he came
under the tutelage of Fred Ross.
Fred Ross, Sr., who had worked for the Industrial Areas
Foundation and had trained Cesar, was brought in. and he was going to be
our director of organizing. So I was placed under Fred’s team, and that
was working with him. day in and day out, and going through his program.
It’s how I learned about the basics o f organizing. And so both by doing
and being under his direction, it was the best organizing school that
anybody could have ever had. (Medina Interview 1997)
You learned about house m eetings?
The house meetings, the card files, making sure that when you
called somebody and made an appointment that you followed up to see
they were there, and once you go to the house meeting, making sure you
knew what to say and how to answer questions and then making sure you
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264
never left the house before making your pitch and getting a commitment
from that worker to participate in whatever the issue was.
When we went and visited somebody, we had a little 3x5 card with
the name of the person we were visiting and the address. Every person that
went then made a notation at the end o f the day of what happened. So if I
went to visit that other person, I could see the whole history o f what that
person had said, who had seen them, and so forth.
Our card file must have been about a thousand people. One person
was in charge full-time o f handing out the assignments and getting them
back and making sure they were filled out correctly. And the goal was that
every night there would be less and less unknowns, that at some point
everybody was going to be in some kind o f category about where they
stood. (Medina Interview 1997)
Medina also learned about power analysis by working in the UFW He says that
no one had to show him that he and other farm workers were powerless. He remembers
being stopped as a child with his family and having the border patrol shine flashlights in
their faces and checking for papers. He recalls how growers intimidated farm workers or
simply fired them because they asked for more money. “We knew about powerlessness.
What we didn’t know about was power ” Prior to the farm workers strike, the Anglos
worked as tractor drivers, Filipinos were packers, and Mexicans picked the grapes. When
they started walking the picket line together and talking to each other, they realized they
were all powerless (Medina Interview 1997).
When the organizing took hold, the farm workers “began to see fear in the faces
o f the growers.”
They threw us in jail. I had never been in jail in my life, but they did
it when I was up and talking to other workers about walking out on a
strike. And it began to dawn on me that the reason they did it was because
they were afraid. They were afraid that we were going to have an impact,
and they didn’t know how to handle it except to try and scare us. So
where others might have been afraid, for me it was a revelation that here
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we really did have power and that if we just stuck together we could make
some differences. (Medina Interview 1997)
Medina adds that he also learned that power is sometimes relative. The growers
had power in their own communities, but they had less power the further the fight moved
from their locale. “The boycott was a clear example of a power relationship and power
dynamics.’ ' People in Chicago. Detroit. New York, and San Francisco began to take up
the farm worker struggle, and they neutralized the power of the millionaire growers
"That clearly gave me an understanding of what power is and that power is a good thing,
used for a good purpose to do things that people need and to make things right” (Medina
Interview 1997).
D id p eople like F red Ross and C esar ('haver make sure that
p eo p le understood pow er could he good'*
Oh. absolutely. And then it was done in such a way that we taught
more by example and doing than by being preached at. You had not only
people like Fred Ross and Dolores and Cesar, who I think are some of the
best teachers I’ve ever had in my life— I wish there were more of them and
they were around today to teach a whole new generation. Some o f us do
the best we can. but people like them are just natural bom teachers. But
also, there were a whole lot o f people from churches that brought in a
different dimension, which is a moral power.
For one thing, it made us believe that we were on the right side of
things, that what we were asking was right and fair And so it gave us the
courage to continue to go on because the church reaffirmed that what we
were doing was fair and just. It gave us courage, but it also validated for
the community at large that what this was. was a social issue, not just some
greedy workers wanting a nickel more or a dollar more or wanting to drive
fancier cars. But in fact, it was a moral issue that everyone had an
obligation to look at and to support because o f that. (Medina Interview-
1997)
C an you talk about the influence o f Catholic social teaching caul
the p o w e r d erived fro m it ?
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It’s so funny because as Mexicans, we don’t have a history o f
nonviolence, unlike Gandhi and India. So it wasn’t necessarily a concept
that we were familiar with. But when you look at it, in this society people
think that you have only a couple of ways of dealing with conflict. You
fight it out physically— guns, knives, teeth, whatever— and the last one
standing wins. And it’s sort of like an escalation of a dispute.
But one of the things that we found is that we change the rules of
the game completely with the whole question o f nonviolence that Cesar
brought. It was hard, but it really did change the rules. The growers only
knew one rule, one way to fight— intimidate, fire... But when faced with a
whole group of people who refused to fight, they didn’t know what to do.
They were frustrated, particularly, that we asserted that what we were
doing was a moral issue, moral cause, and we were not going to be baited
into a situation o f reacting in kind with violence.
Basically, [Chavez] said that fundamentally there is an inherent
goodness in the American people that if you go to them and if you explain
what it is you are doing and why, they respond. And in fact, they did— by
the millions.
We became so aware o f the [Catholic social encyclicals] in the farm
workers union because that is when we had priests come in: Father Gene
Boyle, Monsignor George Higgins, Father Donald McDonnell. We had a
lot of people that came through that were just wonderful in terms of being
able to talk to us about what the Church says about the worth o f our
workers. And I think that that basically said to us, yeah, that’s right, those
are the values that we share, and those are the values that we ought to
espouse in our personal lives and in our work lives.
I think the role of the Church is a critical role. Most of the farm
worker marches were always led by the Virgin of Guadalupe. The people
felt more full of hope and courage under those conditions than ever before.
(Medina Interview 1997)
Medina believes that the farm workers’ movement has influenced some of the best
community and labor organizers in the United States today.
So it changed a lot of people, but you also have to look at what
happened to the rest of society. You look throughout this country and
there are disciples of Cesar Chavez and Fred Ross and Dolores Huerta,
working in the churches and community organizations and unions and
politics — everywhere. And everywhere people are making a contribution
and basically carry somewhat o f the same values and beliefs that we learned
in those early days with the Farm Workers Union.
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And I think that in return, these same people have also trained
hundreds, if not thousands, of other organizers. So the legacy of Cesar
Chavez goes way beyond what it did for the farm workers. I think that it
also contributed and has gone on to the community at large.
The SEIU Justice for Janitors Campaign, it’s the farm workers
movement all over again. It’s boycotts. It’s civil disobedience. It’s
creative tactics. It’s organizational jujitsu, if you will. And it’s a
movement of immigrants, o f poor people. It’s the farm workers all over
again, except these are urban farm workers now. (Medina Interview 1997)
He also sees a clear link between labor organizing, community organizing, and
churches in Los Angeles today.
The Justice for Janitors campaign in L A. has been our largest
organizing effort and one o f the most successful. I think for many years
people said that farm workers, immigrant workers, were an exception.
“You can't organize immigrant workers. They’re too poor, they’re too
downtrodden. They can’t organize.” So I think that this campaign. Justice
for Janitors, began using the same strategies and same tactics of the farm
workers.
But also, it had another trademark, which was tenacity. The farm
workers boycott took about five years to be won. This campaign in Los
Angeles took just as long to win. And it also took the police riot on
Wilshire in order to bring it to the attention o f the greater community who
then rallied to the side o f the workers because they were also being
nonviolent. They were being subjected to the same kind of violent
response that the growers used against the farm workers.
And I think the success of it shows that immigrant workers not only
are able to be organized but they want to be organized, and they’re willing
to make the sacrifices to make that possible. And I think that’s been shown
throughout the country. It happened in San Diego, Pittsburgh, in
Washington where we’re bringing to a successful conclusion a ten-year
campaign to organize the janitors there. And if you look at all of them,
they have a lot of the same trademarks.
But also, as we have discussed earlier, in every one of those
campaigns we’ve counted on the support of the religious community,
which has been very outspoken in terms of supporting the right of the
janitors to organize and being able to be out there on the line and in some
cases being arrested with us and doing whatever it takes to help the
campaign.
We also had the support o f the political community and community
organizations. And so w e’re building those kinds o f ties in not only
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2 6 8
working people but also, for example, here in L A. we're working to
establish a relationship with the IAF and their citizenship program because
we have a situation like Proposition 187 [an anti-immigrant proposition]
that clearly impacts the Spanish-speaking community, the immigrant
community.
And whether we’re labor, whether we’re churches, or whether
we’re community organizations, it’s our constituency and people that are
being impacted. So we’re building those kinds of relationships that I think
[we] are going to see much stronger organizing in the future. I think that
in the next four or five years, you're going to see an even stronger
organizing effort throughout this country. (Medina Interview 1997)
Mike Garcia, President of Local 1877 grew up in East Los Angeles and the San
Fernando Valley. His family was working class, and although his father and most o f his
uncles belonged to unions, he only realized later, as a worker and college student, the
importance unions played in his life. The labor movement was a significant part o f his
family’s upward mobility. In the early 1970s. he became involved in the Chicano
movement at Cal State Northridge and learned Chicano activism with Prof. Rudy Acuna.
At the same time he worked with youth around gang and drug problems. Through his
activism and organizing work, SEIU offered him an organizing job in San Jose, California.
While working for the union in northern California he graduated from San Jose State
University
I would say that I believe in the labor movement as a method of improving
the social conditions o f our society. A family, a network, a society, [the
labor movement] impacts the economic conditions o f all o f those. The
individual, family, and society are much better with unions. (Garcia
Interview September 1997)
When Garcia arrived in San Jose he received a little training from the international
and learned by watching other organizers. All the organizing at that time revolved around
NLRJB procedures. He quickly discovered the difficulty o f organizing within the NLRB
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process after an employer fired 12 janitors the day after they signed union cards. He
encouraged the janitors to go with him to the NLRB to file unfair labor practice charges,
but they refused because some o f them did not have working papers. “So that was my
first realization that I am playing with a pretty stacked deck here, and the consequences
are pretty great. That affected me a lot. All I did was get a dozen guys fired” (Garcia
Interview September 1997).
Garcia did win a few small NLRB elections over the next few years, and the union
was able to fight off some of the nonunion janitorial companies, but he and SEIU
organizers realized they had to find other means to organize workers.
. . . I began to experiment with other ways to attack the situation. Like
when a nonunion company would take over a formerly union contract. We
would picket and get the members to picket, but I would start bringing in
community people because I was into the community organizing angle. I
realized from the beginning that after my first set of loses with the Board
that it wasn’t going to work as long as they lock you into that process or
you allow yourself to be locked into that process. It’s a losing scenario.
Workers, they pretty much have to be made out of rock to survive. Yeah.
I won a few. I won my share, but I realized that wasn’t the way to go. I
got upset with the intimidation and the bribery that would go on and the
difficulty and confusion, the lies and deceit that the employer could spread.
It was just their arena. The work site is their arena. They control the
worker. They sign your check. The boss calls you in and tells you he
doesn't want a union day after day after day. It’s going to have an affect
on you, right? So it’s not a really free exercise of your free will.
I started making community organizing my own. I would bring in
community organizations— Filipino organizations. Latino organizations,
church groups. I would invite them to come down to picket the electronics
facilities where our janitors were doing the cleaning. And I noticed the big
effect it had on the electronics companies. They hated it. They hated the
exposure. (Garcia Interview September 1997)
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Garcia later moved to San Diego to work in the SEIU local then headed by Eliseo
Medina, and he met Steve Lemer, an SEIU organizer, and presently the head of the
Building Services Department of the International.
And then that’s when Steven Lemer comes into the organization. I
remember when he came to San Diego. He was talking about trying to
develop a model o f organizing janitors. And he had conceptualized the
community component, the legal component, the corporate campaign
against client companies... legal strategy, it all made sense to me. We
started brainstorming, and wow! That’s how you do it And he was totally
against the Board. And he would say that the labor movement wasn’t built
on Board elections; the labor movement was built on power. (Garcia
Interview September 1997)
Garcia watched Lemer develop his model in Denver and used his methods.
I followed very closely what [Lemer] was doing over there and basically,
the organizing model of course is organizing the workers but not to vote in
an election. We sign them up on the cards we try to get the employer to
agree to a card check and then you just build a pressure campaign strategy,
starting at the top, you know, with client companies, who always, like
USC, are trying to wash their hands o f it, right?
What USC did is very typical o f client companies. They’re the
largest, mightiest, wealthiest, most powerful companies in the world where
janitors clean— the facilities that they clean— the USCs of the world, IBM.
HP. PacBell, etc. They always try to wash their hands of it. '‘That's
between the contractor and the union, the workers and the union.” It has
nothing to do with them. And we cut right through it and say, “You call
the shots, you are in control ” And they hate us putting all these janitors
on their streets and demonstrating out in front of them. It drives them
crazy. And like USC, they are always trying to wash their hands o f it and
say, “Well, there is nothing we can do; we don’t know why they are
picketing us.”
And we look at ways to move a corporate campaign also, like
against the client companies, and put pressure on them, trying to
understand their business, and where are their points of leverage or
embarrassment. We can move on them. We also move a community
organizing piece which is very essential. We expand the fight so that it is
not just a union fight; it’s not just a union issue. Because they always like
to categorize that it’s a union issue. And we say, “No, it is a community
issue. We are talking about dealing with the plight of the working poor in
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this community. We are talking about the exploitation of cheap immigrant
labor. We are talking about the Latino community here." So we would
get others involved, church groups involved, church coalitions, community
organizations and we would form community coalitions and get a whole
letterhead where we would have them down on the list. And they would
be writing to the client companies and that would drive them crazy too.
Forming delegations, and candle light vigils outside their offices and
sometimes we did them outside their homes. (Garcia Interview 1997)
The campaigns have become so effective that now employer attorneys who used to
spend their time filing legal briefs attempt to build their own counter campaigns to fight
the community unionism. One of the nation's largest employer law firms has orchestrated
the street marches by GUESS9 Clothing Company’s employees in Los Angeles. These
marches have included GUESS? managers and their families. The same law firm has
organized a counter campaign against the 1998 Justice for Janitors Campaign in
Sacramento, California (Garcia Interview 1997).
C ou ld yo u give me some reflections on how you see the Roman
( 'alholic ( 'hurch involved in this organizing? Where is it being supportive
an d where is it n o t?
Well, I think at a grass roots level, through the parishes, the
different pastors, priests that work with the communities, it has been and
can be very effective. It seems to me though that it is too individual. I
mean if we can convince the pastor, the priest that it’s a good thing to do,
then they’ll do it. But there doesn’t seem to be much direction from ‘up
above’ to make this an institutional endeavor or principle to support both
labor and organizing in the community. I think in particular with the Latino
community, that it is crucial because you look at the poverty of a lot o f the
barrios where the Latinos live, they need an economic boost, an
empowerment. And there is no better force than the labor movement and
that’s what Cesar Chavez taught us and tried to move during his
organizing o f the farm workers.
I think it’s key because for the most part, if you’re talking about
organizing the Latino workers, they’re predominantly Catholic, and I think
this is a big step that the Church can take to move more of an institutional
support for organizing campaigns, because I believe that it will also
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enhance the Church’s ability to recruit and enhance their position in the
communities which they’re losing to the Christian Church [s/c], Here they
would have an advantage, because the Christian Churches [s/c] want
nothing to do with organizing. I know because my wife is a born-again
Christian and their philosophy is very individualistic. They are almost, well
they are Republicans. They are focused on two issues politically, two only,
that’s the abortion issue and the gay issue. Everything else they are almost
oblivious to....it’s in the Bible., they pick and choose what supports their
individual relationship with God. That’s all they’re focused on. Which is
good. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but in terms o f having any concern
with empowering the community, --the collective feeling o f a community,
it’s not. It’s all individual. So I think that the Church would have an
advantage there if they could show people that they will take that step
more institutionally.
And now is the time to think about this because the labor
movement is also at a crossroads now and looking at ways to organize
Latino workers better. The labor movement is finally realizing,— twenty
years too late,— that demographics have changed and they have to organize
Latino workers and they have to be more active in the community. And
they have to break out of their insulation because they turned inward and
put their own barriers up,— the labor movement,— between labor and the
community. Too many years after their predecessors built the labor
movement, they tried to own it, to maintain it... they didn’t build it, and
they didn’t maintain it, and now they have lost their ground. Now they are
trying to protect their shrinking turfs and now they realize that they have to
reach out and break down the barriers. A lot o f new concepts, a lot o f new
strategies and similar to J for J [Justice for Janitors]are now being looked
at. In fact the head of the AFL/CIO is John Sweeney who comes out o f
that... he was one of the people responsible for moving the J for J
campaign, hiring Steven Lemer and supporting J for J has always been his
favorite, pet project. So there are a lot of opportunities for labor and
church to come together now, I think. But as employers, the Church
hasn’t set much of an example either. So maybe the problem could be
higher up in the hierarchy where the people responsible for the managers or
the management of the Church are. They’ve hired Mendelson [reference to
an employer law firm] himself to smash their own workers. (Garcia
Interview 1997)
Justice for Janitors campaigns and the Service Employees International Union have
successfully organized workers in the 1980s when other unions contracted. During John
Sweeney’s tenure as SEIU President, the union’s membership doubled to 1.1 million
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(Cohen 1996. 5E). Religious and community organizers admire this example of a new
revitalized labor movement, but some also caution against embracing the movement
without acknowledging the frailties found in any institution and its members. Some labor
leaders have not dedicated themselves to organizing for decades and they feel secure with
the status quo. Unions have practiced discrimination at times and suffered from internal
corruption. If the new labor movement is to become a reality, the leaders, organizers and
staff of unions must conduct their affairs above reproach. John L. Lewis was a man for
his times, but his personal ambition and power building ultimately led to a national
backlash and the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Cesar Chavez melded an understanding o f
power and the need for it with a personal integrity that attracted millions. Like Gandhi his
legacy will endure. The organizing will require conflict, confrontation, and tension, but the
unions and their membership must practice an institutional and personal self- discipline or
once again labor's cause will be lost.
The Industrial Areas Foundation is a faith-based community organizing network.
Although some members may have no faith, the majority o f institutions participating in the
network are congregations— Christian, Jewish. Buddhist, and Muslim. Even though Saul
Alinsky and other early organizers used faith institutions to organize neighborhoods, the
organizers themselves often remained aloof from active participation in any faith
community or spiritual life. This led to breakdowns in personal morality, relationships,
and organizational truthfulness. Only in the 1970s with the reflections of Ed Chambers,
Ernie Cortes, Dick Harmon and other 1AF leaders did the network begin to appreciate
fully the importance of spiritual and social capital in its work. By altering thinking and
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practices (e.g., attempting to make the organization marriage and family friendly and
paying organizers a fair salary), the IAF created an organizational environment where the
people being organized saw values they espoused. The IAF staff and organizers are not
perfect people, nor are professional religious and union leaders, but without a spiritual
anchor or some sense o f truth, any organization or movement will decline. The following
interview quotes provide fodder for reflection about the interrelationship of labor
organizing, community organizing, and Catholicism in the 1990s. The lAF’s turn to
organizing around values may offer a direction to a union movement seeking rejuvenation.
Father Villarroya remembers going to the IAF training in Chicago in the early
1970s. He describes it as a “hard experience.” The IAF was a “wild bunch, really wild,
they drank, they cursed, you would be shocked” (Villarroya Interview 1996).
[Dick] Harmon, [Ed] Chambers, and Ernie [Cortes] were there. I
remember that when you went to classes they would really sock it to you.
You were solving this and then solving that. And then they would separate
you and have one-on-ones about organizing. I remember talking to Dick
Harmon. And I said, “You know I really enjoy the techniques and what I
am learning, but there is something wrong with the whole thing, something
lacking from the whole sense... you are talking about values.” I said, “I
didn’t know what, but something was lacking”. Harmon said, “Before you
go, you find out, and let me know.” So one day I said, “Dick, we have to
talk, I think I have the answer. You know that you are talking about
families and values and all those sorts o f things, and God is not in your
organization. I mean God is not something we deal with, and you are
talking about churches. I remember saying that we did talk about the
power of the Church, the power of this and that, and how to develop a
parish. I told him that the IAF has a good sense o f parish development,
really coming out o f the Letter to the Corinthians, one body and all that.
But they started cleaning up their own acts. They did not talk as
bad anymore, they didn’t drink as much anymore, they cleaned up. And I
know that if 1 told that story to them they would say, “Well that is Pedro.”
But I remember telling them that something was wrong. (Villarroya
Interview 1996)
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Ed Chambers believes that the modem IAF began to take form in the mid-1960s
when he challenged Saul Alinsky about the success of the organization. He believed that
the IAF was burning out its organizers and not providing a self-sustaining institutional
framework.
It really started in ‘65 when I leveraged Saul that if this stuff is so
great, “Where are the organizers? The apostles? Where are the rabbis?
What are you talking about? There is just myself, and you have burned out
[Nicolas] Van Hoffman— he is gone. Y ou've burned me out and you are
going to bum [Dick] Harmon out.” (Chambers Interview 1997)
Through the late 1960s and 1970s, the IAF began to not only use congregations
for their institutional power but began to understand why congregations have power: faith,
values, families. In 1978 Chambers wrote “Organizing for Family and Congregation” and
quoted II Timothy 1:7 on the title page: “God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a
spirit of power and love and self-control. " The thirty-three page essay describes the
organization’s aim to develop “a possible strategy for families and churches in the war
over values.” He understood that mediating institutions like churches could not go up
against “huge corporations, mass media, and ‘benevolent’ government” (Chambers 1978,
3).
Those institutions [corporations, etc.] in large part created the
vacuum because the churches and unions were not prepared for the new
institutional arrangements and technologies that have overwhelmed us
since World War II. So we have given over control of much of our lives
(including many tasks formerly exercised by families) to “experts” and
“specialists,” who are in fact only fronts for institutions of greed and
unaccountable power. Without effective institutional power of their own,
the families and churches withdraw, backbite, blame each other, or perhaps
experiment with fads— ignoring their history and strength. If families and
churches which are clear about their Judeo-Christian value base do not
develop the capacity to negotiate institutionally, the masses of American
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families will continue to feel a decreasing sense o f integration, centeredness
and confidence in their own relationship to other institutions. Families and
churches, as instruments o f nurture, clarity and protection for their
members, will continue to lose their capacity to be effective. (Chambers
1978, 4)
During the 1970s Ernie Cortes helped Chambers see the importance o f bringing
values and faith into the organizing mix. Chambers had been kicked out o f the Catholic
seminary, while Cortes, although never attracted to religious life, had read theology—
Niebhur s The Nature and Destiny o f Man. Tillich. Barth. Bonhoefer. and William
Stringfellow (Rogers 1990, 74).
At first. Chambers resisted incorporating religious and theological
reflection in the lAF’s training process. After all. he was a tough, street-
fighting organizer with a streak of skepticism stiffening his spine. He had
trained with rough-talking Alinsky and had served under him for 15 years.
(Rogers 1990, 93)
The organizers in the network discussed theology and the role of faith, but they
were always aware that religion could soften and sentimentalize the organizing and.
therefore, drain the anger and passion from the work. Christian good will and rational
arguments seldom converted the powerful. Chambers, Cortes and Harmon began to study
and discuss the history of organizing successes and failures, looking at the labor
movement, the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, civic groups and service
work. They came to the following conclusions:
^Movements that depended on charismatic leaders fell apart in the absence
o f the leader.
O rganizations formed around a single issue died when the issue lost
potency.
* Organizations that relied on public money, private grants, or the largess of
a few wealthy contributors could never become truly independent.
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•Organizations that became overly procedural lost the momentum and
flexibility to act.
* Organizations whose leaders acted autonomously without a system o f
internal accountability became corrupt when no one monitored their
actions.
•Organizations that played to the public spotlight confused their desire for
media attention with their strategy for change.
•Organizations that scrambled continuously to respond to a crisis got
caught up in a whirlwind o f activity that soon exhausted their
leaders (Rogers 1990, 95-95).
Cesar Chavez believed in the values o f family and faith. Saul Alinsky did not think
Chavez could build a farm workers union and thought Chavez’s hunger fasts were
pointless. On the one hand, Chavez combined his personal and communal values, as
Chambers and Cortes discovered, with Alinsky’s power language to bring about social
change. On the other hand, IAF organizers criticize Chavez for being too charismatic
and, therefore, inadvertently limiting leadership development in the UFW.
As the IAF began to clarify its vision of community-based power
organizations centered around values, its language also began to change.
“I’d had a little training in philosophy,” Chambers says. “And I started
forcing myself to look at what our kind o f organizing meant to people. We
worked with people in the churches, and their language was the language
of the gospel. Their language was nothing like Alinsky’s language. His
language was power talk. Tough, abrasive, confrontational, full o f ridicule.
And those are really all non-Christian concepts. So I started looking at it.
Here are the non-Christian concepts. ... here are the Christian concepts.
Are there any similarities? Is this just a different language for the same
thing?”
Because he was now bringing lay church people from urban
neighborhoods into the training sessions as well as organizers, synthesizing
power talk into church talk became very important to Chambers. And he
began to see some exciting possibilities. “When people act on the gospel
values and hold one another accountable, you’ve got a revolutionary act,”
he discovered. (Rogers 1990, 99)
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The IAF has had a long history o f working with faith-based groups, particularly
the Catholic Church, and has reflected on this experience. In California. Eliseo Medina
and the Service Employees International Union have made financial contributions to the
lAF's Active Citizenship Campaign to help immigrants become citizens and register
voters. The AFL-CIO had a similar relationship with the IAF's Community Service
Organization in the early 1960s when Cesar Chavez was a CSO leader These are quid
pro quo relationships. The IAF has received financial resources to bring many union
members into the political process through the churches they attend and to organize
around their community needs. O f course, the IAF is not a partisan political group making
it different from unions that have traditionally supported Democratic candidates and
initiatives. Moreover, if the union movement is open to criticism, then perhaps the IAF
can help labor leaders and organizers better understand the role o f faith and faith
communities in organizing. During the 1970s. the IAF hierarchy found itself reflecting on
values, faith and family because the people in the middle of American society responded to
these areas out of tradition and self-interest. For practical reasons, the labor movement
might seek out the IAF to act as a bridge in developing a better working relationship with
the Roman Catholic Church at the institutional level. Some Catholic clergy and laity are
interested in both community and labor organizing, but they find that labor has not always
used their power or talents wisely. In some cases, clergy and people of good will simply
feel used by labor leaders and organizers who need another immediate win.
Father John Seymour believes that in the early 1990s he could have been the "labor
priest” of Los Angeles because no one was assuming that role. He was well-versed in the
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social encyclicals, he was an IAF leader in the Southern California Organizing Committee,
and he was the pastor o f Ascension Catholic Church. He had already been called upon by
various unions to support their actions. He recalls his support o f a strike at the Carol
Cable Company then organized by the United Electrical workers. He heard some Marxist
propaganda while working with the unionists, but it did not bother him “because they were
just people. " Latinos and blacks made up the bulk of the union, and Seymour saw their
predicament when the employer kept cutting back on a previously negotiated contract and
forced a strike to try to break the union. The strike ultimately fall apart, and the president
o f the union crossed the picket line. At the final union meeting when the strike collapsed,
Seymour saw much animosity among the members. The men were in the front and the
women in the back.
There was a tremendous amount of resentment on the part of the
women against the men in the union because it looked like a lot of these
men had been unfaithful to their wives— including the leadership. And a lot
of the leaders were just kind o f muieriegos [womanizers], and all that came
to roost. (Seymour Interview 1997)
Some o f the men who felt betrayed because the company had tossed them out
were cheating on their wives with women at work.
They were doing to their wives what the company was doing to
them, but they couldn’t see it. And there was this kind o f reality, and it all
just was a disaster.
And it taught me how important the spiritual dimension is in
organizing labor. And unless they pay attention to that, then some o f their
most important tools such as the strike will come unglued. The whole
labor movement depends on unity, and without taking care o f these
spiritual things, the unity just isn’t going to be there when it’s put to the
test. And it all centers around the concept of unity and solidarity, and
those are spiritual concepts. And if they neglect that, which I think they
have, then it’s going to seriously damage and weaken the labor movement.
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I found it hard to play a role in the labor movement in L.A. I would
be there for Justice for Janitors events and SEIU events and Restaurant
Workers. I would be there. Bless this, do this, say this prayer, that kind o f
thing, show up at press conference things, on the picket line, that kind of
stuff.
But I guess I developed a distaste for it for two reasons: one.
because I began to feel more and more like rent-a-priest, and I wasn’t
playing a role in establishing the agenda, and the labor leaders weren’t
really looking at the spiritual issues involved. They were very, very
gratefiil and very courteous, but I was just like a rent-a-collar kind of deal,
and I didn’t want to play that kind o f role. That just wasn’t for me.
The forces that are arrayed against organized labor are so powerful
that unless there is a strong moral force, there isn’t going to be enough
power to— in fact, more and more it’s clear that only moral force will
support the labor movement, will bring victory, because now labor really
has to have public support to win a strike. And they’re not going to get
public support without having moral force. (Seymour Interview 1997)
Lay people o f faith also question labor leaders who call on religious people for
support but then fail to listen to these communities or consider their fundamental faith
values. Kay Deely came up through the union ranks, worked as a shop steward and
eventually joined the SEIU staff in San Diego. Since moving to Arizona she has become
involved in the IAF network through her church.
I came from a faith tradition [Presbyterian], I hadn’t practiced it. I
was not churched as an adult because o f my husband, but I still had my
faith, and because o f my faith I had my moral values that go with that.
There was a lot o f rhetoric within the union that paid lip-service to those
values but no real honest respect that I could see for those values. They
were used more to manipulate people then they were to bring people
together.
The faith perspective never came into it except that when we would
do any kind of an action, there were usually religious figures in the
community that they would bring into it and maybe they would say a prayer
for us, but within the union structure itself, there was nothing to do with
the faith. There was a lot of behavior and language that I felt was
detracting from what I thought our mission was. A lot o f cynicism. A lot
of talk about teaching people to make decisions and do things for
themselves and yet ultimately what happened, the leadership and by that 1
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mean the staff,— would set a plan o f action, create an agenda, and then
manipulate the rank and file member into thinking that they had come up
with that agenda. And when someone didn't agree with that agenda, they
were usually not accorded much respect,— they were dismissed or ridiculed
which— one on hand we are told that we are supposed to be teaching
people how to do things for themselves...anyway, in three years I burned
out. The conflict there was too great. I couldn’t find any resolution.
(Deely Interview 1996)
At times the union lacked respect for different clergy, but she believes this was
more about personality and political attitudes rather than a disrespect for the tradition
(Deely Interview 1996). The union staff normally did not discuss the role o f faith in the
lives o f the rank and file members. The faith of the members became important however,
when the union felt a group o f workers was particularly religious and the union needed the
church to help organize them. She feels comfortable with her involvement in the IAF. “so
this isn’t just me wanting to do things out of social justice, this has a religious foundation
to it. It is faith-based. And that to me feels a whole lot better than when I was working
for the union” (Deely Interview 1996).
She believes that union organizing and solidarity become more difficult as you
begin to organize middle class people like government workers. SEIU represents public
employees in San Diego. The justice issue is not as clear when union members have
decent salaries and benefits, and solidarity crumbles when different work groups under the
same contract squabble over the contract’s terms (Deely Interview 1996). Although a
union advocate she has seen the pressure of trying to keep a union together without
compromising on one’s principles.
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Eddie Iny is a research organizer for SEIU Local 1877 and he worked on the USC
janitors campaign. He holds a masters degree in urban planning from UCLA where he
contributed to the LAMAP research on the Alameda Corridor. After living in Guatemala,
he became active in the Guatemalan peace movement in California and then learned more
about immigrant struggles in Los Angeles. He worked with the L.A. Vermont-Slauson
Economic Development Corporation, but concluded that entrepreneurial programs and
small business development efforts offered little hope for the poor He began to volunteer
with the Justice for Janitors Campaign and found organizing for better wages and benefits
was a much more efficient use of his time (Iny Interview 1997). Iny says that religion and
faith can be important to an organizing campaign, but the time pressure
leaves little room for thinking about faith.
I can't speak on behalf o f SEIU, but based on my own experience.
Cesar Chavez and the farm workers came from Mexico and came from a
very Catholic background. Many of our workers in the janitorial industry
are from Central America and are refugees from El Salvador and
Guatamala. many for whom religion did play an important role, but for a
lot of them, actually, I don’t think it was as important. They didn’t have
the consistency o f living in the same community for a long time. Their lives
were disrupted by war. So there isn’t, in my opinion, as strong an
institutional association with the Church.
Obviously, the Church is very important in El Salvador and
Guatamala. but in terms o f our strategies and tactics, I also think that
Justice for Janitors, because it’s dependent not necessarily on the long
struggle — I guess the time lines are really different between a farm
workers’ struggle and a janitors’ struggle, for the most part. USC was an
exception. But for the most part, it really involves putting a lot o f pressure
on different buildings in a short amount of time. Our tactics evolved into
much more militant and aggressive tactics, and part o f that has meant that
we sacrificed a little bit of the spirituality.
And I think people generally feel that it’s unfortunate, but as we’re
so pressed for time, it’s a hard element to make room for. And I think it
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would be worth seriously looking at ways in which we can do that. Again,
it takes resources and time. (Iny Interview 1997)
SEITJ 1877 has relationships with individual Catholic clergy in Los Angeles, but
the union has not developed a significant relationship with the institution as a whole. John
L. Lewis said unions and religion don’t mix. AFL-CIO President William Green failed as
an organizer because employers would not listen to his social gospel reasoning. Yet SEIU
1877 is organizing many Latino immigrants who have ties to the Catholic Church. The
union movement as a whole needs to encourage organized members and labor
sympathizers within the Church to promote the Catholic social encyclicals. Priests can
offer homilies pointing out the long Catholic tradition of supporting a living wage. In fact,
this concept was also described as "a family living wage,” which meant a wage high
enough for one family member so that both spouses were not required to work. The
.Archdiocesan Spanish newspaper Vida Nueva has published tens o f articles on the
economy and worker rights over the past decade, but reminders from the pulpit and area
bishops are vital to inculcating the message. Los Angeles might improve for employers as
well as workers if the community as a whole has adequate income. Employers who study
the encyclicals will realize their inherent balance: for example, “private possessions are
clearly in accord with nature” and “To desire that civil power should enter arbitrarily into
the privacy of homes is a great and pernicious error” (Leo XLH. Rerum Novarum 1891,
#15 and 21 ).
Let it be granted then the worker and employer may enter freely
into agreements and, in particular, concerning the amount o f the wage; yet
there is always underlying such agreements and element o f natural justice,
and one greater and more ancient than the free consent o f contracting
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parties, namely, that the wage shall not be less than enough to support a
worker who is thrifty and upright. If compelled by necessity or moved by
fear o f a worse evil, a worker accepts a harder condition, which although
against his will he must accept because the employer or contractor imposes
it, he certainly submits to force, against which justice cries out in protest.
(Leo XIII. Rerum Novarum 1891, #63)
Eliseo Medina and SEIU have already joined with the IAF to register new voters
and help immigrants to become citizens. Nevertheless, SEIU and other unions can borrow
even more information on the Catholic population from the intellectual and social capital
that IAF leaders have amassed over the last few decades. The IAF is dependent on
constant organizing, something the labor movement lost because o f neglect and a political
climate that limited unionization (Fondation Interview 1997). The IAF has an excellent
one week national training on the nuts and bolts o f organizing, having built on the
experiences o f John L. Lewis. Saul Alinsky. Fred Ross. Cesar Chavez. Ed Chambers, and
Ernie Cortes among many others. The author has attended the IAF one week national
training and the AFL-CIO’s three day Organizer Training Institute (OTI). The AFL-CIO
continues to mentor organizers on the job after their training, but the IAF is much more
skilled and thorough in its national training. People are grilled in multiple one-on-ones,
are given popular education lectures in economics, discuss organizing strategies, and
develop national relationships in an intense one week session. The IAF builds its affiliates
with volunteer organizers and little resources while unions sometimes have financial
resources but fail to find volunteer organizers from within the ranks o f their membership.
The IAF has an exceptional ability to identify leaders and mentor them; it also looks at the
whole person, including the spiritual. IAF members prepare agendas and lead IAF
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meetings while unions are run from the top down by elective officials and staff and. thus,
never develop multiple leaders (Chambers Interview 1997).
In Baltimore the IAF teamed with the American, Federal, State. County and
Municipal Employees Union to create the first living wage ordinance in the nation. The
living wage idea, according to IAF organizers, came from a knowledge of the social
encyclicals of the Catholic Church (Fondation Interview 1997). Unions and community
organizations like the IAF, PICO, and ACORN could leverage off o f each other to begin
to improve the economic state o f the unemployed and the working poor. They have
common areas o f work: organizing, servicing members, public policy, and electoral
politics. The role of churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, might be to remind
the organizers of our humanity, telling the story of the faith traditions, and calling people
to worship If these three groups labor, community, and religion constantly build-up,
share and criticize with each other, Los Angeles will be a better city.
Conclusion
Justice for Janitors, the L.A. Catholic Church, and community groups have come
together to help gain union representation for low-wage Latino immigrants. The strengths
and weaknesses o f these relationships are listed below.
o The Catholic Church has assisted Justice for Janitors and assisted the USC
campaign through the participation o f various Catholic religious. For example. Sister
Diane Donoghue, SSS and Father Pedro Villarroya. CM, both members o f religious
orders, supported Justice for Janitors and the USC campaign. They were key supporters
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during the USC organizing drive. Sister Donoghue had worked for over 20 years in the
Pico-Union area of Los Angeles just off the USC campus, an area with a large immigrant
population. Sister Diane was also a community advisor to USC. Father Villarroya, as the
former director of Hispanic Ministry for the Archdiocese, added an institutional link to the
Justice for Janitors campaign. He also used his relationship with St. Vincent’s Church to
obtain a meeting area for the USC janitors. Their participation in organizing events
provided moral authority for the janitors and direction for the SEIU organizers.
o Numerous Catholic religious and lay leaders also signed the community support
letter addressed to USC President Sample and printed in the Daily Troian campus
newspaper. Many of these religious sent letters and made calls to USC and ServiceMaster
officials to encourage recognition o f SEIU Local 1877. These messages came from
congregation leaders who serve thousands o f people living around the USC campus. They
helped SEIU Local 1877 isolate the employers and label them as unfair. Catholic clergy
marched with the janitors and one was arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience which
helped intensify the demand for union recognition. Some USC students and faculty had
their consciences piqued, and janitors and union organizers had their spirits raised.
o Two Catholic priests, although not active in the campaign to unionize the
janitors, acted as polling place monitors during the community-based election. Clearly,
one might question the neutrality o f such observers, but USC professors and staff also
acted as monitors. Here again the presence of Catholic religious gave some comfort to
workers and credence to the process. The use of Catholic religious in labor disputes is not
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without precedence in (J.S. labor relations history. Los Angeles’s Cardinal Mahony was
once the Chairman o f California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board.
o The Catholic religious had the advantage o f knowing (JSC janitors in their
congregations and, therefore, had the free space to discuss work related issues in a safe
setting. This locale provided an opportunity to educate the workers about the Catholic
Church’s endorsement o f worker associations and the importance of property rights.
But the Catholic Church, labor and community groups also failed to develop their
relationship at a deeper level.
o First and foremost the union representatives, workers, and Catholic religious
never scheduled time to read and/or discuss Catholic social teaching as it related to labor
organizing. In Los Angeles’ immigrant Catholic parishes, the clergy and religious sisters
are not teaching the faithful the rudiments of 100 years o f Catholic social thought.
Catholic religious who write letters and march in demonstrations are putting out the
proverbial fire when the present social question requires greater systematic thinking about
how the gospel and social doctrine reach workers and organizers. The Archdiocese’s
Justice and Peace Commission sponsored a Public Discipleship teach-in at Loyola
Marymount University in November 1997, but the Archdiocese has not raised up labor
issues within the institution’s normal channels o f communication: deanery meetings (area
priest gatherings), mailers, and one-on-one meetings with auxiliary bishops who have
already vocally supported organizing. Although Cardinal Mahony has spoken in favor o f
immigrant organizing, including the organizing o f domestic workers (See Domanick 1995,
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26), since his confrontation with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textiles Workers Union
in the early 1990s, he has not aggressively reasserted his position in the popular press.
o The unions (including SErU 1877) and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles have by
and large missed an opportunity for a stronger relationship by failing to leverage off the
Industrial Areas Foundation. The IAF is an ecumenical community organizing group that
for historical reasons has many Catholic congregations. Ecumenism is important because
union members and prospective union members come from many faith backgrounds,
nevertheless, conservative estimates place 65% o f Los Angeles’ Latinos in the Catholic
fold. The IAF. with the national leadership’s turn toward values/faith-based organizing in
the 1970s, has an understanding of Catholic social teaching that many union organizers
and leaders have lost or never possessed. (While the rest o f the labor movement might
have forgotten the role o f faith in organizing, Cesar Chavez, for one, saw its importance.)
IAF organizers are ravenous readers. They understand the importance o f social
capital3 and spiritual capital in organizing, and they understand the workings o f the
Catholic Church and other denominations. In Los Angeles, with the support o f HERE
Local 11 and the Tourism Industry and Development Council (TIDC), a nonprofit
organization promoting labor organizing in the tourism industry, religious leaders formed
Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE). CLUE has received some funding
3 The majority o f IAF organizers have read Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy
Work: Civic Traditions in Modem Italy. Putnam contends that social capital (i.e.. moral
resources like trust) in a community leads to civic success. IAF organizing groups are
voluntary associations that practice civic republicanism while respecting the religious
values o f the participants and others. The IAF offers a means for people o f faith to engage
the civic society while not giving up their primary role of witnessing their faith.
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and support from the Campaign for Human Development and the Peace and Justice
Commission of the L.A. Archdiocese. CLUE, however, is led by activist clergy who
sometimes have little or no congregations and do not have ties to Catholic communities.
CLUE performs a valuable spokesperson service to labor unions and helped win L.A.'s
Living Wage Ordinance, but the group has no long-term organizing plan. The IAF.
however, searches out winable issues and constantly reorganizes within the community.
o The L.A. .Archdiocese also needs to become more aware o f the great difficulties
that workers face in organizing unions today. The pressure strategies and confrontational
tactics of the most successful organizing campaigns put off some religious leaders.
Chapter 4 and the USC case study point to the fundamental imbalance in the way U.S.
labor law is enforced today (the USC workers had given up hope in the NLRB). The
National Labor Relations Act of 1935. which had the support o f Catholic labor priests and
members of the hierarchy, is not serving its original purpose. Unions and workers who
ask for moral support from the Catholic Church are not receiving it when the response is a
referral to the NLRB. The fact that less than 10% of the private workforce belong to a
union attests to the ineffectiveness of U.S. labor law. There are too many working poor in
the United States to warrant such a low unionization figure.
o The recruiting o f young organizers from UCLA who may or may not have a
Catholic background requires some understanding of the role of faith in the lives o f the
unorganized. It also requires a sympathetic view of Catholicism from the academics who
are teaching the students and working with a large Catholic population.
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CHAPTER 8
LOS ANGELES MANUFACTURING ACTION PROJECT (LAMAP)
This case study follows the SEIU 1877/USC narrative because LAMAP is a
drawing board example of a multi-union, community-wide organizing project. While
SEIU 1877 has used community organizing methods in the service sector, LAMAP wants
to use these methods across a half dozen manufacturing sectors and work with as many
unions as possible. The strategy also requires thousands of one-on-one interviews to sink
deeper roots into the working class community over the long-term. At the time of the
AFL-CIO hierarchy’s call to organize, local labor activists and UCLA academics discussed
strategies for organizing the 600,000 manufacturing workers along Los Angeles's
Alameda corridor. Since the majority of these workers are Hispanic, the strategists safely
(and correctly) assumed that they were also nominally Catholic. Just as ethnic groups,
social clubs, and parishes had some influence over the organizing successes of the Knights
of Labor and then the CIO, one suspects that these same organizations have a role to play
in organizing L.A. Hispanics in the 1990s.
The narrative describes the thinking and work of three of the LAMAP organizers:
Peter Olney, William Kramer, and Jorge Ramirez. To understand the relationship of the
Catholic Church to this broad-based strategy, one needs to hear the voices o f some of the
organizers and in particular their views of the role of religion. LAMAP can benefit from a
290
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strong relationship with area Catholic clergy, religious, and lay leaders. LAMAP is also
organizing in an area that has large Hispanic parishes affiliated with the IAF. This
particular history (community-based organizing around Catholic parishes) is a possible link
to wider Catholic participation.
The narrative describes the development of LAMAP and the project’s heavy
reliance on the UCLA Community Scholars Program and the Labor Center at UCLA.
These groups provided LAMAP with invaluable data, contacts, and volunteer work. The
LAMAP/Catholic Church/UCLA link is exemplified in the comments of Professor Gilda
Haas of the UCLA Urban Planning School Her interests lie in popular education. Her
views of justice (e.g., on the role o f women in the Catholic Church) leave her uneasy with
the Catholic tradition and more “conservative" religious traditions in general. One
wonders if her liberal academic background (or the Catholic church's “conservative"
tradition) impede the potential for organizing Catholic workers. Haas sees the
institutional Church's power and importance to organizing but is ambivalent about
working with more conservative institutional members.
Prof. Haas has worked with both Sister Diane Donoghue and Father Pedro
Villarroya who also comment about Catholic positions regarding gender and sexual
morality and the questions these positions pose in organizing work. Father Villarroya is a
key figure in the LAMAP case study. He is a board member of the project and a leader in
the L.A. Catholic community. Although Villarroya's role was essential to the Catholic
connection, he laments the minimal relationship between LAMAP/Iabor leaders and the
Catholic church.
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The narrative then moves to the reflections o f Adrian Gomez, a Mexican
immigrant worker, who finds his Catholic faith important to his labor and community
activism. Gomez’s struggle against the shutdown o f the Price-Pfister faucet plant in
Pacoima, California was on the periphery o f LAMAP’s work. The location o f the dispute
was outside the Alameda Corridor, but a Latino worker population and the high visibility
of the struggle in the L.A. Hispanic press led to LAMAP’s support. Gomez and many
other Latino workers understand the direct link between their faith and the labor struggle.
Like other Latino activists he openly admirers Cesar Chavez’s melding of faith and justice.
Gomez is one example o f the type o f person an organizing initiative in a Catholic/Hispanic
community might tap. The author found other examples o f this faith driven leadership as
well: Julia Lopez, a leader in the SEIU/USC dispute, Manuel Antonio Cruz at La Brea
Bakery, a firm in part organized by LAMAP, and Bias Perez of HERE Local 11/USC.
Adrian Gomez is an interesting crossover figure because he is also a leader in the
IAF. The lack o f relationship building between the IAF and LAMAP is a lacuna in the
project’s organizing efFort. Saul Alinsky and the Back o f the Yards Neighborhood
Council leadership worked with the CIO in the 1930s to organize packing house workers
in Chicago, and then with Cesar Chavez and the CSO in Oxnard, California to organize
citrus packers. Saul Alinsky sought out relationships with institutional leaders in the CIO
and the Catholic Church. Liberal activists who feel uncomfortable with the Catholic
hierarchy are unlikely to have much success in building alliances with the Catholic Church.
The narrative concludes with a review o f the L.A. Archdiocese’s struggle with the
Amalgamated Clothing and Textile W orkers’ Union over the organizing o f Archdiocesan
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cemetery workers. This incident caused a division between the Archdiocese and
organized labor in Los Angeles. The residual hard feelings have left an opportunity for
Church/community/labor organizing unmet. Rather than looking for common ground in
labor and community organizing, the parties’ relationships broke apart around differences
in areas o f morality, partisan politics and the Archdiocese’s employee relations. LAMAP,
as a whole, offers a lesson for future relationships between Catholicism and community
and labor organizing in Los Angeles.
Local activist/unionists, a dozen organizing-minded L.A. union leaders, and a
group o f UCLA academics have attempted to bring together the financial capital and
organizing expertise necessary to engage in a community-wide organizing drive in Los
Angeles. The Alameda Corridor, named for its main boulevard, is a twenty-four mile
stretch o f industrial manufacturing that begins in downtown Los Angeles and ends at the
Long Beach/Los Angeles port (Bacon 1996, 23 ). Although plant closures along the
corridor cost a minimum of 22,000 heavy industry union jobs during the 1980s, the actual
number was probably much higher when considering earlier layoffs at the same sites
(Wolf 1995). Despite these losses the corridor has from 600,000 to 700,000 heavy and
light industrial workers today. The majority o f these workers are Latinos (66% according
to the U.S. Bureau o f Labor Statistics) from Mexico and Central America who live in
Huntington Park, Watts, Compton, Carson, San Pedro, and Long Beach, communities
located along Alameda Blvd. traveling from north to south (Berg 1994, 3). Many o f
these new residents have experienced social unrest in their home countries and oftentimes
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the most militant leaders in these communities organized and led worker actions in Latin
America.
As the U.S. labor movement began to reorganize itself in the early 1990s,
immigrant workers made greater demands on the union movement to support their efforts.
This occurred in 1995 when garment workers walked out of the Good Time Fashion
sewing company, a Guess? Clothing subcontractor. The spontaneous strike occurred after
the Good Time Fashion management timed and video taped all of its workers and
subsequently cut their piece rate pay. The workers went to the Union o f Needletrade,
Industrial Textile Employees (UNITE), one o f the nine original LAMAP member unions,
for support. This dispute and others with Guess? sewing subcontractors have resulted in a
nationwide boycott of Guess?. Workers in other Alameda corridor industries have had
similar experiences. At American Racing Equipment, a producer o f racing wheels, 1 ,200
workers went out on strike in 1990 because o f poor wages and working conditions.
Marcario Camorlinga, a former steel worker activist in Mexico, led the workers. Local
unions read about the strike in the newspaper and congregated at the company gate vying
with each other to sign-up the strikers. The workers eventually chose the International
Association of Machinists (Bacon 1996, 24). David Bacon (1996, 25) cites other
examples of worker self-initiated organizing including the Justice for Janitors campaign
which was a response to the immigrant janitors demand for better wages and benefits. In
the case o f drywallers, their 1992 campaign depended exclusively on indigenous
leadership. Non-professional organizers walked onto construction sites, talked their
fellow carpenters into leaving their jobs, and then blocked freeways when the highway
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patrol and [NS stopped their strike caravans. The heavily immigrant drywallers did not
sluggishly move through the morass of construction trades labor law but simply stopped
work on new housing throughout Southern California. These work stoppages and direct
actions recall Homestead, Detroit and Delano. Since labor law and public opinion no
longer give adequate protection to employees, disenfranchised employees often use more
immediate and tension laden means to protect themselves.
The goal of LAMAP is to aid the organizing o f these immigrants and bring them
into the nine member unions (UAW, Carpenters, UNITE. Oil, Chemical and Atomic
Workers, Machinists, Steelworkers, Teamsters, Longshoremen and Warehousemen and
UFCW). To build trust and credibility within the immigrant community, the unions and
LAMAP will have to plant roots in their institutions and social groups. The unions have
admittedly failed to take the community factor into consideration in the past and have
relied on support from the few progressive community activists who see the labor
movement as a justice cause rather than an institutional ally.
LAMAP has sought to build relationships with community organizations
throughout southeast L.A. And has built upon the network o f
organizations among immigrant workers themselves— many o f whom
belong to clubs based on those from their home in Mexico. In late 1994,
Joel Ochoa (Field Director of LAMAP) and other immigrant labor activists
used that network to build the huge 100,000-strong march to protest
Proposition 187. LAMAP orgranizers meet regularly with church
organizations in the immigrant community and have begun reaching beyond
Latino immigrants to organizations in the city’s large Korean community as
well. (Bacon 1996, 26)
LAMAP’s intellectual support came from the community scholars program at
UCLA. The Urban Planning school and the Center for Labor Research and Education
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brought together faculty, students, and labor practitioners who believe that labor
organizing is a form of economic development. The Community Scholars Program
worked with area leaders during the 1994-1995 academic year to analyze the potential for
organizing along the Alameda corridor. While city and business interests see development
arising with small business loans and training programs, the LAMAP leaders believe that
development will come with changes in industrial employment policies (Berg 1994, 19).
Gilda Haas, a professor in the UCLA Urban Planning school and an LAMAP board
member, commented:
If you have 700,000 manufacturing workers and they have poor working
conditions and wages, that’s going to affect the communities they live in.
So if you’re going to talk about rebuilding L.A., you have to start there.
(Berg 1994, 19)
The organizers of LAMAP believe that immigrants working and living along the
Alameda do not have economic ladders available to escape poor working conditions and
inadequate salaries. The academics, union organizers, and students acknowledge the
disappearance of work in steel, rubber, and automobiles— heavy industry— but they point to
the large number of jobs remaining in non-durable manufacturing like food processing,
garment production, and plastics. While Los Angeles County lost 252,800 manufacturing
jobs between 1979 and 1992, only 7,500 lost jobs were in light manufacturing. Some of
these industries, e.g., baking, cannot leave Los Angeles because o f the nature of their
product, and others simply prefer to remain close to their customers (Berg 1994, 19).
The final report of the LAMAP/UCLA Community Scholars Program was not
made available to the public because o f the sensitivity o f the organizing research. LAMAP
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and the participating unions did receive complete copies of “Union Jobs for Community
Renewal: A Feasibility Study for the Los Angeles Manufacturing Project.” The following
information comes from excerpts that the researchers made available to the public. The
report found that non-durable manufacturers along the Alameda were vulnerable on paper
to labor organizing. The immigrant population provided a community around which labor
and community organizers could unite working people. The population in 1995
“commonly earned from $4.50 to $8.00 per hour and often under poor working
conditions” (Adler and others 1995, 1-2). The foundational views o f the report suggest
that manufacturing is still a major employer in the Alameda Corridor, that wages and
working conditions are not adequate (resulting in working poor), and labor organizing is
an economic development strategy, particularly in the wake of the 1 992 Los Angeles civil
uprising (Adler and others 1995, 1-2).
The unions provided the researchers with a historical overview o f the organizing
along the corridor up until 1995, and the researchers conducted phone and personal
interviews with workers, managers, and industry executives. Students culled government
documents for occupational safety complaints and environmental complaints to uncover
abuses in key industries that might unite both community and labor in common action.
The group wanted to focus on a multi-union organizing campaign of entire industries
rather than moving from one “hot shop” to another where workers have already organized
themselves (Adler and others 1995,13-15).
The feasibility study ultimately concluded that the unions could successfully
engage in multi-union campaigns in five industrial sectors: food processing, metals, paper.
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plastics, and transportation. The reasons included the inability o f firms within a given
industry to relocate from the area because of suppliers or customers. This was especially
true for food processing; for instance, tortilla companies cannot locate outside of Los
Angeles because of high transportation costs and customer demands for freshness. In the
case of plastics production, customers depend on plastic bags and bottles manufactured
locally and many products are customized. Metal plating firms and related enterprises
often have frequent interaction with customers to fulfill design specifications or production
deadlines. Some of the companies, e.g., tortilla companies, have annual growth rates as
high as 15%. Industry wide bargaining and contracts benefitting large segments of low-
wage workers are possible because these industries tend to have numerous competitors
located in the same region. Since unions already have contracts with a few of the firms in
the targeted industries, the non-unionized companies have lower wages and benefits and,
therefore, room to increase both (Adler and others 1995, 18-110).
The researchers concluded that the participating unions did have points of leverage
within the studied industrial sectors, and workers in these sectors numbered in the tens of
thousands (99,000 in the garment industry alone). Each of the nine unions had organized
bargaining units in at least one o f the sectors already. The unions, therefore, understood
different aspects of the production processes and the relationships between companies and
their suppliers and customers. As mentioned above, the majority of the workers in these
sectors are Latino immigrants. “In some cases, most o f the workers at a particular
company come from the same town or region. Many also live near the work place” (Adler
and others 1995, 110). Three hundred and fifty of the strikers during the 1992 drywallers
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wildcat strike were from the same Mexican hometown, El Maguey (Adler and others,
1995 112).
The unions could use the relationships between the food and plastic sectors to put
leverage on firms in either or both sectors. Production could be disrupted by labor
stoppages. In addition, pressure might be placed on Latino consumers who purchase
foods like tortillas and salsa, and these food manufacturers are susceptible to
transportation disruptions. Mission Foods, a subsidiary of the largest tortilla manufacturer
in the world, is also prone to government pressure.
[Tjortilla producer Mission Guerrero Foods received $50 million dollars
from the city and state agencies to create 600 new jobs. However, no
system was set up to track how many local jobs were actually created nor
the wages they offer. In the best case scenario, if 600 jobs were created,
this amounts to a public subsidy o f $85,000 per job at wages o f $10-
$ 1 5,000 a year. (Adler and others 1995, 111)
More important to this study, the researchers concluded that the Latino immigrants
working along the Alameda corridor drew cohesion and strength from many regional
clubs, churches, and associations to which they belonged. The report spoke o f soccer
clubs, social clubs based on region o f origin, and faith communities. The California
Immigrant Workers Association (CIWA), a non-profit organization developed by the
AFL-CIO to support immigrants but now moribund, estimated that a significant number of
the 500,00 members o f the Federation of Jaliscenes (Jalisco, Mexico) lived in the area
(Adler and others 1995, 112).
In July 1995 the LAMAP directors and organizers began setting the groundwork
for the official launching o f the project by meeting with the AFL-CIO Ad Hoc Committee
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on the Role of the Federation in Organizing. Members of the committee included
Presidents Dority (UFCW), Barry (IBEW), Kourpias (IAM), and Sweeney (SEIU), and
Joint Executive Council Member Gloria Johnson o f the IUE, LAMAP Newsletter dated
July 1 , 1995. This committee then made recommendations to the Executive Council of
the AFL-CIO to accept the proposal. The presentation to the committee outlined the
viability of organizing along the Alameda corridor using a large scale multi-union
strategy. The strategy was to bring all of the union resources under a central command.
“We need to create a Union Goliath to take on the employers of Los Angeles county
concentrated in the Alameda Corridor’’ (LAMAP “Organizing the Future” 1995, 3). The
presentation discussed the ineffectiveness of shop-by-shop organizing, promoted non-
NLRB community action including direct action and civil disobedience, and called for “the
strategic involvement of community-based organizations like the Catholic Church and
Mexican State Federations.”
The LAMAP Organizing Committee would draw financial and organizing
resources from the participating unions and the AFL-CIO. The Committee would
determine union jurisdictional questions before campaigns began, and the affiliated union
that signed an industry agreement would represent the newly organized workers. To
maintain the organizing momentum, the Organizing Committee would receive a
percentage of the dues generated from the organizing work. New collective bargaining
units would participate in a council that included community organizing groups, non
targeted hot shops, California Immigrant Workers Association chapters and churches
(LAMAP “Organizing the Future” 1995, 4).
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Peter Olney. the Director of LAMAP and its catalyst, began his activist life as a
member of the anti-war movement during the 1960s in Boston. He grew up in the
Unitarian church watching his grandmother, the first secretary o f the Unitarian
Universalists Association, participate in the Civil Rights movement. She marched in the
south with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Walter Reuther. His labor activism started at the
Necco Candy Factory in New England where he worked as a freight elevator operator in
1973. He then helped organize a machine shop in Roxbury, Massachusetts with the
United Electrical workers and became a colonizer, a unionist who organizes from within a
company. In 1983 he came to Los Angeles and became a staff person and then director
o f the Los Angeles Coalition Against Plant Shutdowns (LACAPS).
LACAPS was a coalition that was very involved in trying to rally labor,
community, and religious support in opposition to the massive dislocations
caused by factory closures and also involved in promoting legislation to try
and get advance warning and compensation for workers who suffered
factory closures. (Olney Interview 1997)
Peter Olney has an M B A. from UCLA and has worked since the mid-1980s as an
organizer or researcher for the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union, the United
Furniture Workers of America, and SEIU Local 399 (Justice for Janitors). He is a
progressive unionist that promotes constant organizing of new workers. When Olney first
arrived in California he was astonished with the immensity o f the L.A. manufacturing
sector and he began envisioning multi-union industry wide campaigns. Over a million
people worked in manufacturing in 1983, although the number is now around 700,000 this
is still twice then number o f Cook County, Illinois which has the second highest
concentration of manufacturing jobs in the United States. Yet only eight to nine percent
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of the L.A. manufacturing workforce belong to a union. Also important to Olnev's vision.
the workers are often immigrants.
I just could not believe the huge immigrant community, largely Mexican.
How much cultural resonance there was around the labor struggle. .And I
saw strikes, things that I had never seen back East. Long bitter strikes with
incredible participation and solidarity of largely immigrant workers [In
the early ‘80s] the Garment Workers' Union was the first and only union at
that time to understand that you had to organize in Spanish, you had to hire
Mexican organizers to organize. And so they began to be very successful
among immigrants And they had some very high-profile and victorious
strikes And what happened was that they became the union of choice for
all immigrants. So if you worked in a cookie factory or a picture frame
company or a metal welding shop, the union you called was not the steel
workers or the auto workers because you never saw them on TV or in La
Opinion or channel 52 or 34 [ L.A. Spanish television channels] You
called the ILGWU
So consequently, the great irony is that the ILGWU right now. or
UNITE as it’s called now. the merger of the two unions, has more
members in non-apparel production than they have in apparel. The have
cookie shops— all those things I named, they have I negotiated contracts
with welding shops and whatever because they were the union of choice.
They were the active out there force.
So basically, those two things, the huge manufacturing complex and
this potential for social uprising in the immigrant community around labor
issues, led us to say why don't we put together a multi-union, community-
based. sectorallv targeted, large scale organizing project and get millions of
dollars and get hundreds of organizers and get out there on the TV and
radio constantly about immigrants. "Join your union." Create a social
presence around organizers. So that was the driving thing behind LAMAP.
And we started talking about that in late ‘93. and the idea really took hold
in February o f ‘94 We formed LAMAP (Olney Interview 1997)
Olney considers the participation of the UCLA Labor Center and the Community
Scholars Program as extremely important to gaining the initial cooperation o f the labor
unions. In November 1994 the Community Scholars made a presentation to 21 local
unions and. according to Olney. the students overwhelmed the union representatives with
their research and thorough analysis.
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William Kramer, the UCLA/LAMAP coordinator, participated in the Community
Scholars program that produced the “Union Jobs for Community Renewal...” study and
was one o f the student presenters. He stayed with the initiative as a paid staff person at
LAMAP. During the project planning year in 1995, the initial nine LAMAP union
partners each contributed $25,000 to the project. In 1996 Kramer commented that the
project had met some “stumbling blocks despite the rhetoric coming out o f the AFL-CIO.
The reality o f organizing has not materialized yet” (Kramer 1996). Organizing was the
number one priority o f the new leadership (John Sweeney, Linda Chavez-Thompson and
Richard Trumka), but he believed the organizing would not actually become a reality with
the unions for some time. The Internationals would need to spearhead the organizational
transformation in the local unions to turn the labor movement around. The Teamsters, the
first union to support the project, reflected the very progressive staff headed by President
Ron Carey. On the whole, LAMAP had found that the unions were not used to
organizing. The 96 U.S. national elections had become a priority for the union leaders,
and many o f the unions did not work well together (Kramer Interview 1996).
Jorge Ramirez, a LAMAP organizer, is a Salvadorean immigrant who became
active in organizing against the war in El Salvador during the 1980s. From 1992 to 1995,
he worked with Peter Olney at SEIU Local 399. Both Olney and Ramirez worked for the
building services division but left before the International placed the local in trusteeship.
New Latino members, organized during the Justice for Janitors campaign, conducting their
business in Spanish, began to oppose the Local 399’s old guard leaders. At one point, the
staff (i.e., organizers and business representatives) at 399 had organized its own union to
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fight the administration, the elected officials. The administration also accused the staff of
organizing the membership against the Local’s leadership. Eventually, the new Latino
membership threw out the old guard except for the Local’s president. After these internal
struggles over administration, staffing, and internal governance, the International office
put Local 399 into trusteeship. National SEILJ organizers had led the Justice for Janitors
Campaign and although the Local’s officials had aided the campaign, they did not
necessarily want the new members to take their places (Ramirez Interview 1997).
Jorge Ramirez is uniquely qualified to comment on labor organizing in Los
Angeles because he is both a Latino immigrant and a union activist. He also adds a
different view of the Catholic Church because he grew up Catholic but left the Church in
his early teens. Frequently, unionists like Ramirez have commented that the Church too
often identifies with power but they also consider some Church leaders and members
supporters o f social justice.
The tradition that I had been in. in El Salvador, the highest authority within
the Church was always hanging around the structures of power Many of
the priests who were against this association, they ended up in trouble.
Monsignor Romero was rebellious... even the day he died he could not be
quoted. His activism happened through a whole process of how the war
developed. When some o f the priests ended up getting killed, he started to
realize what was going on. He didn't just turn around, he realized that he
was put into a position where he had to take a position as a Church leader,
from a human perspective more than a political perspective— what would
signify the human justice. And he never endorsed, never condoned the use
o f force. But he also understood that the armed uprising against the
system was just an effect o f force.
Romero’s reply to the military forces was a call to stop the killing
because it was going to get worse, it was not going to get better. Killing
priests is not going to do any good. And by killing the priests it took away
tremendous leadership within the community and made people more
rebellious. You know how much an impact a priest has on his followers.
A priest takes a main stage in their daily lives. You can see. I can guess I
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can see it in my wife who is a new bom Catholic. (Ramirez Interview
1997)
During his organizing activities in Los Angeles, Ramirez has worked with a few
Roman Catholic priests, Claretians Richard Estrada and Luis Olivares and Jesuit Mike
Kennedy. His perception of the Church in Los Angeles is the same as that in El Salvador.
Some priests take up social issues while the institutional Church seems comfortable with
the present power structure.
There is always a tradition, there is a perception of the Church as to what
the society should be like and that the people should follow the Church.
And that rebellion is not entirely welcome. The power structure goes up
against unions and labor and goes up against community groups. Here I
think it is just as conservative. The problem with gays and lesbians is a
major issue here. I think it loses the human context. It gets lost in the
political perception o f what a society or an individual should be... But it is
not necessarily an issue because there are obviously two groups, the more
progressive labor groups which are varied and tiny and more traditional
labor. (Ramirez Interview 1997)
Prof. Gilda Haas is an urban planner and educator at UCLA. She was a co
founder of the Tourism Industry and Development Council (TIDC) in 1992 and LAMAP
in 1995. TIDC, like LAMAP, depended on the student and faculty resources of the
UCLA Community Scholars program to begin operations. The Council’s purpose is to
organize the L.A. tourism industry to help poor people gain a greater share o f the $9
billion spent by visitors annually. By means of a community and labor partnership, TIDC
aims to make tourism a part o f economic development for Los Angeles’ Iow-income
communities. Clearly, LAMAP has similar goals in the manufacturing sector. Haas is also
the founder o f the Strategic Alliance for a Just Economy (SAJE), a community organizing
group located in South-Central Los Angeles. The Catholic Church’s Campaign for
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Human Development has funded both TIDC and LAMAP, and Tom Chabolla, the
Director of the Archdiocese’s Justice and Peace Commission, is a member of TIDC’s
board of directors.
Gilda Haas has worked in Los Angeles for over twenty years. She collaborated
with Peter Olney and Rev Dick Gillett, an Episcopalian priest, on the plant closing
coalition that coalesced around the closure of the General Motors South Gate plant. In
the 1970s she belonged to the Coalition for Economic Survival, helped incorporate West
Hollywood, and organized for rent control. “I developed a passion for being the thing that
policy makers had to react to. rather than being the people that had to react to the policy
makers” (Haas Interview 1997). Her staff duties in politics and government also
reinforced this passion. At SAJE she is working with other organizers to bring together
members of the community who want change.
Over the last 20 years, or certainly the last 10 years. I’ve cultivated a way
of doing work that makes spaces for working class people to build power
and to develop collective intellectual spaces. And what I mean by that is
that they get to call the question. They find a commonality in things that
are affecting them. And then we leverage that into bigger things through
the relationships that they make with each other. (Haas Interview 1997)
Haas has worked with individual Catholic religious leaders but has weaker links
with area pastors, bishops or the chancery. Her institutional power base is UCLA.
Although her own faith tradition is Jewish, she has colleagues and peers in numerous
religious and community groups. As she recalls the Catholic Church did not provide any
economic resources or staffing for the coalition (LACAPS) that fought plant closures
during the 1980s. Haas remembers funds coming from mainline Protestant sources and
private foundations, while the religious people mostly came from non-Catholic
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dominations. (Dick Gillett (1997), a co-founder o f LACAPS, says some funding came
from Catholic sources.) Although Father Luis Olivares and Auxiliary Bishop Juan Arzube
participated in rallies and meetings to stop the closures, she only remembers Olivares
from his involvement in immigrant rights struggles.
The institutional Catholic Church, therefore, has not been a major force in her
work, and she described the relationship as analogous to her contacts in the Industrial
.Areas Foundation network.
How Jo you see the ( ’atholic ( 'hurch w orking in labor a n d community
organizing?
It’s like the IAF. A real good analogy would be like the IAF— I
know people in the IAF who do great stuff, and we have relationships with
them as individuals. And there are institutions we don’t really have
partnerships with— people have been here for various reasons that haven’t
culminated. I’m not saying we won’t have a relationship with an IAF
group. They just haven’t panned out in the past year.
It’s similar with the Roman Catholic Church. I’ve been working
with Sister Diane Donoghue for many years. I’ve been working with
groups that are base communities that some people would say can’t be part
o f the Church, that they’re not inside o f the Church. And they’re not being
led by a priest. I’ve developed a relationship with Father Pedro
[Villarroya].
But I don’t see their role— the closer inside the Church they are, the
more contentious their roles have been in terms of their ability to continue
doing what they believe is right, even from the scriptural point of view. I
don’t mean Sister Diane, but like the religious order people, like Father
Pedro, he definitely had some differences.
So the role o f the Roman Catholic— I don’t necessarily see a
$35,000 grant, for example— I’m not saying that’s chopped liver. [The
Tourism Industry and Development Council had received a 1997 grant of
$35,000 from the Campaign for Human Development.] I think that’s really
important, and I think CHD is really important, and there are very few
resources for organizing. But it’s microscopic, compared to the power of
the Roman Catholic Church, the economic power of the Roman Catholic
Church and the constituency of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly in
a city like Los Angeles. We have this enormous Roman Catholic
population.
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So I’m not someone who comes out o f the structures of the Roman
Catholic Church. I’m a Jew. And if you walk through the different
philanthropic, organizing, scriptural traditions and encyclicals of the
different denominations, religious denominations, that are struggling with
issues o f justice, it’s kind of like the Starship Enterprise because they all
have different words for their structures and different processes and
traditions which are really interesting.
All o f those institutions have a ways to go in taking leadership over
justice issues and what they think are justice issues. And there is nothing
more conservative than a 2,000-year-old religious institution. I’m not
saying that in a bad way. I’m just saying in order to sustain yourself for
2.000 years, you have to have some basic tenets.
Look at what’s going on in the Jewish debate right now between
the reform and the orthodox. All hell’s breaking loose. And this is in a
religious denomination that doesn’t have a centralized organization. So it’s
like all kinds o f hell is breaking lose.... and so it’s only in very’ recent
history, when you’re talking about 2,000 years, that the role of women has
essentially changed. And so how that is introduced into the Church is a big
deal. And transformation, it’s only until recent history that certain
ceremonies stopped making derogatory reference to Jews or non-Catholics.
So I think that the struggles that are going on in society affect the
Church. And whether you go with the flow or whether you sustain the
basic principles and what that means for who’s going to participate is really
problematic. You never want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
(Haas Interview 1997)
Sister Diane Donoghue, a Sister o f Social Work and the director of Esperanza
Housing (a multi-million dollar housing corporation), sees the formal Church structure in a
similar light. She calls the community activists and organizers with whom she has
collaborated the ’‘worker bees” of the Church. Donoghue has worked closely with the
school o f urban planning at UCLA and TIDC. She also helped form the sponsoring
committee for the Southern California Organizing Committee of the IAF. She is aware of
LAMAP, and wants it to succeed for the benefit o f the low-income community she
shepherds. Her feelings about the Church’s stands on justice are mixed.
I think Cardinal Mahony has a strong peace and justice view on the issues
that he has and he speaks out. I have a very hard time on many issues with
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him, women in the Church, and he is pretty conservative theologically, but
on social issues he is right there. So you know, we all have our limitations
and I have mine, but... I have been here [St. Vincent’s Church in the Pico-
Union neighborhood] on the staff for twelve years. I have seen a
tremendous evolution with regard to involvement on justice issues... We
have had a shelter at St. Vincent’s for eight years. We have celebrated
every Guadalupe Day, that is something. The parish is very, very poor, yet
families provide the dinner every night in the shelter. That is where it
comes from. So the commitment that the Vincentians have of working
with the poorest of the poor comes through. And there are not a lot of
parishes I would work in. I have been here for this amount of time and I
cannot say enough for the commitment. (Donoghue Interview 1997)
Father Pedro Villarroya is a Vincentian priest originally from Spain. He has spent
over 30 years of religious life in the United States, primarily in Los Angeles. In the 1970s
he belonged to the sponsoring committee to establish the Industrial Areas Foundation
affiliate. United Neighborhood Organization, in East Los Angeles. This organization
responded to the urban Chicanos o f the 1970s, and for some of the original founders,
acted as a city equivalent to the struggle of the UFW in the fields (Clements Interview
1997). Although Father Villarroya continues to support the IAF and praises the
organization’s efforts, he believes that IAF affiliates have become too controlled by the
organizers and that the IAF fails to develop coalitions with other community groups for
fear of losing power (Villarroya Interview 1996). Father Villarroya has also led the
Archdiocese’s Justice and Peace Commission and headed the Hispanic Ministry Office.
He became an important participant in LAMAP after he read an article in the Los
Angeles Times describing the project.
There was an article on LAMAP in the Los Angeles Times and
there was a picture of Peter Olney. I saw the article in the paper. I went to
my office and said that I had to get into touch with this guy. So I started
looking and asking myself who did I know that might be in touch with the
organization. I know Maria Eleana Durazo [the President of HERE Local
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11]. I called some of the people I knew in politics. I got Peter Olney’s
number and left a message on his answering machine. I said, “Mr. Peter
Olney, I am the Director o f the Office of Hispanic Ministry and I saw the
article and I would like to talk to you about it.” So Peter called back and
we made an appointment.
So they came to my office and I saw the dynamic of this. . . I said,
“Just stop for a moment. You don’t have to convince me. The
conversation is not to motivate me to participate because that is why I
called you.”
I began to go to the meetings. They brought union people from
Washington, and I met other lay people. Then out o f that participation I
became a part o f the Board o f LAMAP.
When the [UCLA] students were doing their research, they had a
day long retreat that I attended. They discussed the different groups they
were trying to organize. They were preparing something about how the
communities would get involved. They had so many Teamster and steel
worker offices and so on. I remember making the statement, “1 have so
many parishes with so many thousands of Catholics and this much money,
hey, I should be number one o f all the people at LAMAP.” I have all the
money and the churches, so you know... everybody roared with laughter.
[UCLA Professor] Goetz W olf then prepared a map showing the location
of all the Catholic churches in the Alameda corridor.
With the map, I told Peter Olney that it was about time that we
went beyond me and started talking to the bishops. I set up a meeting with
Bishop Blaire for Peter and Joel Ochoa. We went to see Bishop Blaire and
we did the same thing with Bishop [Joseph] Sartoris. They were both
enthusiastic about LAMAP. Bishop Blaire was at the announcement o f
LAMAP at the Los Angeles Trade College. Both o f them have been
marvelous. One o f Bishop Blaire’s loves is to work with organizers
especially in the garment industry. I also set up a meeting between Bishop
Blaire and the union people in the garment industry... that is why we are
backing the Guess? boycott. (Villarroya Interview 1996)
Father Pedro believes strongly in LAMAP’s vision. LAMAP is an “idea full of life
and that is what organizations should be about. Not just organizing just because there is a
strike or organize because there is a need for better wages, no, no, no.” He likens the
project’s vision to a Vatican II for today’s labor unions. The Church had to find itself and
what it was about. The Church discovered the world with Vatican II— an aggiomamento.
The unions are going through the same process because, like the Church, they cannot
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survive alone. Villarroya urged the unions to “go for the whole thing and not to fight over
control or money.” Some o f the unions, however, dropped out because the vision was too
big for them (Villarroya Interview 1996).
A similar phenomenon, according to Villarroya, occurs in the Archdiocese. One
parish asks, “Why should it help somebody else’s parish, support a school in a poor
community, or help all those immigrants9” Church people want immigrants to become
Americans first and Catholics second, but it should be the other way around. Likewise
unions go for the benefits first and talk about the respect for human rights second. Father
Pedro bemoans the lack o f Catholic involvement in labor organizing (Villarroya Interview
1996).
We have abandoned a field that used to be ours. To be the conscience, to
be the guiding light, to be the moral preachers o f values, to be where the
people struggle. We have abandoned it. We are coming out with real nice
letters... but we do not have those regular meetings with the people in the
unions, to be at strikes... right here you see it in Los Angeles. And when I
was at the Office o f Hispanic Ministry, labor was one o f the fields that I
said I was going to be present in. Even if for nothing else, I am going to be
present. And to see that the poor people, especially the Latinos and the
immigrants, are going to know that somebody is representing the Church
even if I don’t do anything for them. (Villarroya Interview 1996)
Richard Trumka met with Bishop Blaire, Tom Chabolla (Director o f the
Archdiocesan Justice and Peace Office), and Father Pedro in 1995 to discuss LAMAP and
labor organizing in Los Angeles. Trumka had originally wanted to meet with Cardinal
Mahony, but Villarroya advised Peter Olney to have Trumka write directly to the the
Cardinal. He, however, agreed to arrange a meeting between Bishop Blaire and Richard
Trumka. Villarroya had also arranged an earlier meeting between David Sickler, Director
o f Region 6 o f the AFL-CIO and a LAMAP board member, and Bishop Blaire. Bishop
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Blaire was a spokesperson for the Archdiocese during the organizing of Archdiocesan
cemetery workers from 1988 to 1991, and David Sickler had publicly criticized the
Cardinal for his failure to recognize the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers
Union (ACTU) as the bargaining representative of the workers or to bargain in good faith
(Baker 1990, B 1). (The cemetery worker dispute is discussed more fully below.) During
their meetings. Richard Trumka, David Sickler and Villarroya agreed on the necessity of
once again teaching organizers and unions officials about Catholic social teaching to
support organizing with a predominately Catholic population (Villarroya Interview 1996).
Villarroya had helped create spaces for labor and the Church to develop their relationship
but friendship takes time.
Father Villarroya later left the Archdiocesan Hispanic Ministry Office, but
continued to participate with LAMAP. He believes that LAMAP researchers and
organizers could have more effectively used his knowledge of Catholic social teaching and
the Catholic Church. During the AFL-CIO Union Summer, a program modeled after the
Civil Rights Freedom Summer and created to introduce college students to organizing,
Villarroya was only called to share with the students after he had personally telephoned
Sickler. When he was then invited, he had already finalized his summer schedule. No
other official in the Archdiocese had an ongoing, working relationship with LAMAP or
the labor movement generally. At this time, during the summer o f 1996, LAMAP and
Teamsters Local 63 had also begun to focus on a strike involving the delivery drivers for
Mission Guerrero Tortilla Company. Once again Villarroya provided an introduction to
Bishop Gabino Zavala in East Los Angeles, and Bishops Zavala and Blaire subsequently
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issued a statement supporting the drivers. After a seven week struggle, with significant
support from religious, community and student groups generated by LAMAP, the drivers
won their strike (Villarroya Interview 1996).
LAMAP and the Catholic Church
Father Villarroya’s role was advice, personal introductions and at times
conversations with workers and students. But neither he nor the labor organizers found
the time to educate each other about their respective institutional cultures or the Catholic
Church’s teachings on labor. Father Villarroya initiated his contact with LAMAP. Parish
pastors are well aware of Catholic social teaching but their methods for its promotion and
dissemination are inadequate. At this time in history, the union movement needs to
promote the Church’s labor views for their own activities while developing strategic
relationships with priests and religious to back the working faithful. If labor organizing
benefits the community, then bishops, pastors and parishioners will respond. Today’s Los
Angeles labor leaders and Catholic religious have very weak relationships.
In the spring of 1996 Price-Pfister/Black and Decker, a faucet manufacturer in
Pacoima, California, began laying off production employees represented by Teamsters
Local 986. While the foundry was closed and the assembly work cut back, the company
opened a new plant in Mexicali, Mexico. Black and Decker claimed the move was
necessary because of Proposition 65, a California initiative that requires warning signs on
products that might cause cancer or birth defects. Faucet production includes the use of
molds containing lead. In addition, the state had fined Price-Pfister for dumping toxic
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314
waste into the sewer system, and L.A. County officials called the plant a major local
polluter. Industry experts attributed the move to lower labor costs and weaker
environmental laws in Mexico (Daily News October 5. 1996, 14). Although the company
had given the employees a warning about the shutdown and eventually provided some
severance benefits, the workers felt betrayed by both the union and the company.
LAMAP became a supporter o f the workers after the Mission Guerrero victory
and the project’s subsequent recognition in the Latino community. Pacioma is outside the
Alameda Corridor, but the issues and worker population fit LAMAP’s mission. Adrian
Gomez, the leader o f the Price-Pfister workers, has a background that illustrates the
interrelationship between Catholicism and labor issues in L.A. He is an exceptional
example o f the kind o f leader both the Church and labor might raise up.
Legally, when we were building our movement, the justice that
people deserved because o f what they lost, we wanted a good
compensation for all the years that they had worked and good insurance.
The company said that we have no reason to give you anything because the
contract never said that we would have to give you anything. This is when
the movement began to put public pressure on the company. We began to
invite community groups in. And I tried to develop relations along
different avenues so that we might achieve our goals. Up to this date we
have not succeeded. We have achieved some little things like unity among
the workers. Activities like putting people on the factory’s street comer
[in a protest shanty] that gave the company a bit o f a headache. (Gomez
Interview 1997)
Is fa ith linked to the fig h t as w ell?
I have been reading the Archdiocesan newspaper Vida Nueva for
some time and I have read the messages o f Cardinal Mahony related to
Rerum No varum and all o f the Catholic social doctrine... in the first part of
the 21s * century we are going to see changes. So the Cardinal has analyzed
the problem o f workers, and he says it is time to return to the social
doctrine and go forward with a Christian understanding of unionism. It is
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through this that I have my vision to go forward because the Church is
proposing this. (Gomez Interview 1997)
What is y o u r im age o f the Church in a ll o f this?
There is still a lack of guidance in social questions. We are still
backwards. There are many factors, for example in respect to minorities.
The majority o f our people who come to this country come out o f
economic necessity. There are many humble people who need direction,
who need education in social questions. There is a need for forming
direction. But we are beginning to become more active. But there are still
people who have not arrived at this point. The necessity is there. If we
were to understand more the spiritual motivation so that one understands
that things are done because we are serving God in this way, then we will
have a greater profundity and greater force because we are not saying that
we are simply demanding our rights. If it has a religious background, I
believe we have many possibilities of triumphing in the future. The Church
has its role, but it is also the role of the laity. (Gomez Interview 1997)
D o y o u b io w the history o f Cesar Chavez?
O f course I do. I was working in the north when his movement
was really strong. At this time I was working in a factory. Their struggle
started in the countryside. I realized that he knew his work, he had a
spirituality, something very strong from the Lord, and he had read. He
always had the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe around him, and I have it
in my house. He was really an example for the people, for minorities,
inside his personal philosophy there are things that personally fascinate me.
(Gomez Interview 1997)
Gomez studied engineering in Mexico and participated in the Student Movement
o f 1968. He also studied Marxism but was uncomfortable with what he calls “extreme
groups.” He has always been active in his local parishes in Mexico and the United States.
At his present parish. Our Lady o f the Holy Rosary, he helped create the parish’s five year
plan, which includes the establishment of a worker association and worker-owned
enterprises. Gomez is also active in Valley Organized In Community Effort (VOICE), the
IAF affiliate in the San Fernando Valley. With the help o f VOICE, Gomez and the other
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Price-Pfister laid-ofF workers presented their demands to Mayor Richard RJordan during a
candidate forum in 1996 and subsequently met with him about their cause. (The company,
according to Gomez, fired him one week after he argued with a Price-Pfister manager
during a meeting between the workers and management)
The Industrial Areas Foundation has had a long history of working with Catholic
parishes and other religious congregations. The Southern California Organizing
Committee (SCOC) has seven Catholic parishes taking part in the organization. United
Neighborhood Organizations (UNO) also has seven parishes and in the past HERE Local
11 and SEIU 399 were dues-paying members. Together these two IAF organizations had
within their fold 10 of the 55 Catholic parishes that Father Pedro Villarroya had
pinpointed along the Alameda corridor for LAMAP. In addition, two of the
Archdiocese's Justice and Peace Commission members were IAF leaders with long
histories in community organizing. Rev. David O ’Connell, one of the two members, was
also the President o f the Archdiocesan Priests’ Council. The Peace and Justice
Commission is the Archdiocesan body that awards Campaign for Fluman Development
grants. Yet the IAF and LAMAP oniy began discussing possible joint work as the unions
were decreasing their involvement in the project. LAMAP either needed to develop its
own relationships with area clergy or be in relationship with a community-based
organization like the IAF.
The Knights of Labor and Saul Alinsky used indigenous community organizations
to help organize workers. LAMAP supported the Tourism Industry and Development
Council’s successful campaign to pass a “living wage” ordinance in Los Angeles, but the
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support was limited to lobbying council members and bringing bodies to city hall meetings.
TIDC drew inspiration for the ordinance after a labor union/IAF sponsored living wage
law passed in Baltimore, and the TIDC organizers sought local IAF participation and
advice. The VOICE affiliate brought VOICE members to city council debates during the
campaign, and the other IAF affiliates either simply endorsed the campaign or had no
interest in the struggle. According to TIDC. the IAF wanted to lead the campaign rather
than enter into a coalition with other groups who supported the idea. Local community
activists and organizers often say that the IAF does not collaborate or is too identified
with the Catholic Church. Father Villarroya and Sister Donoghue both regretted the
failure of the IAF to cooperate with other organizing groups. They are both IAF
promoters who have tepid views o f the organization at the moment.
LAMAP and other local unions lack a grass roots linkage to the Archdiocese,
although the people they are attempting to organize are at least nominally Catholic.
LAMAP or L A. unions as a body, perhaps through the L A. County Labor Federation,
would benefit with either stronger ties with Archdiocesan offices or indirect ties to
Catholic churches through the Industrial Areas Foundation. Despite the opinion of some
community organizers, the IAF has no special hold on the Archdiocese, and its affiliates
compete for CHD funding like hundreds of other Catholic and non-Catholic community
organizations in L. A. Similarly, the IAF has refused money from Catholic sources when it
has received requests for special attention or activities primarily benefitting Catholics (Ed
Chambers Interview 1997). The IAF advantage, however, comes from understanding the
Catholic faith, culture, and Church organization. Some of the organizers are Catholic,
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and one finds many organizers who are former or current seminary students, priests, and
nuns. In Los Angeles two IAF organizers are former priests, and a third was a diocesan
seminarian up until his deaconate ordination. In contrast, the LAMAP organizers
appeared to practice no organized faith tradition and had a cursory understanding of
Catholicism and the Archdiocese.
The project’s contacts and knowledge o f the Catholic Church came from Father
Villarroya but the relationships were short term and unsystematic. Father Villarroya
struggled to communicate the importance o f faith and the Catholic Church’s role in the
lives of area workers. LAMAP organizers never showed disrespect for the Catholic
Church or faith, they simply failed to nurture Catholic allies and learn its language. Saul
Alinsky’s friendship with Joseph Meegan led to relationships with Fr. Edward Plawinski,
Monsignor John Egan, Auxiliary Bishop Bernard Sheil, archdiocesan Chancellor Edward
Burke, and Cardinal Stritch. He took the time to cultivate friendships with Catholic
leaders because he was organizing Catholic neighborhoods. Alinsky’s interest focused on
politics and power. He did not reverently participate in Catholic rituals (Horwitt. 196).
but the relationships with Church leaders were not “mere convenience or opportunism.
Not only did they share many similar values; they also developed a genuine fondness for
each other” (Horwitt, 306). His work and Catholic contacts led to Rome in 1958 and
1959 when he and Vatican officials discussed the possibility of bringing the IAF to Italy
(Finks 1984, 114-119).
The Los Angeles Archdiocese and local unions have had a poor relationship since
the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union drive to organize 150
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319
Archdiocesan cemetery workers between 1988 and 1991. During the campaign, the
National Labor Relations Board refused to supervise any elections or hear any unfair labor
practice charges because the NLRA excludes religious institutions from its jurisdiction.
The Archdiocese agreed to an election supervised by the State Mediation and Conciliation
Service on February 8, 1998 which the union won 66 to 62 (Baker 1991. B1). Cardinal
Mahony, however, felt the election was unfair because of reports from cemetery workers
o f harassment and intimidation by the union. The Archdiocese requested a three member
panel to review the electioneering activities and election to determine if flagrant unfair
labor practices had occurred. The panel headed by Fred Alvarez, a former NLRB
attorney, David Sickler. and Ralph Kennedy, a former board member of the NLRB. ruled
2 to 1 that no intimidation had occurred and the election was valid (Tidings Nov. 1990).
The Archdiocese then entered into negotiations with ACTWU. Negotiations were
fruitless, and the Cardinal received a petition from 97 of the 150 cemetery workers
renouncing any participation in ACTWU. A year and one day from the first election, the
cemetery workers voted a second time with an accounting firm conducting the election.
On February 9, 1990 the workers voted 92 to 24 against the union (Tidings 1 Nov. 1991).
The union protested that the Archdiocese had to negotiate one year from the date of the
independent panel’s decision in November 1990. The Archdiocese argued that bargaining
only had to occur for one year from the date o f the election in February 1989. ACTWU
sued the Archdiocese to continue the bargaining and a Los Angeles Superior Court
dismissed the suit when both sides agreed to a final election. The election was held on
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October 22, 1 991 and the cemetery workers voted 92 to 43 against representation by
ACTWU (Tidings 1 Nov. 1991).
The labor dispute between the Archdiocese and ACTWU was acrimonious. The
union accused the Archdiocese of circulating the petition renouncing it as the bargaining
representative, an accusation denied by Archdiocesan officials (Los Angeles Times. “News
in Brief’ 31 January 1990, B2). “William Robertson, executive secretary of the Los
Angeles County Federation o f Labor, said at the press conference... that Mahony is guilty
o f ‘hypocritical attitudes’” (Baker 1990, Bl). Cardinal Mahony, an Archbishop at the
time, contends that the organizers coerced the workers into joining the union.
The conduct and actions of the ACTWU over the past year have
been puzzling to me. I have a long, personal involvement and working
relationship with the organized labor movement. From 1965 to 1977 I
worked closely and actively with farm workers throughout California,
Arizona, and Florida to help them in their goal to achieve a living wage and
normal working benefits. Many of these collaborative efforts have resulted
in the raising of both wages and the standards of benefits to which
agricultural workers are entitled.
Because o f this long and harmonious experience in working with
labor representatives, I am dismayed at the hostile, strident and
confrontational methods employed from the start with field representatives
of ACTWU with our 140 Catholic Cemetery grounds employees. Their
approach has reflected conflict, deception, and their inability to follow
agreed-upon procedures. (Mahony 1989, 4)
Reading Cardinal Mahony’s views on Archdiocesan labor relations, one sees an
intent to follow the Catholic teaching of corporatism. The ideal, one that Catholic
Workers Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin promoted, is a workplace where workers and
managers have relatively equal voice and power, and workers truly define their occupation
as a vocation. In effect, in 1964 85% of the Archdiocese’s employees were religious men
and women, people who quite literally had vocations. By 1989, 85% o f the
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Archdiocese’s 9,000 employees were laity (Mahony 1989, 4). If people have no sense of
mission, they demand extrinsic rewards like wages and benefits first, and the sacrifices
required of a vocation become secondary. Mahony’s answer to laity participation in
employment decisions is not unionization but employee councils, using the cooperative
ideals of Industry Council Plans, promoted by Catholic labor schools and labor priests in
the 1950s (See Higgins 1996, 135-136). This council idea, which leapfrogs the
promotion o f worker associations (i.e., unions and their implicit recognition of class
division) in Catholic social teaching, comes from Ouadragismo Anno and the U.S.
Bishops’ Pastoral of 1986.
We have begun an annual review of health care benefits, and an
ongoing salary administration study. Our Retirement Plan for all lay
employees was just changed January 1 , 1989 to reflect a far more generous
retirement benefit for all our Archdiocesan employees.
Also included in this process is the development of a Personnel
Handbook for Archdiocesan employees which spells out their benefits,
working conditions, and policies. Employee representatives are involved in
the formulation o f this new Handbook.
Similar to the action of the Holy See and other Catholic Dioceses,
the Archdiocese has been setting up a series o f Employee Councils to give
employees both a voice and a collaborative role in reviewing employment
conditions and in helping to bring about the “new creative models” outlined
in the U.S. Bishops’ Economic Pastoral Letter.
Some o f our goals and objectives will require enhanced
commitment by all our Catholic peoples. For example, in order to bring
our salaries and benefits for Catholic school teachers closer to those of the
public schools will mean that our parishes and people will have to
recommit themselves to the great value of Catholic education and help
provide the needed funding to achieve these goals. (Mahony 1989, 4)
U.S. Catholic bishops seem to believe that the NLRA or the ALRA (a mirror
image of the NLRA for agricultural workers) now adequately protect workers’ rights (See
Chapter 4 for evidence to the contrary). The loss of union members and the increase in
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the number o f working poor in Los Angeles and around the country belies their confidence
in present labor law and U.S. labor relations policies. For instance, the ongoing struggle
to organize strawberry workers in Watsonville, California and the loss o f UFW contracts
point out the ineffectiveness o f the ALRA. Monsignor George Higgins, one o f the
ALRA’s first supporters, comments:
Within a year [of the ALRA's passage], the growers double-
crossed the farm workers. They waged a campaign to weaken the
legislation and, for all practical purposes, put the California Agricultural
Labor Relations Board out o f business. The law and its one-sided
administration have hampered the UFW ever since. (Higgins 1993, 99)
Unions today, agricultural and nonagricultural unions, need to organize with
occasional conflict and agitation because employers and their attorneys have gutted the
intent of labor legislation to give employees the right to organize. Monsignor Higgins
underscores this problem.
As we near the final laps o f a century that made great strides in the
labor field, the labor movement is clearly on the defensive, and the right to
organize is once again, a live issue. The right itself is seldom explicitly or
directly challenged as a matter of principle or theory. But in everyday
practice, the right to organize faces a huge assault. Hundreds o f thousands
of workers struggle against great odds to achieve or hold on to the basic
protection and benefits o f collective bargaining shared by their fellow
workers in other industries and other countries.
In their efforts to form new unions or hold on to ones that exist,
workers have met with widespread and increasing employer opposition—
which frequently violates the spirit and too often the letter o f the law.
(Higgins 1993, 71)
Employee councils in the private sector, without organized employee power, are
simply management unions or manipulative tools in the eyes of labor. Lfrvfortunately,
unions fail to recognize the role o f faith in addition to power in the lives o f many
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employees of the Church. The Employee Councils of the L A. Archdiocese will hopefully
be more open to the spirit of cooperation and voice than a private for-profit enterprise.
I have spoken with various community and labor organizers about the cemetery
workers dispute, and some have said if they had been in Mahony1 s position, they would
not have signed a contract with ACTWU. According to some Archdiocesan supporters of
labor. Cardinal Mahony would have signed a contract with any union except ACTWU.
American labor history also shows that a few union officials have committed unfair labor
practices against their own paid staff. In other words, unions face their own
inconsistencies as well. Neither party in this difficult cemetery worker episode was
errorless. In terms o f the survival of the labor movement, however. Catholic Church
leaders have to recognize the place of nonviolent civil disobedience, public protests, public
chastisement, and anger when confronting the injustices o f vehemently anti-union
companies in the United States today. If labor laws were balanced, union organizers
would not have to resort to such measures. United States civic leaders and faith
communities need to reexamine U.S. labor policy.
Unfortunately the division between labor and the L. A. Archdiocesan hierarchy
became so great that the Cardinal and the Catholic Labor Institute mutually agreed that
the Cardinal would no longer participate in its annual Labor Day breakfast. He would,
however, continue celebrating the labor day mass. Rev. Tom F. Coogan founded the
Institute in 1947, and the Institute had the full support o f the Los Angeles County
Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO until its demise in 1990. Barbara Mejia, the ACTWU
organizer for the cemetery workers, was on the Institute’s advisory committee during the
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Archdiocesan/ACTWU dispute. Cardinal Mahony has often said that the end of the
Catholic Labor breakfast was not due to the Archdiocesan disagreements with ACTWU.
In his estimation, the Catholic Labor breakfast had lost its connection to Catholicism
because: I) few labor practitioners joined in the mass prior to the breakfast (only 40 o f the
1,200 attendees in 1986); 2) Senator Alan Cranston at the 1986 breakfast offended the
Catholic Church by underscoring the Democratic party’s commitment to a right to an
abortion; and 3) the breakfast had become too politicized (he described the 1989 breakfast
as a “pro-Dukakis, anti-Bush” event) (Mahony July 1989). The union leaders contend
that “pro-choice” was never the topic of any of the breakfasts and that Mahony had
participated in the past when Democrats had spoken (Weinstein 1989, M4). Yet political
observers who attended the 1986 breakfast and who understood California politics and the
Catholic Church knew that Cranston’s remarks were too blunt (Clements Interview 1997).
Cardinal Mahony is a registered Democrat.
This rapid division between labor and the Catholic Church came just three years
after Cardinal Mahony had walked with 5,000 people in support of an increase in the state
minimum wage. Both Los Angeles labor unions and the IAF were instrumental in gaining
Mahony’s support for that effort. Although labor had gained momentum in various
organizing efforts during the early 1990s, the unions lost the Cardinal’s good will by using
the same confrontational tactics on the Archdiocese, an institutional ally. ACTWU, its
organizers, and the labor movement failed to consider the ramifications of a nasty, public
dispute with the Archdiocese.
What abou t any suspicions o f the C atholic Church on the p a rt o f
labor a t the moment?
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The thing that struck me over the years is that unfortunately, some
union organizers have never taken the time to develop an appreciation of
the Church and the role of religion, and they have made some huge
blunders. The most obvious example is the cemetery workers. That didn’t
need to go the direction it did, on both sides. (Clements Interview 1997)
How about difficulties working with the ( ’ atholic ( ’ hurch a s a
community organizer or labor organizer?
I think that, given the Catholic Church is not a democratic
institution, the position of the hierarchy will shape how much latitude
people have and the kind of organizing they do. And it shapes the
environment, which that can happen. (Clements Interview 1997)
During a 1997 focus group meeting o f labor and community organizers, Tom
Chabolla, now the Archdiocesan Secretariat for Pastoral and Community Services, shared
his views on the relationship between organizing in Los Angeles and the Archdiocese.
I think that that [a list of guests to a labor/Catholic Church
discussion] is part of the analysis and relationship building that needs to be
done with the Church on a broad level. Oftentimes and this is not just with
unions, but any organization that wants the Archdiocese’s support, wants
the Cardinal. And there is often no strategic thinking as to when is the
most appropriate time to make the request: On what issues? At what point
in your campaign? And I think there are a lot of different levels that you
can engage any o f the denominations but particularly the Catholic Church
on an issue. There are the auxiliary bishops, there are pastors, there are lay
leaders, there are different organizations that can represent the Church at
different times. And that type of thought process needs to go on internally
within the union, getting the Church better involved. It is the best strategic
thinkers among the unions who have the sort of longer view and are sitting
down. First o f all, you are not going to get the Cardinal to get [involved]
in something like that. But you get people inside the institution who are
able to bring that vision back and then begin to engage the institution with
labor. Over a period o f time start building those relationships. There has
to be that sense o f trust, you know, that we have some common interest
here. (Chabolla Interview October 1997)
Labor organizations will have to reach out to leaders at the ground level of the
Archdiocese to reach higher levels of the Church. If LAMAP had had an earlier and
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greater appreciation of this fact, the organization might have formed the relationships
required for building a strong Archdiocesan position that supported the community-wide
effort. LAMAP began to initiate some of this strategy, after the appearance o f Father
Villarroya. but the unions belonging to the project were impatient and demanded
immediate results to justify their financial contributions. In January 1998, LAMAP closed
its doors. The Teamsters were the last union to participate in the multi-union campaign,
but the external probes and internal political turmoil caused by Teamsters President Ron
Carey’s re-election and the money LAMAP needed to succeed (estimated at $3 million per
year) ended the project.
One o f the last major contributors to LAMAP was the Campaign for Human
Development which gave the project a national grant o f $30,000 in November 1997.
Other grant winners included TIDC, $35,000; Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches,
$50,000; and Hope in Youth— Justice for Workers $30,000. Hope in Youth is staffed
with IAF community organizers. ACORN and LISTO also won $10,000 local grants.
The Catholic Church had contributed well over $100,000 to aggressive local organizing
projects in 1997. The labor movement spends tens o f millions o f dollars trying to gain the
good will o f national, state, and local politicians while it could gamer the institutional
support o f the Catholic Church, without a similar expense, simply by building up a labor/
Church relationship. Father Villarroya went to LAMAP to offer his support, after he read
an article in the Los Angeles Times. LAMAP up until that point had no significant contact
with the Catholic Church in Los Angeles. Labor officials need to sit down and discuss
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labor organizing with area priests, sisters, and Archdiocesan personnel to gain a better
foothold in the communities they want to organize.
The labor movement watched the passage of NAFTA under the Clinton
administration, but successfully fought the President’s attempt at winning Fast-Track trade
legislation. Catholics and church people in general had a common interest in protecting
American and Mexican workers. In the case o f the Democrat’s so-called welfare reform,
organized labor and the Church seem to hold similar views about the importance of
protecting the poor. Immigration is a less fruitful issue for common ground because some
unions, particularly the building trades, see immigrants as a threat to their union jobs
(Seymour Interview 1997). Service sector unions, however, are organizing immigrants;
consequently, the labor movement is divided on immigration policy. Cardinal Mahony has
spoken out for these new arrivals, calling for Catholics to vote against anti-immigrant
initiatives.
Labor unions and organizations that support labor organizing will not find the
Archdiocese supporting abortion rights, physician-assisted suicide efforts or legislation
that requires employers to recognize gay partners as married. O f course not all Catholics
are in agreement with these issues, but the institutional Church’s basic positions are fairly
well known. Furthermore, when reflective opponents take the time to study these
positions and the moral reasoning behind them, they cannot simply brush the hierarchy’s
positions aside as unreasonable. In the case of homosexuality. Cardinal Mahony has
received criticism from conservative Catholics for celebrating mass with gay people,
although the Cardinal and hierarchical Church teach that homosexuals are sons and
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daughters of God Progressives criticize the Catholic Church for not ordaining women,
yet millions of women continue to participate in the Church, including many women whom
the unions wish to organize. Here. too. the Church’s position on gender roles are not
those of many in the United States, at least according to many social commentators, but
the so-called Vatican position is not without reason. While liberal Catholics and
progressive unionists in the U.S. might complain that the Vatican is not the Catholic
culture. U S. liberals (and conservatives) forget that U.S. culture is not necessarily
Catholic either
The Catholic Church’s present views on controversial subjects, that often relate to
human sexuality and life itself, point to a seamless continuity between public and private
life. Post-Enlightenment political liberalism attempts to separate the two. believing that
the things you say and do in private have no bearing on the wider public. A Catholic
who lives his or her faith realizes that this is never the case. Our private lives affect our
communal life and vice versa. This point will be covered more fully in the conclusion.
The question at this juncture is whether progressive, actively organizing unionists, like
those involved with LAMAP, are willing to organize around economic and job-related
issues with the Catholic Church while showing some sensitivity to the Church’s views on
other social issues.
Both LAMAP and TIDC are organizing projects originating at the University
California at Los Angeles. Public universities are definitely not conveyors of Catholicism
or Catholic social teachings. Although some faculty, staff and students are undoubtedly
Catholic, one can safely assume that Catholic thought is not taught in UCLA related
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organizing projects. Students who participate in these projects may or may not participate
in any faith community. Yet faculty and students want to organize in a Hispanic
community that is awash in four centuries of Catholicism, good and bad. (Father Pedro
Villarroya was rightfully concerned about the lack o f knowledge of Catholic social
teaching and the Catholic faith in LAMAP.) Without surveying all the participants in
LAMAP and TIDC, I assume from my interviews that some participating academics,
organizers, and students have a unsympathetic view of the institutional Church. Jorge
Ramirez, an LAMAP organizer, believes that “Catholicism has a problem with gays and
lesbians.” Sister Diane Donoghue, praises Mahony’s peace and justice views but takes
issue with his views on women in the church and calls him “pretty conservative
theologically.” Prof. Haas finds that the Catholic religious with whom she collaborates
have a difficult time doing what they think is right the further they are inside the Church.
Stephanie Monroe, a colleague of Prof. Haas and a TIDC organizer, shared her view on
the tension that some organizers might have with Catholic moral teaching.
D o you see abortion or Pro-Choice a s being a dividing line between labor
an d the ( 'hurch?
I guess I don’t see it needs to be and I think that the way that TIDC
tries to work is that we try to have allies in different areas and you know,
frankly we are not organizing in the field of abortion rights. We are
organizing with economic development and we are able to have allies who
we disagree with on those issues. In fact TIDC doesn’t even take a stand
on those issues, although we certainly line up with pro-choice and
personally organizers have different feelings about that. We have allies that
work on some things that don’t fall on the right side according to us but we
try— we know we can use there good influence on other issues. (Monroe
Interview 1997)
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Father Villarroya believes the Church has lost Latino activists for many reasons,
including the Church’s dismissal of the Latino Moratorium in 1970 when LA . Chicano
activists protested the Viet Nam war. He adds, moreover, that "we get stuck in certain
ideas in the Church, and we preach a morality that only has to do with sex” (Villarroya
Interview 1996).
And I think we have the same thing with the whole thing about
abortion. We get stuck in the whole thing about abortion. We go against
the law because the law is this and that. Fine, as a church we should not
worry about the law in here [.v/cj. Let’s make, [that], even if it is legal, it is
still not lawful for us as a morality question. Let’s preach this but let’s not
antagonize the law. But when you know the statistics, the percentage o f
abortions is as high with Catholics as with anybody else. So that means
that we are not even serving our own Church. (Villarroya Interview 1996)
Father Villarroya further relates that the staff and students at LAMAP had stopped
calling him just Father, but began calling him Father Villarroya. He had “become more
human” to them (Villarroya Interview 1996). The question then becomes the level o f
accommodation that occurs when liberal academics and unionists work with a sometimes
“conservative” Church or the accommodation that the Church has to make with these
academics and unionists. The hierarchical Church promotes the well-being o f the poor
and holds strong views on sexual morality and life. These positions will not satisfy
conservatives in areas o f economic justice or liberals in the realm o f personal morality. I
use “conservative” and “liberal” as they are used in the culture and context o f our society.
Interestingly, both groups are political liberals and individualists if we call U.S. society a
Post-Enlightenment culture. Conservatives in areas o f social justice wish to maintain all
property questions as private while liberals attempt to maintain all sexual morality
questions as private; clearly, libertarians hope to keep both private. These are
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33!
generalizations without data, but one might reflect on national debates about abortion
rights, gender rights, and gay rights and consider the alliances o f conservative and liberal
organizations in party politics.
Although this may seem far from the demise of LAMAP. the project might have
had greater success if it took the people where they were at and had not thought too much
about where they ought to be. If large numbers of the Alameda Corridor workers (or their
families and friends) were going to Catholic parishes, then organizers needed to develop
relationships with local parish leaders (clerics and non-clerics). The project required some
organizers who were practicing Catholics and, hopefully, area residents. The Catholic
organizers need not have agreed with all views of the institutional Church, but the Church
would have recognized them as part o f its community. The success o f the IAF in Catholic
parishes reflects its organizers' understanding o f the institutional Church and the people
who continue to participate in it. The IAF is an ecumenical organization and other faith
groups belong because they gain some benefit from their participation. (Clearly, the IAF
must know the cultures o f other denominations, too.) In fact, the Catholic Church holds
values in common with those taught in many other denominations. The IAF prides itself
on organizing around values and not issues and, therefore, multi-denominational networks
are possible.
LAMAP also closed shop because the unions were too impatient. This was the
greatest reason for its failure. The lack of cooperation between unions parallels the lack
o f cooperation at times between faith groups. Each organization has to respond to its
members or at times the egos o f its leaders. The IAF will not begin organizing in an area
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unless the local sponsoring committee guarantees three years worth o f operating funds.
LAMAP never received such a commitment from the unions and opened shop depending
on the good will of the participants. Although LAMAP helped win the Mission Guerrero
strike and helped organize another 80 workers at La Brea Bakery as a result of the
Guererro success, the returns to the nine unions were too small to warrant further
investment. LAMAP was meeting with IAF organizers and receiving Catholic Church
funding when the project ended. The unions, however, had already cut short their own
relationship building which they needed to create a major organizing campaign.
Conclusion
LAMAP was an ambitious project from the very beginning. The organizers knew
they needed multi-million dollar financing and long-term commitments from the
participating international unions. If LAMAP failed to succeed, the cause was not a lack
of desire on the part o f the organizers or the unions but the high risk. A labor movement
that has not aggressively organized for many years combined with unions who have never
worked on multi-union, community-wide organizing campaigns means high anxiety.
Union officials want immediate organizing paybacks; i.e., new members, right now.
Some union officials who contributed union funds to the project believed house
visits and door-to-door canvassing in the community were problematic. They wanted
LAMAP to organize workers for their unions and not an amorphous community/labor
organization. Their interest was in organizing shops and not the community. Some of
these officials also admitted that they tended to become bogged down in jurisdictional
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^ * >
JJJ
questions which took away from actual organizing. Dan Ringer, a research organizer at
LAMAP. concurs with this assessment:
Was the problem that the unions d id not have the w ill to organize ?
Or that there were dou bts?
Yeah, although even more than internal politics, one thing that has
become really clear is that when you try to glue two different unions
together, those surfaces are not very sticky. And any kind of jurisdictional
dispute or suspicion or even just feeling like well, w e're not really getting
payback for what we're putting in at the moment— it really takes a long
term. With something like LAMAP. you can't target everybody’s little
sector where they are going to immediately get 500 new members that
month. .And I think that long-term, the collective vision just never really
existed. (Ringer Interview 1997)
Teamsters Local 63 hired LAMAP to work on the corporate campaign and the
community relations side of the Mission Guerrero strike, and Local 63 was pleased with
the work of the organizers. The Teamsters International Union had contributed directly to
LAMAP, but pulled out of the project in the wake of Pres. Ron Carey’s reelection scandal
(Molina Interview 1998). Clearly, LAMAP had other worries besides interesting the
Catholic Church in its work. Nevertheless, the organizers, given time and resources,
needed to develop deeper relationships with the local churches.
o Father Pedro Villarroya was an asset to LAMAP. He gave a progressive and
human face to the institutional Church. As Director of the Office o f Hispanic Ministry, he
already had relationships with Archdiocesan leaders and the local clergy. He had
extensive knowledge of the Catholic social encyclicals, having taught classes on them, and
he had organized in Los Angeles for many years. Father Villlarroya and Sister Diane
Donoghue both seem to work out o f a service model of the church rather than a
hierarchical, sacramental, evangelical or mystical communion one (See Dulles. Models of
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334
the Church. 1987). They are primarily dedicated to helping the poor and working with
others to achieve this goal within the social structures of the U.S., although they
undoubtedly give some weight to the other models.
o Bishop Stephen Blaire’s interest in the organizing was also a boon to LAMAP.
He was an Archdiocesan spokesperson during the cemetery workers organizing and had
hoped to reach some amicable resolution o f the dispute with ACTWU. His meetings with
Richard Trumka and support o f LAMAP demonstrate the Archdiocese’s support for labor
organizing. He has also marched with UNITE supporters (one o f the original LAMAP
funders) to encourage the GUESS9 Clothing Company to accept the garment workers’
desire for union representation. GUESS? has sent staff personnel to present the
company’s position to him.
Blaire’s region o f administration in the Archdiocese includes parts o f the Alameda
corridor, but he has minimal influence with individual parish pastors. He can normally
suggest activities and encourage pastors to meet with a group, but the pastors have to
respond first of all to the immediate needs o f their parishes. Bishops Zavala and Zartoris,
whose regions include the Alameda Corridor, also endorsed LAMAP but their day-to-day
contact with the project was minimal.
o The Campaign for Human Development contributed a minimum o f $45,000 to
LAMAP organizing efforts. Tom Chabolla at the Archdiocesan Justice and Peace
Commission acknowledged this contribution, but he remarked that LAMAP organizers
had not been in contact with him (Chabolla Interview 1997). Tom Chabolla attended the
AFL-CIO Labor/Community breakfast during the AFL-CIO convention in February 1997.
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He also sits on the board of the Tourism Industry Development Council. His father had
worked as a farm worker, and Chabolla supports labor organizing.
o During the Mission Guerrero strike. Bishops Zavala and Blaire offered to use
the Archdioceses’ Cardinal McIntyre Fund (a fund for emergency needs) to help the
drivers and their families with food, medicine, diapers, and other essentials during the
dispute. The strike was settled before such a need arose. The bishops recognized striking
as a valid tool for workers.
o Catholic Church personnel, like the community and labor activists, normally had
little residual ill will over the cemetery workers snafu. The event is now part of Catholic
Church/Labor Movement history in Los Angeles. Both the L. A. Archdiocese and labor
unions are reestablishing their relationship through efforts like LAMAP. As the AFL-CIO
County Labor Federation remakes itself the council might analyze the best means of
developing stronger relationships with women religious. Catholic laity. Archdiocesan
personnel, and clergy Interestingly, some of the best financial supporters o f the IAF in
Los Angeles are women’s religious orders. Labor might take a lesson from this truth and
develop relationships with these groups.
The following are some o f the areas o f weaknesses in the relationship, or lack
thereof, between labor organizing, community organizing and L A. Catholics.
o Although LAMAP and its UCLA promoters knew the Catholic Church needed
to have a role in any community-wide labor organizing effort, they only had superficial
relationships with Catholic leaders. Father Pedro Villarroya actually initiated contact with
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LAMAP. The UCLA/LAMAP academics are knowledge-elites1 . like many university
academics who do not have long-term relationships with the people in working class areas.
The Catholic Church, as Father Villarroya understood, had the workers, not all of them
but many o f them. The 1990 census counted the Hispanic population in Los Angeles
County at 3,082.242. The Office of Hispanic Ministry believes that 85% of those
Hispanics were Catholic which meant 2,619,905 Catholics. In 1994 LAMAP estimated
that 65% of the 600,000 Alameda corridor manufacturing workers were Hispanic. Using
the Archdiocese's 85% estimate, we can calculate that more than 33 1,500 of the corridor
workers are Catholic given the population growth since 1990. Using the L.A.
Archdiocese's 1996 directory, one finds approximately 46 parishes along the Alameda
Corridor. St. Mathias Parish in Huntington Park, the location o f LAMAP’s offices, has a
normal Sunday attendance o f 5,000 people, St. Agnes Parish in South-Central has 3.000-
4,000 Sunday attendees, and St. Philomena in Carson has 5.000 to 8,000 weekend
congregants (Phone Survey April 1998). These are not unusual figures for parishes in the
Alameda Corridor. Moreover, the figures represent Catholics who attend weekly mass
and exclude many more Catholics in these areas who only occasionally participate in their
churches. If you want to organize Catholics along the Alameda corridor you want the
Catholic Church as an ally.
‘James Davison Hunter (1991, 59) identifies knowledge-elites as those
intellectuals who shape the public discourse primarily from their university settings.
Knowledge-workers are much more enmeshed in the community— e.g.. community
workers, writers, and clergy— and have a significant influence on the “formation and
maintenance” of public culture.
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o Most Los Angeles area university/knowlege-elites, and this includes academics
at USC, Loyola Marymount University and Mount St. Mary’s (the last two are Catholic
institutions) are not involved in the daily lives of the working poor. The UCLA visionaries
had contact with some knowledge-workers— journalists, community organizers, and
political activists~but they had few relationships with the parish priests, lay Catholic
administrators, and women religious who work along the Alameda corridor. Moreover,
the UCLA Community Scholars and Labor Center advisors are "organic intellectuals”2
bringing their own form o f liberalism to the community.
The Industrial Areas Foundation has a similar intellectual bent, but its organizers
are partly "traditional intellectuals” who acknowledge and accept the historical continuity
o f Roman Catholicism in the communities where they organize. LAMAP failed to borrow
from the lAF’s social and intellectual capital to jump start the community-wide campaign.
The AFL-CIO and LAMAP were reinventing the wheel with CIWA (the California
Immigrant Workers Association) and citizenship application projects. The IAF helped
25,000 L A. immigrants become citizens in 1996 and registered 96,000 new voters.
Moreover, the IAF is only one of the community organizing groups involved in this type
of work. The labor unions interested in the Alameda corridor can still leverage off the
lAF’s presence, if they show the IAF members, leaders, and organizers that a relationship
is in the interest of all the parties.
2 Antonio Gramsci’s label for intellectuals who bring ideas of social reform to the
masses and engage in a dialectic relationship with them (Hunter 1991, 61).
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■> ■ * * o
J JO
o Father Villarroya helped LAMAP by bringing Bishops Blaire, Zartoris, and
Zavala into the effort, but contacts needed to occur at the parish level. Moreover,
although LAMAP had relationships with the bishops, the organizers never used them
effectively to enter more deeply into the Archdiocesan offices and more broadly in the
communities. Labor unions do not keep data about their members’ religious affiliations.
If LAMAP and the unions had known where the workers or their families attended church,
the organizers might have developed ties with the clergy through these people. With
sufficient time and planning, the unions and the workers can nurture allies in the parishes.
o The Industrial Areas Foundation affiliates had 10 member parishes in the
Alameda corridor with thousands of congregants. The IAF. however, will only work with
other organizing groups or civic campaigns out o f self-interest. The IAF and LAMAP
were already competing for foundation grants. For example, they both received funding
from the National Campaign for Human Development in the mid-1990s. The IAF also felt
that many in the labor movement had not yet committed themselves to the AFL-CIO
organizing initiative (Fondation Interview 1997). A multi-union coalition was a risky
venture given the varied cultures and interests o f the unions. Although unions have
greater financial resources than the IAF, they can bring little else to the table at present.
While the IAF has created a culture of organizing, the unions still have trouble recruiting
members as organizers. Unions, however, once they put their houses in order will lead all
forms of community organizing because of their economic clout. Unless the IAF
organizes workers’ associations or perhaps develops some member-owned cooperatives,
the network will always depend on churches and foundations for financial resources. The
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IAF will hurt itself, if the members, organizers, and leaders fail to analyze how affiliates
might better collaborate with unions out of self-interest.
o The IAF has benefitted from the support o f the Catholic Church, but this also
sometimes leads to charges of Catholic ownership. This is simply not true given the
number of parishes in the Archdiocese that have no connection with the IAF. Moreover,
the IAF has worked with numerous denominations and faith groups around the U.S. and
actively recruits in other denominations. SCOC is probably the most racially diverse of
the L A. IAF affiliates because this reflects the South-Central and Compton populations.
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CHAPTER 9
LISTO
LISTO is a cooperative of Latino day workers located in West Los Angeles. The
LISTO story is distinct from Justice for Janitors/SEIU 1S77 and LAMAP because Roman
Catholic nuns and Latino immigrants founded the organization, and unions have never
been a part of its history. An observer might describe LISTO as a religious attempt at
finding jobs for low-income and unskilled immigrants. The case will begin with a
reference to Catholic social teaching’s support for new initiatives in the organization of the
workplace and then follow with a snapshot of day laborer employment in Los Angeles
today. The history o f LISTO’s development will reveal the social service nature o f the
founders' first efforts at finding work for monolingual, low-skilled immigrants and then
the gradual movement toward the development of permanent jobs through worker-
ownership. This narrative contains Trinitarian Father John Seymour’s views on
cooperatives and Catholic social teaching because of his knowledge of both and his
experience in L. A.
Various Popes have criticized both capitalism and socialism but have correctly
refrained from suggesting a middle way. They have been clear about what they see as
injustice, but they have wanted practitioners to build the economic relations and structures
340
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341
which are just. Some Catholics have argued for producer cooperatives as one type of
economic institution which can provide dignity and justice for people at the workplace.
LISTO is a form of labor organizing without the presence of any particular
employer and, in a sense, eliminates the false division between capital and labor. This
community venture has the potential of helping the cooperative’s members increase their
income, benefits, and self-esteem by putting them in charge o f the business. The LISTO
study reveals the messiness of “industrial democracy” but suggests that with a common
culture, financing, and entrepreneurial assistance people can build their own enterprise.
The study of LISTO ends with a discussion of Mondragon. the 3 1,000 member
cooperative founded in the Basque region of Spain by a Catholic priest. It is the eleventh
largest industrial group in Spain and completely worker-owned.
Catholic social teaching, over the past 100 years, has encouraged worker-
ownership (i.e.. cooperatives) and “copartnership” (e.g., employee stock plans and profit
sharing) to give workers greater management participation and ownership of the means of
production. The Program o f Social Reconstruction of 1919 written by Monsignor John
Ryan and signed by four U.S. bishops promoted full participation in the means of
production. “... the full possibilities o f increased production will not be realized so long as
the majority o f the workers remain mere wage earners. The majority must somehow
become owners, or at least in part, of the means of production (#36).”
In 1931 Pope XI wrote at the height of the Great Depression:
In the present state of human society, however. We deem it
advisable that the wage-contract should, when possible, be modified
somewhat by a contract of partnership, as is already being tried in various
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342
ways to the no small gain both o f the wage-eamers and o f the employers.
In this way wage-eamers are made sharers in some sort in the ownership,
or the management, or the profits (Pope Pius XI Ouadragismo Anno
1931).
In 1986 during a decade of plant closures and extreme economic liberalism (i.e.,
junk bond financing and savings and loan debacles), the U.S. bishops produced the
pastoral letter Economic Justice for All. They, too, reaffirmed the need for ‘new creative
models of collaboration between labor and management” (Economic Justice for All 1 986,
#353).
Workers in firms and on farms are especially in need of stronger
institutional protection, for their jobs and livelihood are particularly
vulnerable to the decisions of others in today’s highly competitive labor
market. Several arrangements are gaining increasing support in the United
States: profit sharing by the workers in the firm; enabling employees to
become company stockholders; granting employees greater participation in
determining the conditions of work; cooperative ownership of the firm by
all who work within it; and programs for enabling a much larger number o f
Americans, regardless of their employment status, to become shareholders
in successful corporations. Initiatives o f this sort can enhance productivity,
increase the profitability of firms, provide greater job security and work
satisfaction for employees, and reduce adversarial relations. (Economic
Justice for All 1986, #300)
The day worker cooperative called LISTO is a response to the needs of a low-
income community that has seldom received job offers from traditional employers. If
employers find a group’s skills and efforts wanting, the group members have to increase
their capacity and at the same time sell the skills they do possess. Since the mid-1980s
thousands of immigrants in Los Angeles have sought their daily bread by working for
households and occasionally small businesses. These jobs may range from a few hours to
a few days. If a day worker is lucky the initial employment will result in permanent part
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343
time work. Immigrant women often accumulate four hours cleaning in one home and
three hours in another until perhaps they gain something close to forty hours o f work per
week, the dream for day laborers. Thousands of Latino women have worked as
babysitters and housekeepers in L A.
From the San Fernando Valley to West Los Angeles and from Glendale to
Pomona, area residents find 5, 10 sometimes 25 Latino men standing along sidewalks
waiting for motorists to stop and offer them jobs. Common spots are entrances to
lumberyards, building supply centers, and paint stores. Both immigrant men and women
have encountered area home owners who pay them decent wages and respect them as well
as those who fail to pay agreed upon wages and treat them with contempt.
These workers keep yards and homes clean and watch children and sick parents,
while families go to work and school or complete other suburban demands. Many care for
the elderly men and women who have no family. The public is divided between those who
see Latinos, sometimes undocumented, taking American work and creating a public
nuisance, loitering and so on, and those who work to organize these laborers and provide
them facilities to make their job search more humane and productive. As anti-immigrant
feelings have risen in California, local city officials have tried to placate area residents who
want foreign bom job seekers off the streets while listening to immigrant rights groups and
religious people who welcome foreigners in the proverbial foreign land.
In 1996 the Glendale City Council passed a measure to outlaw job seeking on city
sidewalks by day workers or solicitation by prospective employers, but the council also set
up a city run hiring hall for the workers across the street from a busy Home Depot store.
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In 1991 Augora Hills passed an ordinance against day laborer solicitations because
residences complained about the number o f workers on street comers and the lack o f
public restrooms for them. The American Civil Liberties Union fought to protect the
workers’ freedom of speech and assembly but lost its case in a federal court of appeals.
The City o f Los Angeles now runs three day worker centers in Hollywood, Harbor City
and North Hollywood. The centers provide benches, restrooms, and English instruction,
and their staffs run lotteries to parcel out jobs in an equitable fashion (Ryfle 1996, B4).
The county of Los Angeles has also passed a law against curbside job solicitation in its
unincorporated areas, but District Attorney Gil Garcetti has found the law unenforceable
for financial and legal reasons.
No Los Angeles resident will deny the extent of the day worker presence, and
despite popular assumptions about the legal status of the workers, two studies by the City
of Los Angeles and one in Glendale found that 75% or more of the men soliciting work
were legal residents (Ryfle 1996, B4). LISTO. like other small nonprofit day laborer
groups, developed out of the sheer necessity o f helping people with families find work to
survive. While other voluntary associations similar to LISTO have failed, the LISTO staff
and members have kept the organization afloat out of a need for work, the desire for
success, and the security of being in a community.
The LISTO idea grew out o f a job desk operated at the St. Joseph Center, which
was founded by the Sisters o f St. Joseph of Carondelet. The Center started as a food
pantry and soup kitchen in the 1970s and had grown into a multi-service social service
center helping immigrants, young adults, parents and the elderly by the 1980s. Today the
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Center also runs a day school and performs housing advocacy work for the homeless and
other low-income area residents. In 1986 Marilyn Schaeffer, then a member o f the Sisters
o f St. Joseph, worked as the job coordinator at the Center. Although she had helped
many Latinos find work as gardeners, housekeepers, and care givers, the job seekers were
in no way empowered by the simple referrals that often amounted to little more than a few
hours of work. At the same time the Rodino-Simpson Immigration Control and Reform
Act had gone into effect, tightening the penalties for employing undocumented workers,
and Schaeffer found many more people coming to the Center looking for help. She and
Sister Judy Molosky, CSJ spoke about reorganizing the job desk and sought advice from a
coalition of religious groups who were working on immigration and poverty issues in Los
Angeles.
The coalition s members included Fathers Mike Kennedy, SJ and Luis Olivares,
CMF from La Placita in downtown Los Angeles, Father Greg Boyle, SJ at Mission
Dolores, and professional religious from other faith denominations. The group had been
instrumental in the establishment of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los
Angeles (CHIRLA), Proyecto Pastoral and other area nonprofit social service programs.
The coalition members suggested investigating a day worker organization called Manos
that the Diocese of Oakland had recently established. Molosky and Schaeffer visited
Manos and discovered the model that fit their vision— job referral with cultural and
technical capacity building for its participants. Kevin Raft, the founder of Manos, became
a consultant in the founding of LISTO and helped the St. Joseph Center computerize the
LISTO office in 1988. The Manos data base system then allowed the LISTO staff to
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increase collections from employers/clients (i.e., the placement fee), to reduce the time
they made in making assignments, and to monitor the quality of service more closely.
LISTO remained a program o f the St. Joseph Center and required approval from
the Center’s Board for the establishment and development of the job referral work. The
relationship with the St. Joseph Center was useful because the Center was church-based
and it had credibility in the community. The Catholic sisters and LISTO advisors also had
contacts with other church people in Los Angeles and, consequently, had links to
institutional jobs, advertising in communities sympathetic to immigrants, and reliable
information on the latest immigrant rights issues.
We were a project o f the St. Joseph Center, that was very
important to us because St. Joseph Center has great credibility, and we
wanted to be a project of the St. Joseph Center. We were housed in an
office at the Center, so we really considered ourselves intimately related
and a part of it. At the same time we knew that eventually we wouldn’t be.
And at the time, we thought that within three years or so we would be able
to be self-sufficient. Well, that proved not to be true. But we didn’t
realize that at the time (Schaeffer Interview 1997).
The cooperative started quite small with only 15 people although hundreds at the
time wished to join. The nuns kept the number low because they had not found enough
jobs to provide work for everyone. At this time the two founders hired Noemi Perez, a
Guatemalan immigrant, who worked with the Guatemalan Information Center and had
helped envision the LISTO organization. Noemi’s primary source o f income was
housekeeping work so she knew the work o f immigrant women and she was a good
organizer. Judy Molosky and Marilyn Schaeffer believed the cooperative needed a staff
person who had come from the culture and experiences o f the women and men looking for
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work. Perez had fled from Guatemala after being held by security forces for participating
in student demonstrations. She is now the director o f LISTO.
The cooperative was always different from the other programs administered at the
St. Joseph Center. Although the Center performed good works, the Center provided
services without sharing power. Job training, parenting classes, and food distribution
developed people and kept them fed, but the participants never took the wheel of the
service vehicle. Fund raising, public relations, and decision making came out of the
Center’s paid staff, and the self-interest and capacities o f the people were untapped. John
McKnight, The Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits, calls such service work
a new profession that usurps roles o f teaching, mentoring, and development that
community members once played. People from the community become clients rather than
actors in their own right. From the very beginning, the St. Joseph Center and LISTO
were distinct organizations because LISTO wished to be independent and self-
perpetuating while the Center needed programs to justify its work and attract new
funding. No one denies that the Center has aided people, and it may be that the
community serviced at St. Joseph’s never recognized its own power and tried to claim it.
The LISTO members, staff, and advisors wanted self-development as a community.
LISTO began with an Advisory Board, including Sisters o f St. Joseph, a professor
from the UCLA School of Social Welfare, a Presbyterian lay leader active in immigrant
rights, a legal advisor at CH1RLA. and others. The cooperative, because its goal was
member governance, had a directiva (Board of Directors), led by a member-elected
President. The directiva included a Secretary, a Treasurer and the remaining 8 to 10
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348
member-directors as the numbers in the cooperative grew (eventually to a high o f 150
people).
The whole purpose was to generate jobs and also to provide a place
where the community, the co-op members, could come together and could
be educated on their rights in the society on various issues that were
pertinent to their being able to really survive and make themselves a home
in this city.
And so we had various people come in and talk about different
issues -- workers’ rights, some o f the laws, domestic violence. That was
one aspect. And then we had training sessions on how you clean houses,
how you do gardening, how you do child care, how you take care o f the
elderly, so that people were always updated.
And also sessions on how you work together. This was a Latino
workers cooperative. It was not predominantly Mexican or Salvadoran or
Guatemalan or whatever. It was an effort for everyone who was new to
this country to come together and work together so that they could have a
livelihood and so that they could do things together and come to appreciate
each other’s culture and also not to become assimilated that they would
lose their own culture but to also learn the things that they needed for
survival here.
.And they had anniversary parties and dances to raise money, and
the workers were always involved in trying to raise money for the co-op,
and I thought that was really fulfilling the mission o f St. Joseph Center,
which was empowerment. And it was really important to me to see the
people, the generosity o f the people and the earnestness with which they
came every week to meetings and really helped out (Schaeffer Interview
1997).
The cooperative began to grow as word passed through the immigrant rights and
religious communities. Schaeffer says finding work was never easy. They started with
zero jobs and in recent times LISTO has had as high as 60 job referrals, of no less than 4
hours o f work per week. These 60 jobs (called “one-time-only” jobs) are in addition to
permanent part-time and full-time job placements (over 900 as o f 1996). The staffs work-
-that is, Schaeffer, Molosky, and Perez’s efforts— included settling job performance
problems with employers, collecting employer fees, and getting workers to fulfill their
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349
cooperative and employment responsibilities. The staff felt the pressure o f working with a
poor immigrant community that had all the stresses of day-to-day living while adjusting to
a new culture.
In a sense, when you look at cooperatives, we were not a
cooperative. LISTO never was a cooperative. Cooperatives, as I
understand it, you pool all your money and divide up the profits among the
people. It didn’t exactly happen like that. In fact, Kevin [the founder of
Manos] said to me at one point, a year or two after we started working
here, well, this is really a collective, not a cooperative. We weren’t about
to change the name, but I think that people, number one, understood what
we were trying to do.
From the very beginning, we had a monthly financial report.
Everybody knew what we took in, where it went, and we had that at the
monthly meeting. And people realized what the expenses were. .And I
think the idea of people working together and trying to figure out how to
develop new jobs was really important. And sharing their expertise.
I know we had some tensions in the beginning between the
Mexicans and the Salvadorans and the Guatemalans and favoritism and all
that kind o f thing, which we really tried to work on. And we have been
pretty successful in that, that it’s a co-op of Latinos working together.
And insofar that they knew that we needed more money to keep
this going, that we had bills to pay — we had phone bills, we had computer
bills, we had staff people to pay — that people were very generous. We've
had raffles every week, and we’d get donations for these raffles. And we'd
have dances and all kinds of things to try to generate money for the group.
And that was important. (Schaeffer Interview 1997)
Schaeffer left LISTO in 1991 but has followed the work throughout the 1990s.
She left in part because she felt unqualified to turn LISTO into a self-sufficient enterprise.
She believed LISTO needed business people with financial, marketing, and planning
expertise to help the members grow into their own for-profit enterprise or enterprises.
The jobs never produced enough client fees (approximately $30,000 to $40,000 annually)
to pay salaries and expenses that totaled from $129,00 to $148,000 per year.
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Schaeffer is quite clear about the religious roots o f the effort. Although the staff
and members worked without any proselytizing or overt religious displays, everyone knew
that the venture began out o f Christian service and continued because of this spirit.
D id LISTO, then, develop out o f religions concern?
It came out o f a religious concern, absolutely, for what was
happening to the immigrant community. And some o f the [religious]
leaders that you think o f in this area at that time were all involved in the
[founding] coalition.
I think we were doing the works of justice. I know that the staff
and members weren’t praying together as such, and there were no religious
celebrations. There were celebrations, they were at church halls, but
exclusively religious, no. But there were religious people all around,
working with the members. And St. Clement’s Church was always
supportive. [The St. Joseph Center and LISTO are located on the grounds
of St. Clement Church.] (Schaeffer Interview 1997)
Marilyn Schaeffer was the coordinator o f the Social Justice Secretariat for the St.
Joseph Sisters o f Carondelet in the early 1970s. She recalls the U.S. Bishops writing that
“action on behalf o f justice is a constitutive dimension o f preaching the gospel” (Schaeffer
Interview 1997).
So that really changed my life, way back in 1971, I think. And we
did a lot within the community in terms of action on behalf o f justice and
participation and transformation o f the world. There are not too many
things that I remember, but I remember that.
And so that’s what motivated us and motivated me to go and learn
Spanish in Mexico for six months and come back and work at St. Joseph
Center. And then Noemi [Perez], I think she has it too. Her background,
she is Catholic. We didn’t talk about these things, but I think Judy
[Molosky] and I were probably in the beginning the strongest in terms of
our views, and she totally agreed. She has a keen sense o f justice herself.
And then Sister Marilyn Rudy started the St. Joseph Center. It just was a
part o f us. That’s what motivated us and why we even did the work.
(Schaeffer Interview 1997)
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351
Marilyn Schaeffer also recalled that her grandmother had come to the United States from
Ireland as a domestic, giving her an additional connection to the men and women at
LISTO (Schaeffer Interview’ 1997).
From 1988 to 1998, LISTO has received grants from various foundations
including the Dominican Sisters Poverty Fund, the Presbyterian Hunger Project, the
Coalition for Human Needs and the Liberty Hill Foundation. The Catholic sponsored
Campaign for Human Development has given the largest amount o f foundation money to
LISTO beginning with a $10,000 local CHD grant to start the cooperative. Noemi Perez,
the present director, estimates that CHD, nationally and locally has provided well over
$130,000 to the cooperative over its lifetime. The Sisters o f St. Joseph also supported
members of their congregation who worked at LISTO and therefore lowered staff costs.
Throughout the cooperative’s history staff salaries have come to about half of the total
expenses.
Revenues, including money paid directly to LISTO members for their work, have
surpassed $500,000. The average member adds from $5,000 to $7,000 to her annual
income through LISTO job referrals although the majority o f member families still live at
the poverty line. There are families with multiple LISTO members, and some members
over time work on a permanent basis with a specific employer(s). In other words, the
original job referrals have resulted in permanent part-time or full-time jobs. After three
months o f steady employment for a member, the cooperative does not require a placement
fee from the employer. Over 900 people have passed through the cooperative in 10 years,
the majority have gone on to 40 hours o f work per week. LISTO maintains its nonprofit
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352
status because the members act as independent contractors; they are not LISTO workers.
The client is the primary employer.
In 1992 Sister Rosanne Belpedio, CSJ started working as a job coordinator at
LISTO She had attended the coalition meetings discussing the development of LISTO
back in 1987 but then left Los Angeles to work as a religious educator in Chile. When she
came back she looked for work that fitted her interest in the Latino community and settled
on LISTO
D id you see yo u r work at LISTO as living out yo u r life as a
Catholic nun?
Especially after my experience of being out the country, one of the
very important priorities was to work with the people, along side of them.
For me this was a very different type of work because my work prior to
that had been in religious education. My educational background is
education and religious education.
But I saw this as a way to respond in ways more like we expect the
people in the pews to respond to the gospel. So in a sense, the benefit for
me personally was to get sort of a hands-on experience o f what any worker
has to do and at the same time, try to live that out in terms of my own
response to the gospel.
And I saw myself as accompanying the people because at the time,
one of hot issues was legal status... and I felt, and still feel, very committed
to the idea that everybody has a right to work. (Belpedio Interview 1998)
Was fa ith a com ponent o f the LISTO work during you r time as a staff
person?
At least from my point o f view in terms of the staff, definitely
There was personal commitment from the faith dimension. Also, from
among the members that I knew, there were a few who had a very strong
personal faith commitment that were committed to participating in their
faith community in an active way.
The other thing is a connection with a faith community gave a
certain credibility to the organization that gave the potential clients a
degree of confidence that they might not have otherwise had. For example,
allowing people into their homes, strangers into their homes, to work. But
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* * c * >
j 3 j
they figured that LISTO was connected somehow to the Church and so
these people must be ethical and so forth. That connection was very
helpful.
What I found that I appreciated as a religious was the connection
with other faith traditions who were very willing to support the activity, in
part because it had a connection to a faith community [Other religious
congregations were Lutheran, Jewish, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian].
(Belpedio Interview 1998)
What was yo u r attraction to working with the working p o o r an d
Latinos? In you r own personal history, which is y o u r fam ily a n d yo u r
past, is there anything that links those?
Very definitely. I am a second generation Italian. My grandparents
and great-grandparents were poor farmers in Italy. Culturally speaking, I
made a trip to Mexico with a group of sisters in the mid ‘80s. and I was
sort of overwhelmed by the similarities. So many feelings came up in me
that reminded me of my early childhood when I lived in an Italian ghetto in
Chicago. The community experience, the temperaments, the attitudes of
the people, that community spirit was very, very similar. So I felt very
much at home.
From the time I was a child, I lived in an area in Southern
California, [the] San Fernando Valley, which bordered on the Hispanic
neighborhood. Maybe it was because people in my family always spoke
Italian and I never got to learn it that 1 always had an interest in learning
Spanish. But it wasn’t until I was in my mid 30’ s, I think, before I really
began to study it seriously to learn it to be able to communicate in it.
At that time I went down to Mexico in the mid 80s and really
began to gain some facility in Spanish, I also had this personal sense of
getting in touch with my own roots. It helped me to understand better who
I was and what kind of culture I came from. So that was real positive for
me personally, and it was something that was like a remote dream. After I
had had this initial taste o f studying the language and learned that I was
making progress, I was motivated to respond to a call to go to South
America. (Belpedio Interview 1998)
Sister Rosanne Belpedio is a student of the Catholic Church’s social encyclicals.
She studied the encyclicals as a graduate student at Gonzaga University with an emphasis
on their relationship to Vatican II. When the bishop’s published their pastoral letter on the
economy in 1986 she also attended in-service workshops to study the document. During
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354
her work in Chile, she participated in lectures and discussions celebrating the 100th
anniversary of Rerum Novarum and continued her personal reading in this area.
When I was in Chile, from the Latin American point o f view, the
study o f economics is a lot different than it is here. They go much more
into what they call neo-liberalism. I was at a seminar down there that was
primarily given by a Jesuit who was a Chilean who had been exiled after the
military takeover in Chile. He had been a professor o f economics at the
Catholic university in Chile and then for a while worked in Mexico in exile
and then on to France. (Belpedio Interview 1998)
The religious training, personal faith and personal histories o f Marliyn Schaeffer
and Sister Rosanne Belpedio influenced their efforts at LISTO. They helped the
organization because they saw themselves, the members, and LISTO supporters living out
the gospel by working to secure daily sustenance for poor families. The justice question
became even sharper when some Californian’s began to call for immigration restrictions
and stricter enforcement of alien residency laws. Although faith and good will were in
abundance, both Schaeffer and Belpedio over time came to believe that they and the
LISTO members had insufficient managerial skills to make the cooperative a self-financing
operation. The goal had always been to find enough jobs and collect enough employer
fees to pay for LISTO’s expenses to end dependence on donations or foundation money.
Although the members voted on business options, conducted fund raisers, and attended
capacity building classes (e.g., English as a Second Language classes), their own family
responsibilities, indifference, or selfishness (e.g., taking jobs and leaving) produced at
times a weak organizational culture (Belpedio Interview 1998).
During the early 1990s, the relationship between the St. Joseph Center and LISTO
became more strained because o f income shortfalls and control over decision making. By
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1995 LISTO no longer had a professional religious on its staff although nuns and one
priest continued to sit on its advisory board. Noemi Perez, the present director o f LISTO,
and others saw the Center as more controlling than helpful (Perez Interview 1998). The
St. Joseph Center had become more concerned about any public fallout if authorities
found members who had no documentation. The administrators pointed out that LISTO
only had Latino members in an area that included poor blacks, leaving them open to
charges of discrimination.
The St. Joseph Center’s board of directors began to worry about the legal
liabilities of sending out workers like a temporary employment agency. Who would be
liable for injuries on the job? Also, Perez and Lissette Garcia, the job desk coordinator,
had little training in finances, and the St. Joseph staff wanted clear accounting o f all
income and expenses. Furthermore, the Center had to step in to pay LISTO staff salaries
and benefits when expenses exceeded income. The average LISTO cost to the Center had
become $20,000 per year. LISTO had opened a second day worker site at St. Vincent’s
Church in downtown Los Angeles and a small thrift store in the same area to increase
revenues. St. Vincent’s borders the Pico Union area and has a large Latino immigrant
population. Within one year, however, the staff, members, and St. Joseph Center agreed
to close the second site and store because of financial losses.
Yet Noemi Perez believes the Center and its board were less than supportive when
it came to LISTO. On the one hand, the St. Joseph administration had promised fund
raising support, but their work was minimal, often the same fund raising proposal year
after year. On the other hand, LISTO could not approach foundations independently
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because the cooperative might run into a conflict o f interest with the St. Joseph Center’s
own fund raising. Even when foundations asked LISTO for interviews, the LISTO staff
had to have the approval o f the Center to schedule meetings. LISTO’s goal was
independence, but no one wanted to sacrifice the money or time necessary to create a new
stand alone nonprofit organization. Perez contends the problem in part is racism both in
the Center and the wider culture.
I knew that I was not good at fighting. English is not my first
language, and I know' that is my weakness. But I have all the strengths o f
being able to work with my community and develop things.
But now for me, I think, as a Latina, I think there is a lot of racism.
For people who have centuries of racism, it is not going to end in three or
four decades. And we feel it. And also, it’s cultural. People know how to
work within their own culture. And even though I am Latina, here
somebody says, I am bi-cultural. I don’t think I am 100% bi-cultural. I
think in their own language, in their own culture, [people] are listening
better than me.. . [but] we see many people like Judy, Marilyn, Sue, white
people, who come to work because in their heart they want to help.
(Perez Interview 1988)
Noemi Perez’s own view of the faith dimension of the work is mixed. She is a
non-practicing Catholic but respects the social justice efforts of the religious with whom
she works. She also sees her work as a reflection o f her faith. In her opinion, some
LISTO members are what she calls ‘church people,” Sunday mass attendees, while others
have no contact with organized religion. She believes for some of the active LISTO
members, their faith makes a big difference in their participation. They volunteer more,
follow through on their assignments, and take leadership roles (Perez Interview 1998).
Perez’s description, given conversations and interviews with members, appears to
be true. When meeting with those who profess some faith, one will often find a significant
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desire to live out the faith within the LISTO community. Maria Sanchez1 is a LISTO
member, a former treasurer o f the cooperative, who is a native o f Peru. She was a special
education professor at a Peruvian university before she fled because o f Shining Path death
threats against her. Some members of her university’s faculty sympathized with the
terrorists, and the Shining Path had approached her to advocate violence as a means o f
social change in Peru. She refused to cooperate and received death threats— threatening
calls and a dead cat left in her car with propaganda espousing revolution. The Shining
Path also threatened to kidnap her children. The breaking point came in July 1993 when
Peruvian armed forces stormed the university and held some students and faculty,
including Sanchez, for one day. They accused her o f being a Shining Path member.
During this confrontation, a professor and eight students were killed. She and her
husband decided she should leave. She quickly sold her car and other belongings, and she
and her children came to the United States.
Arriving in Los Angeles, Maria had little money, spoke no English, and had no
where to stay. She heard that LISTO provided work for Latinos, and she became a
member, asking for child care employment. Over time the LISTO membership looked to
her for leadership because o f her education and personal strength. She has dedicated
herself to helping build up LISTO because she feels for the Latino immigrant population
and she realizes that the majority o f the members are poorly educated, buther attitude is
'I have given pseudonyms to LISTO members because they are at different stages
in the naturalization process, and I do not wish to adversely affect their desire to become
U.S. citizens in any way.
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not condescending. She knows that many o f the people have little education because of
the poverty and difficulties they faced in their home countries.
In Peru Sanchez once belonged to a textile manufacturing cooperative— Textil de
Pacifico. New members took a week long workshop on the subject of cooperatives taught
at the local university. Although not a board director o f Textil de Pacifico, she watched
the work of the directors who also put in their normal eight hour shifts. The work
required tremendous dedication on the part o f the leaders. The cooperative also had a
credit union to loan funds to the members and sponsored cultural and artistic events.
When she reflects on LISTO, she believes the organization is still an association of
workers. The members are not pooling their income and then distributing profits, and the
members still do not manage the staff or the cooperative as a whole (Sanchez Interview
1997).
H ave yo u seen a role o f the ( 'hurch or religion in LISTO or in
you r work with LISTO?
I believe Roman Catholicism is the greatest religion in the world. It
is a religion that has a lot of power. I am a Catholic. But we as Catholics
do not enter the religion to hold on to our religion but to support others, to
demonstrate to others, to show others that they can be something else. We
are not out knocking on doors either. We are not shouting: “Come to our
church.” We think every person has his or her conscience.
The Catholic religion influences the cooperative a lot. For example,
it is normal in meetings for one to tear down another, and here enters the
religion when people separate and say, “Here is peace; think of God; here
we will have a prayer to calm us.” This helps the soul a lot. Because we
are not only bodies, our principal part is the spirit. With ourselves we are
beautiful in the spiritual, we are going to obtain our goals and people will
see us as beautiful. If we are spiritually bad we are going to have more
jealousies, the gossip; in the beautiful part, not so. In the little that we
have, if I have four jobs and another person has none, I am going to give
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up a job. This is religion, this is the Catholic religion. This influences
LISTO I believe, the Catholic religion. (Sanchez Interview 1998)
Anita Grijalva is another LISTO member from Peru. She came to the United
States out of economic necessity.
The reasons we have come here are the same. It is because o f the
economies and also the terrorism in our countries. These are unfortunately
the greatest reasons for us to come here. We have come because in our
countries the salaries are very low. On the average they make $ 100 per
month in Peru. Here you can earn $200 in a week. The difference is a lot
and one can live a little better here. (Grijalva Interview 1998)
Through LISTO and her own efforts she has patched together 40 hour work
weeks caring for the elderly and cleaning houses in the West Los Angeles area. Currently
she works for two elderly men, sixteen hours per week with one and twenty hours with
the other. She will prepare them breakfast, make their beds, clean around their homes,
and take their dogs for walks. She learned some o f her skills from LISTO training
sessions and others on the job. She heard o f LISTO from friends who spoke o f the
cooperative’s high salaries, normally $1.00 or $2.00 above the minimum wage. In Peru,
like Maria Sanchez, she took a course about cooperatives (banking/credit cooperatives)
although she never belonged to one. She was raised a Catholic, attended Catholic
schools, and has a cousin who is a priest in Peru, but she now belongs to a Pentecostal
group. She refers to herself as Christian and not a Catholic.
She feels that religion is part of LISTO because the author of this study has acted
as an advisor to the cooperative, and he is a representative o f the Catholic Church. She
has welcomed the role o f the Catholic Church in the life o f LISTO and the Latino
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population because just as in Peru the Catholic religious leaders try to bring peace to the
community and the country.
In this country the Catholic Church is supporting the immigrants a
lot. It is trying to get amnesty again for so many immigrant people who
have come to this country to work and not for other things. Our countries
are very poor and deplorably there aren’t many opportunities to work like
here. The Church is performing a good role in this country. [For example,]
in the demonstrations that it is having for Latinos and immigrants, that
there might be a new amnesty so that deportations are suspended and for
the children most importantly because they are the ones most affected.
(Grijalva Interview 1998)
Both Sanchez and Grijalva believe that religion and faith are elements o f LISTO.
On the whole, given the histories of the St. Joseph Center and the cooperative, along with
the Latino culture, one would expect some Catholic influence on the work. In fact,
LISTO is an economic institution where people openly express their belief in the
transcendent. This faith-talk, however, fails to supply the financial resources and business
understanding needed to make the cooperative a viable economic development vehicle.
Festival Catering
Catholic Church leaders have encouraged communities, employers, and unions to
think o f new economic structures and processes that might treat all participants with the
dignity and justice befitting sons and daughters o f God. Father John Seymour, the
Trinitarian priest interviewed in the Justice for Janitors case study, has heard these
exhortations and has attempted to bring together the people and resources to create a
successful venture. He has faced the obstacles that worker organizations like LISTO
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encounter and has ambivalent feelings about the Church’s present support for these
groups.
Although he became discouraged with labor union activism, Seymour did not lose
his interest in labor organizing. In 1991 he started to organize with Scott Washburn, a
former United Farm Workers organizer, who had also worked for the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) and the Hotel Employee and Restaurant Employees Union
(HERE). As a HERE field organizer, Washbum had received many calls from restaurant
employees who wanted union representation, but the union’s energy was tied up in hotel
organizing. Restaurants have fewer employees than hotels so the return on organizing is
less. Washburn, feeling compelled to attempt some form o f restaurant worker organizing,
launched his own effort in Pasadena, California, an area that has more than 200
restaurants. Seymour and Washbum formed the Pasadena Restaurant Workers
Association. They based their organizing model on the farm worker association that Cesar
Chavez established as a precursor to the UFW. They first tried to bring the workers
together in a type o f mutual benefit association just like Chavez’s farm worker association
(Seymour Interview 1997).
One o f the things we did in the beginning is we started a
transportation co-op. One o f the needs was that when these workers —
dishwashers, assistant cooks, prep cooks — get off work at night they had
to go into the northwest section where they lived, move from the Old
Town area or the Lake Avenue area and go into the northwest section, and
they would be afraid o f getting assaulted on the way there.
So they got a little Volkswagen van. and everybody had a beeper
number, and you registered your three-digit number and then, if you
wanted a ride, you would call from the restaurant. You put your three-
digit number in, and that would identify you. We knew who you were and
where you were. And then with the next four numbers, you put the time
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that you needed the ride, like 1030. And so that meant that you were to be
picked up at 10:30. And then the workers themselves would assist in
driving. We even started a driving school so that they could get their
licenses and help out driving. So that was a neat little thing, the
transportation co-op, and a lot o f organizing went on inside that. It was
tough because a great deal o f the driving had to be done by Scott or his
assistant. (Seymour Interview 1997)
The association eventually secured office space in the Labor Temple in Pasadena, a
building primarily owned by the carpenters union. The association started English classes
and brought in a pool table and a television for the men. The funding, however, quickly
ran out, and Washbum went back to SEIU to organize convalescent homes. Seymour
took on the role o f director, and the Trinitarian order financed the organizing. He and
some of the association members then became more intrigued by the idea of a cooperative
restaurant because the men wanted to own their own business. Ultimately, they founded
the Festival Catering Cooperative that is a struggling but ongoing enterprise.
One o f the reasons for Seymour’s departure from the union scene was his inability
to get any labor friends to take the cooperative idea seriously. He finds that most union
officials do not see cooperatives in their interests, and cooperatives are a risky business for
them. Steve Nutter, a vice-president o f UNITE, had once started a cooperative with some
Los Angeles garment workers, but they shut it down because they ended up exploiting
themselves. Since the little enterprise could not control the market price, they would have
ended up paying themselves less than the minimum wage (Seymour Interview 1998).
Seymour has learned much from the his experience with Festival Catering:
And I’m glad I didn’t know what this process was or I never would
have started it. I really never would have. No way.
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But I’ve learned some things. I remember talking one time with
these guys, and I was getting frustrated with them. I said, “Listen, you’re
depending on me to do all this thinking here, and I can’t do it This isn’t
going to work. I’m going to be leaving this project one of these days, and
you’re going to have to carry on. And if you don’t start to think like an
entrepreneur, then this thing isn’t going to succeed.” Now. this was very
difficult to communicate because there’s no word for entrepreneur in
Spanish. That doesn’t translate. You have to circumlocute [v/c] to get the
idea across. And I said you have to think like a businessman, like an
entrepreneur.
And they nodded their heads and everything like that, and I was. in
a loving but stem way. kind of— Because all of their thinking was a
laborer’s thinking: waiting for his orders. He's going to work very hard,
but you put the orders there and he’ll do it. So the idea o f planning ahead
or anything like that...
But the reality is this: In the labor union, that isn t pulled out of
people. People have gifts and talent and abilities that are never developed
unless they’re forced to be part o f an enterprise that requires hard work
and hard thinking.
The thing that I’m convinced about cooperatives is that it
challenges the hell out of you to develop all your gifts and all your abilities.
And if we define justice as Paul VI did, as development o f people, then we
have to put cooperatives as one of the key tools to do that because it s just
not a matter o f wages or benefits It’s about becoming the fullness of your
own humanity.
I would love that the children of these workers grow up in an
atmosphere in which they hear their father or older brother or somebody
talking about well, we need a new marketing approach, or we’ve got to cut
costs on this. Discussing business issues at the table. If you are a laborer,
performing ordinary service kind of labor, you do not discuss that at the
table. There’s nothing to talk about. Occasionally, you might want to talk
about a supervisor who’s a jerk, but you don’t really discuss anything
worth remembering or worth thinking about. .And so the children of the
workers grow up in an atmosphere in which they never hear talk about that
and never get immersed in that kind o f culture and it never dawns on them
that they can be anything other than be a worker. (Seymour Interview
1998)
Seymour prefers to use “people-owned” rather than “worker-owned” when
describing his vision o f cooperatives to others. The idea is people-ownership because
everyone is a worker. The entrepreneur is also a worker. If you fail to change the
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language, participants and observers began to fell into the industrial era language o f class:
labor and capital, workers and management, and so on He has seen unions who organize
“workers'7 but the unions fail to develop them into leaders or creative members. They are
still just “workers" (Seymour Interview 1998). For a cooperative to succeed, everyone
has to work and take ownership, to feel connected with the greater whole. People who
perform what are presently called managerial and staff roles will require pay and benefit
differentials for their skills and merit, but they are not the owners of the enterprise.
Seymour believes that the Catholic Church and its leaders are playing around with
the cooperative idea because they have not brought together the human and financial
resources needed to create viable cooperatives in the United States.
I think we7 re playing games, we don't know what we are dealing
with. And w e're not serious about co-ops. .And the way we re going
about it. the strategy that's come out of the National Council of Catholic
Bishops and the Campaign for Human Development, it's all very good,
well-intentioned. They're learning. They're gening better But frankly,
there is a tremendous lack of appreciation o f the difficulties of starting
cooperatives in a highly competitive neo-liberalistic capitalist society
Cooperatives by nature are not good— cooperatives have major
limitations. They have advantages, and they have disadvantages. I believe
they have a future, but unless people of social conscience alter radically
their agendas, their strategies, and their way o f thinking, we're going to be
starting a little cooperative here and a little cooperative there, and it’s
going to be like a drop in an ocean. That's all this stuff is. There's no
comprehensive strategy. And there will never be a successful strategy
unless we come to understand the tremendous importance of bringing
entrepreneurial and business-types. and administrative and managerial
thinking into this project, and sit down and humbly listen to what they have
to say about how to do this stuff.
Cooperatives, in the end. are always businesses, and they must
survive as a business. And it takes more than labor to do that, and it takes
more than good Church-type people to do that. We must bring in
entrepreneurial thinking. We must bring in quality business thinking. We
must turn towards the business person and to the individual entrepreneur
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and say. “We need you. Your skills and your talents are absolutely
invaluable.”
Until the Catholic Church or the IAF or whoever can bring together
the worker and the entrepreneur, the man or the woman with the business
desire, can bring them together and sell that idea to them, cooperatives will
never go anywhere in this country. It will always be a little cooperative
here, and a little cooperative there. We’ll be sticking our toe in the water.
That’s all we’re doing here. (Seymour Interview 1998)
Seymour bemoans the ever present power struggle between labor and capital
Labor won with the New Deal and had forty years of prosperity and then corporate
America took back the right to bargain. Now labor is beginning to organize again. If
labor were to win some victories, the economically powerful would surely react again.
Seymour reflects after twenty years of labor activism: “My own personal concern and
question is: Are we condemned to a never ending struggle? Will this never end9 Is it
always going to be a pendulum swing— the balance shifts towards capital or the balance
shifts towards labor9” He sees the cooperative idea as one approach to consider. Since
the United States is moving out of the industrial age. one needs less capital because
factories are things o f the past. Companies can be launched with far less capital. He
wants to focus on brain power and the wealth that is associated with knowledge (Seymour
Interview 1998).
I see all [these changes] as making it. something like cooperatives,
more a viable thing, that it has to be moved beyond, like, if a factory’s
closing down, “Let’s have all the workers buy it and turn it into a
cooperative.” Well, we’ve got to get beyond that to where it's a pro-active
thing, not a reactive thing.
Here’s what I guess I’m trying to say. I think that this is part of our
Church’s heritage, but we’ve sat on [the cooperative idea] and we’ve
piddled around and we’ve played with it, but we’ve never taken it and said
we’ve got to develop a strategy with it. And there are some lacunae in our
whole approach to it, and that lacunae is this — that you can gather all
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these workers together and you can do all the training you want, and some
o f them will not have the talent or the ability to be trained for that talent for
certain kinds of skills and functions and thinking. And unless you’re willing
to go into the entrepreneurial sector, the managerial sector, and attract
people from the managerial sector, from the entrepreneurial sector, to this
idea, there is no hope for the development of cooperatives.
We can say [to the entrepreneurs] we’ve got the best workers out
there. They’re honest. They don’t steal. They’re reliable. They’re
hardworking. They have a spiritual foundation. They’re pleasant to be
with. And they’re not struggling with alcohol or drug problems and stuff
like this. We’re taking some o f the cream of the crop here. And they want
to make more o f themselves. They want to be part o f something.
(Seymour Interview 1998)
If the Catholic Church in the United States supports the idea of cooperatives as an
economic alternative, then Seymour believes you cannot start cooperatives one at a time
because the strategy is too time consuming and inefficient. In his opinion, the bishops
should help create an economic development corporation that is specifically designed to
focus on cooperatives. The corporation would be nonprofit and have the financial
resources to attract the money, talent, and skills to act as a business incubator. The
cooperative ventures would then have a pool of resources, e.g. accounting skills and legal
skills, which could be purchased at a reasonable rate (Seymour Interview 1998).
The diversion into Father John Seymour’s views on cooperatives is important for
this case study because one sees how another Catholic religious in the late-twentieth
century is trying to bring to life Catholic social teaching. He has worked both as a
traditional-style labor priest and as a cooperative founder. His efforts and thinking, like
those o f the LISTO founders, come out of the intellectual and spiritual wellspring
popularly called Catholic social teaching. Father John Seymour has also reached
conclusions through his organizing work that Cesar Chavez reached during his life.
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Chavez believed one could win momentary victories by organizing workers and winning
labor contracts or minimum wage fights, which are no small feats, but the organizer has
still failed to organize for the financial power which comes from greater participation in
economic decision making. He remarked that once the UFW was recognized by the
growers, the organizing had to move to health clinics, co-ops. and greater political
participation. He rejected ideas like black capitalism or brown capitalism and spoke for a
cooperative movement, and he knew that such a movement required personal conversion.
The fuller participation o f people in economic decision making would only lead to success
if people practiced lives o f sacrifice and charity (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia 1995.
109-111).
Seymour credits much o f his own organizing ability and thinking to his
involvement in the Industrial Areas Foundation. He believes the IAF’s national training is
the best product the IAF has to sell. The trainers know how to bring people together,
show them their talents, and develop them into public figures. A half dozen LISTO
members have attended local training weekends sponsored by Los Angeles IAF affiliates.
They have all responded positively. LISTO, in fact, is the first institutional sponsor of a
newly forming IAF affiliate in West Los Angeles, the Westside Organizing Committee.
What remains to be seen is whether LISTO’s immediate business needs are met. LISTO’s
two current business consultants want financial stability within the organization before
members become too involved in civic affairs, the normal venue for IAF activity. Yet
civic and economic affairs go hand in hand, and they both require sound organizing skills.
IAF affiliates in northern California have already established successful, albeit small, house
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cleaning and gardening cooperatives. At this juncture, however, a partnership around the
IAF’s community organizing and LISTO’s business development/labor organizing appears
more remote.
The LISTO members and staff mirror the membership and work o f Father John
Seymour at Festival Catering Service. The members are Latino immigrants, low-income
people, and are either Catholic or familiar with Catholicism. LISTO and Festival Catering
Services both have the participation o f Catholic religious and both organizations continue
to receive support from the Campaign for Human Development. Where can they go from
here?
Mondragon
The 1986 Catholic bishop’s pastoral letter Economic Justice for All contains a
chapter called “ ‘A New American Experiment: Partnership for the Public Good.” This
section includes a footnote to the Harvard Business School Case Study, “The Mondragon
Cooperative Movement,” by David Ellerman. Many Catholics interested in economic
issues look to Mondragon as a viable model for economic development. Officials in the
Campaign for Human Development have visited Mondragon, and in 1992, the year before
he died, Cesar Chavez visited Mondragon as well (Zehnder 1997, 4).
Mondragon is a cooperative complex located in the Basque region of Spain. Don
Jose Maria Arizmendirrieta, a Catholic diocesan priest, with the help o f area residents,
founded the cooperative which currently employees over 31,000 people. Although early
in his religious life Don Jose Maria wanted to study sociology at the Louvain in Belgium,
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his bishop assigned him in 1941 to Mondragon to work as a parish priest. The people
were desperately poor during the post-Spanish Civil War years. Like a good community
organizer, he circulated among the people of the town to learn from them the nature of
their needs. In effect, he engaged in IAF style one-on-one interviews. Community
members first proposed building a playing field, a rather innocuous request. Don Jose
Maria then went about gathering the resources and labor to build the field, and later a
medical clinic, by organizing a youth group and the parish families.
After their initial successes, Don Jose Maria found that his working class
community wanted better education for its sons and daughters (primarily sons at that time)
so that they could find employment in the future. He organized a parents’ association
which began to petition employers for funds to start a technical school and also solicited
funds from other community members. At one point, street comers in Mondragon held
large boxes where people could drop cards with their names and addresses with pledge
amounts or offers of other forms of support. Those who contributed to the “dream
school” received the right to vote on policy decisions for what then become the Escuela
Politenica Profesional. At one point Don Jose M aria's superiors had to ask him to soften
his democratic initiatives for fear o f reprisals from the Franco government, but
Mondragon’s history shows that the people built their community association and
industrial cooperative within all the bounds of Spanish law and government (Whyte and
Whyte 1991, 30).
As the first children progressed in the Escuela Politenica Profesional, the school
expanded to higher grades until it reached the point o f granting undergraduate degrees in
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cooperation with a university in a neighboring province (Whyte and Whyte 1991, 32). As
the students learned their technical skills, Don Jose was inculcating them with his social
vision that he learned from the writings of Robert Owen, who had promoted cooperatives
in England and the United States in the 19th century, and Catholic social doctrine. Some
o f the first students recall that the better part of his religion classes were discussions in
sociology (Larranaga 1981, 777). In many ways Don Jose Maria was a priest who had an
avocation as an applied sociologist. One can assume that his religion classes were really
about religion but with an emphasis on how men and women in a Christian community
might live in an industrial world. Would they live by self-centered individualism or would
they cooperate with each other to deal with the vagaries of a world that necessarily
responds to market demands? The parish priest never hesitated in criticizing both
capitalism and socialism, he said:
the third way o f development equidistant from individualist
capitalism and soulless collectivism [is cooperativism]. Its center and axis
is the human person in his social context. (Larranaga 1981, 757)
It is the third way distinct from egoist capitalism and from the
mastodon of depersonalizing socialism. We want cooperatives which
constitute a new social potential and, thus, are built by those who are not
impelled by a myopic and limited egotism or by a simple gregarious
instinct. (Larranaga 1981, 757)
The cooperativist distinguishes himself from the capitalist, simply in
that the latter utilizes capital in order to make people serve him, while the
former uses it to make more gratifying and uplifting the working life of the
people. (Larranaga 1981, 757)
Five o f the Escuela Politenica Profesional’s first graduates with Don Jose Maria’s
encouragement proposed a plan for the worker-ownership o f area companies. After being
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371
rejected by employers and the Spanish government, the teacher and his disciples went to
their supporters in the community and raised about $365,000 in 1955 dollars. The group
bought a bankrupt company that had a valuable state license to produce electrical
appliances for homes. The students and the visionary priest called the cooperative Ulgor,
a combination o f the initials o f the students’ names (Whyte and Whyte 1991. 34).
The founders drew up a constitution which created a governing council whose
members would be elected by all the workers. Each worker continues to have one vote.
The manager o f Ulgor and o f the subsequent cooperatives is the equivalent of a CEO, but
he or she is under the control of a general council and only has a voice in council
proceedings. The governing council fulfills the function o f management while a social
council is in a sense the advocate o f the members as workers. Clearly all participants are
managers and workers. The social council is used as an advocate, although not a union,
for better safety, fair compensation, improved benefits and so on. When serious work-
related problems arise the social council can call a general assembly of the members to
discuss and vote on the manner of proceeding. A general assembly is held annually
(Whyte and Whyte 1991, 37).
Members are not stockholders because the cooperative does not trade in its
ownership. Members join the cooperative by paying a membership fee of a few thousand
dollars when new workers are needed. The cooperative compensates its members at a
rate that is slightly better than the Spanish average for all job categories. The profit
(which is sales minus costs o f labor, materials, and other normal expenses) is divided
among members according to the hours they have worked and their compensation level
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(basically, their job category). The profit is placed into an account established for each
member. The member may only withdraw the interest earned on the account until he or
she leaves the cooperative at which time the principal is paid to the former member. Most
importantly, one’s account cannot be transferred to others (Whyte and Whyte 1991, 43).
To say the least. Mondragon has been quite a success. The cooperative now
operates the twenty-third largest bank in Spain (Caja Laboral Popular) and it, too, is run
as a cooperative The cooperative complex had assets of $11.3 billion and sales o f $4.8
billion in 1997. Many new cooperatives have spun off from the original Ulgor. so that
today Mondragon has cooperatives that range from agriculture production to
semiconductor fabrication. From the agriculture production, a chain of supermarkets
developed, (t also has a research and development organization that is run as a
cooperative while being financed by the other cooperatives. And, of course, many of
Mondragon’s members live in cooperative housing and send their children to cooperative
day care centers. One finds that cooperatives developed because they were a means of
import substitution. Each new cooperative provided a natural service to pre-existing
cooperatives. To go full circle, schools are financed by the cooperatives, and Alecop its
showcase school, provides a half a day o f schooling and a half a day of work for its
students. Alecop is run as a cooperative and, therefore, prepares its students for futures as
full-fledged Mondragon members (Whyte and Whyte 1991, 54).
Over time Mondragon has been restructured to make accommodations for its size,
but the basic roles of the social council and governing council remain the same. In 1974 a
strike occurred among some members over production rules but it was soon settled. As a
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373
result o f the strike, the constitution was amended to give members the right to form
unions, but up to this date unions have not generated much interest. Similarly, members
can bring their political views to any situation or discussion, but the cooperatives do not
endorse any party or candidate. The cooperative has been successful because as changes
become necessary, the social council acts as an influential force in the decision making.
Surely no association o f human beings is perfect. North American social scientists have
criticized the cooperative for being weighted too heavily on technical matters rather than
social ones (Whyte and Whyte 1991, 220), and some visitors have complained of
hazardous working conditions. In addition, as the cooperative has grown, the members
have had to process greater amounts o f information. Don Jose Maria felt that it would
always be necessary to socialize knowledge to democratize power. This becomes difficult
with increases in the complexity of the organization. Yet the founder always insisted on
constant reevaluation o f the cooperative’s efforts, so Mondragon may very well overcome
this problem as well.
Don Jose Maria’s goal was nothing less than a transformation o f society, which at
its roots is a religious endeavor. His religion, however, was not one o f Spanish mysticism
but Basque pragmatism, he traveled on a different thoroughfare in the city o f religion than
many o f his contemporaries. Alfonso Gorronogoitia, one of the cooperative’s founding
members, explains how the master taught them.
We were disciples who year after year educated ourselves, thanks
to the teachings of Don Jose Maria, along lines o f social concerns and
toward a translation o f religious ideas into something that would link up
with our real world. Don Jose Maria imbued us with the idea that being a
man meant to occupy one’s self and do something. That is taken for
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374
granted now, but in those days there was a spiritual, scholastic, and puristic
atmosphere in the Church. In other places, Accion Catolica taught
different ideas, people dedicated themselves to Castilian mysticism. Don
Jose Maria was different in that he was telling us that men have problems
and must work in the building o f their world. From Don Jose Maria I
learned that work was not a punishment— which I had been taught earlier—
but rather the realization o f the Creation and collaboration with the plan of
God...
Thanks to the establishment of the Escuela Profesional, we
developed the idea that in order to do things we needed technical
competence as well as spiritu al witness an d p erson al effo rt [emphasis
added], (Whyte and Whyte 1991, 245)
Gorronogoitia explains that other business people see the difference that religious
values have played in Mondragon’s success.
What surprises other entrepreneurs is the poetic-philosophic vein
that we have as entrepreneurs. This humanistic inclination that surprises
them we owe to Don Jose Maria, because we could never dissociate our
entrepreneurial attitudes from a philosophy, a concept, an ideology, after
the contact we had with him. We could not be pure technocrats, who
know perfectly the processes of chemistry or physics or semi-conductors
but nothing more. We have never been pure technocrats. We see the
development o f these firms as a social struggle, a duty. (Whyte and Whyte
1991, 245)
Don Jose Maria’s studied the social encyclicals and their ideas resonated with him.
He and his students put them into action. He also read widely (e.g., the works of Jacques
Maritain and Emmanuel M ounier2 ), and often used Marxian criticisms o f capitalism in his
teaching, but he never supported armed insurrections as did radical Basque groups (Whyte
and Whyte 1991. 247). He also criticized the Catholic Church for alienating working
people but he remained a faithful Catholic.
2 Both Maritain and Mounier influenced the Catholic W orker movement in the U.S.
Mounier’s personalism appealed to Peter Maurin because personalism suggested that
people are meant to find fulfillment and dignity in their work. Maurin felt that industrial
relations based on collective bargaining failed to achieve this ideal.
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Don Jose Maria often said, “We have recognized that theory is necessary, yes, but
it is not sufficient: we build the road as we travel” (Larranaga 1981, 481). He believed
that as problems arose the cooperative members as an industrial community would
evaluate solutions and come to some consensus as to the best route to take. When
mistakes are made, new solutions will be sought.
The Mondragon member is not bom as a cooperator but the fellow members teach
her the values o f the cooperative. The Basque priest remarked:
One is not bom a cooperator, because to be a cooperator requires a
social maturity, a training in social living. For one to be an authentic
cooperator, capable o f cooperating, it is necessary to have learned to tame
one’s individualistic or egoistic instincts and to adapt to the laws of
cooperation...
One becomes a cooperator through education and the practice of
virtue. (Larranaga 1981, 231)
To teach only how men should behave with each other, without
attacking their egotism, is like plowing in the sea... Before teaching them
public relations and courtesy, we have to get them accustomed to
forgetting about themselves. (Larranaga 1981, 245)
Mondragon is a long ways away from Los Angeles and the LISTO cooperative,
both geographically and organizationally, but it offers many lessons for LISTO members
and their leaders. Faith and religion were significant variables in the success of
Mondragon because people of humility and good will, recognizing their talents and
deficiencies, put aside self-centeredness to serve one another. I believe this is the key to
Mondragon’s success. The schools that Don Jose Maria helped found taught technical
expertise and Christian values. Through the education o f the youth, Don Jose Maria laid
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376
the groundwork for a cooperative culture that has had some notable success. Mondragon
currently has close to 100 cooperatives.
Father John Seymour's Festival Catering Service and LISTO have not received the
managerial and technical assistance that they need to attain their goals although the
Campaign for Human Development and other groups have given them funds for
development. The daily challenges that poor people face make development difficult
without adequate funding and technical assistance. Over the past 30 years. Mondragon
has created new ventures by encouraging the vision and energy of members and providing
financial and technical support through the Empresarial Division of the Caja Laboral
Popular An economic development organization perhaps in a single U.S. region,
modeling itself after the Caja Laboral Popular, might be the foundation necessary to create
viable cooperatives (EHerman 1984. 274).
Mondragon is a social invention drawing on the spiritual and social capital o f a
religious tradition. Many religious groups have formed economic organizations during the
past two centuries (e.g.. Shaker colonies and Israeli kibbutzs). Mondragon's uniqueness is
the group's ability to create and sustain an industrial cooperative that can compete with
privately owned enterprises. LISTO and other attempts at workplace democracy may not
portend a change for all working people, but such organizations might be an option for
those who have a different vision of their work lives. This is certainly true for workers
who attempt to live out their Christian values at work.
LISTO continues to struggle along with 90 members; it could not serve the high of
150 members with the present two person staff The cooperative has applied for
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377
“501c)3)” nonprofit status to secure foundation monies without relying on the St. Joseph
Center as a fiscal sponsor. The membership has voted to use LISTO in the short-term as
both a job desk and a resource center to begin to organize worker-owned micro
enterprises. A group o f the LISTO men want to start a small moving business and some
of the women who work as house cleaners hope to pool resources to create a house
cleaning service. The future of the cooperative will depend on their solidarity,
perseverance, and capacity building. Without a certain respect for the importance of
spiritual capital and social capital, the likelihood of success is slim.
Conclusion
The LISTO case study offers an example of one vein in Catholic social teaching
that promotes cooperatives, worker-owned enterprises, and the co-partnership of labor
and management (e.g., industry councils). The other vein is o f course the promotion of
the freedom o f association o f working people and the Church’s acceptance of the use of
concerted activity to improve the lives o f workers and their families. Justice for Janitors/
Local 1877 and LAMAP activities are examples of the latter, and the participation o f
Catholic Church in these organizations has been discussed. LISTO, Festival Catering, and
Mondragon are examples o f the former.
o Los Angeles Catholic religious and laity helped create LISTO and have staffed
it. The Campaign for Human Development and the Archdiocese Peace and Justice
Commission have acted as financial supporters and advisors to LISTO. The cooperative is
attractive to Catholic religious because its mission is the development and empowerment
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of all the participants, and this mission resonates with the social encyclicals. The conflict
and tension common to union organizing and the struggle to convince an employer to
change employment polices is not a part of this effort. A major tension, however, revolves
around effort and reward. The worker/members are not trying to gain more from an
employer but rather more from themselves. A for-profit enterprise requires sacrifice and
trust and a major difficulty is the unwillingness or inability o f some LISTO members to
carry their full load: attend training sessions, market the cooperative, plan funding
strategies and so on. This is commonly referred to as the “free-rider” problem by
economists and game theorists. The case of Mondragon suggests that a patient and
consistent inculcation o f Christian values with the building o f technical capacity can lead
to profitable and sustainable people-owned economic institutions.
o In Los Angeles and the United States Catholic bishops have encouraged “new
creative models” for employee relations and workplaces. Cooperatives have been a
creative option in the bishops’ thinking since 1919, but at the moment there are no
successful industrial cooperatives of any meaningful size initiated or nurtured by the
bishops. Considering the number of business schools and law schools in U.S. Catholic
universities, the lack o f creative thinking in the area of cooperatives is surprising. Father
John Seymour’s economic development corporation suggestion is noteworthy. With the
right mix of social capital, financial capital and managerial talent, perhaps one viable
enterprise can lead to others. This means major investments in limited numbers o f
cooperatives rather than the present scattered minimal funding and subsequent failures.
Goodwill Industries, the Salvation Army, and other community service enterprises
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379
employee thousands of people. A similar community service enterprise might be
developed with worker-ownership in mind.
o Although labor unions have organized home health care workers, they have not
organized housekeepers or residential gardeners. Labor unions have always gravitated
toward skilled workers who have some degree o f power over their employers. The
LISTO workers are low-skilled and, therefore, outside the interest of most labor unions.
This, however, makes LISTO members even more attractive to the Catholic Church and
religious workers. The members are working poor without a collective voice. The
organizing skills found in community organizing groups like the IAF and ACORN are a
boon to these populations. The popular education and leadership training in IAF affiliates
offer a base from which to build business organizations. LISTO is remiss in not
supporting an organizer for the LISTO community and in failing to send members to IAF
national leadership training. ACORN has been the most successful community organizing
network in recent times to organize around the workplace. ACORN has organized home
care workers into unions that are now affiliated with SEIU and is presently organizing
welfare recipients who have become workfare government employees. Finally, the
Catholic Church provides a natural protection to immigrants suffering from anti-immigrant
political forces. Low-skilled, immigrant communities have always been the site for joint
Church and community organizing efforts. Religious people can identify with them just
like they identified with the United Farm Workers.
o Any cooperative like LISTO has to operate like a business. This means that the
accounting, financial analysis, marketing, strategic planning, and other managerial
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functions are essential to the organization. Don Jose Maria’s gift was building the social
and spiritual capital in the Mondragon population and realizing that the people had to
develop their technical and managerial skills. The character of the members includes a
willingness to subordinate one’s own interest within reason for the benefit o f the whole.
Today Mondragon executives are paid 80% of the market rate for their job position in the
Spanish economy. For this reason, the market has some bearing on compensation, but the
executives consider the 20% pay differential to be proof of their commitment to the
cooperative. Social encyclicals and technical skills will not be enough to build a
cooperative. Don Jose Maria, the Mondragon residents, and his first students acted as a
community of character by learning the meaning o f Christian virtues like faith, hope and
love as they journeyed along their road.
o Noemi Perez, Sister Rosanne Belpedio, Marilyn Schaefer. Maria Sanchez and
others already possessed religious values which were conducive to forming a cooperative
leveraging off o f their spiritual capital. On the one hand, the day-to-day running of an
enterprise is demanding and, therefore, when conflict occurs some moral base is necessary
to work through the tension. On the other hand, overly sentimental members cannot
mistakenly use religious values to accept the slothfiilness or irresponsibility o f a few. This
can occur if the dependency on the spiritual capital ("good will” if you will), impedes self
development in the membership. A controlling service center or Catholic Church will not
help the community grow in character.
As of July 1998, the cooperative has split in two groups over the administration
and direction o f the effort. A group of disenchanted members formed a cooperative called
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SIEMPRE LISTO (ALWAYS LISTO) when they decided the administration was failing
to heed the direction o f the directiva. SIEMPRE LISTO remains on the grounds of St
Clement Parish, and Oscar Mondragon, a former UFW organizer and day worker
administrator, mentors the project. A second group led by the original administrators,
including Noemi Perez, has moved to a nearby L A. community service building. Each
group continues to attempt to move from a worker association to a self-sustaining
member cooperative. Clearly, cooperation requires a sense of community and both groups
will only succeed if they develop communities of character.
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CHAPTER 10
CONCLUSION
The American Catholic Church has participated in the areas o f community and
labor organizing in every era of U.S. history. The organizing has sometimes developed
from within the Catholic community, as happened with the early Catholic welfare
societies and parish service programs in urban settings. For instance. Father Adolf
Kolping organized workers’ associations in Germany in the 1850s to promote
occupational skills development and to train young workers in Christian family values. By
the late 1850s German-American immigrants had formed Kolping societies and built
worker hostels in St. Louis and Milwaukee. In 1928 Los Angeles German Catholics
organized a Kolping House which operates to this day on South Union Ave., not far from
the University o f Southern California campus. These houses have given immigrant
Catholics places to live, familial environments, skills training, and job referrals. In 1998
the Los Angeles Kolping House continues to aide men and women with living quarters,
skills development, and work referrals. This is another example of the Church’s ongoing
efforts as an organizer for community education, health care, and job creation.
As the 19th century Catholic immigrants entered the industrial workforce in greater
numbers, they began to join, and then eventually lead, U.S. worker associations and
unions. Catholic Terence Powderly o f the Knights o f Labor knew the importance o f
382
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gaining the hierarchy’s acceptance of the Order. The Knights in the United States had
both Protestant and Catholic members, and the Church would have damaged working
class solidarity by insisting on Catholic worker associations, the organizations preferred by
Leo XIII. The acceptance of the multi-denominational Knights paved the way for greater
Catholic participation in all future U.S. labor organizations, and progressive priests like
Peter Dietz and John Ryan further encouraged worker solidarity and state involvement in
the social question.
Segments o f the Catholic church in America became more identified as American
and Progressive during the post-WWI years. Some U.S. bishops and pastors necessarily
accepted Catholic participation in American unions and social organizations because their
congregants were poor people who needed help. Furthermore, in the opinion of some
clergy, if they had objected to these lay activities, they would have lost many o f the
faithfUl. On the one hand. Catholic leaders never accepted any activities that promoted
Marxist thinking; on the other hand, many Catholics endorsed progressive proposals like
the “living wage” and “fair labor standards.” Although these proposals were not revolts
against industrial capitalism, many business and civic leaders found these ideas too radical
for the U.S.1 Despite the fears of employers, a critical mass of Catholic Church officials
and Catholic unionists leaned towards progressive social reform without accepting “real
socialism,” as Leo XIII called communism.
•Members o f the National Manufacturing Association tended to be adamantly anti
union while members o f the National Civic Federation, more progressive industrial
capitalists (adherents of welfare capitalism), saw a role for labor unions and the need for
industry-wide standards in the workplace.
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Catholic social teaching criticized the excesses o f industrial capitalism and rejected
communism. Much focus, however, was placed on what was good for families. A “living
wage” was a “family wage.” In other words, the income a sole worker needed to support
his or her family. Families also worked so that they might own property and, therefore,
states and individuals were to respect private property. Catholic pastors believed good
families built good parishes (churches). While Marxism centered on class, Catholicism
centered on the family. Unions were acceptable mediating institutions when they
benefitted this basic social unit. Families, however, were to live moderate and wholesome
lives with the members serving one another. The ideal Christian family has never been one
of control and domination.
John Ryan’s economic writings infrequently mentioned God. His promotion of a
living wage was based on neo-Thomistic natural law thinking. Obviously, Ryan based his
moral theology on faith as well as reason, but he believed that reasonable people would
see the need for a living wage through rational argumentation. Catholic faith was
unnecessary for agreement. His use of natural law was wholly Catholic. Ryan felt that
Locke’s use of natural law was too weighted on the side o f individual autonomy because
consideration should have been given to the means (e.g., resources/living wage) a person
needs to reach his rational end (i.e., nature). John Ryan believed that a living wage made
all other social reforms superfluous because families would then have adequate income for
reasonable housing, health care, education, and so on (Beckley 1996, xii-xvii). He then
saw his beliefs reach fruition in the New Deal when Catholic moral theology took center
stage in the social debate (Beckley 1996, xi).
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The economic justice ethics o f Walter Rauschenbusch influenced Protestant labor
leaders like William Green, president o f the AFL. Broadly speaking, these leaders saw
Christianity, humanity’s living out the ethic of Jesus, as part of society’s evolution toward
a world o f justice. Yet despite common thinking, partly attributable to Reinhold Niebuhr’s
misreading of Rauschenbusch, these leaders were not pie-in-the-sky sentimental idealists
(Beckley 1996, 37). Rauschenbusch and other social gospel adherents called for industrial
democracy, the end o f monopolies, and other progressive reforms (Rauschenbusch 1912,
372-373). These changes necessitated a collective conversion of social groups which led
William Green and others to attempt to “convert” both unionists and capitalists to this
theological view. In practice, Rauschenbusch supported organized labor and socialism
with some reservations (Beckley 1996, 68). In actuality, the social gospel conversion was
not forthcoming.
John Ryan and Walter Rauschenbusch are somewhat alike because o f their
common belief in a divine social order, e.g., that God works through social institutions,
and justice is necessary for the self-development of every person (Beckley 1996, 25). As I
discuss below, these two assertions distinguish them from Reinhold Niebuhr, a third
religious-thinker in this century who influenced the interaction between organizing and
religion in America.
Prior to 1931, Catholic labor priests matched social gospel activists in labor
activities man for man. Although Monsignor John Ryan discouraged strikes and other
worker actions, he argued that Catholic just war principles permitted their use (Ryan
1919, 100-130). The Young Christian Workers, particularly in Chicago, also nurtured a
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Catholic understanding o f the social question and promoted action in the neighborhood
and on the job. After 193 I, Catholic religious professionals interested in labor questions
and labor unionists interested in Catholicism tended to follow the corporatist views of
Pope Pius XI and John Ryan. They set about advocating economic democracy to promote
the dignity of every human being in the workplace and society at large.
Then in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, the thinking of Reinhold Niebuhr became popular
in many religious circles, and his views in part, appeared in the U.S. Catholic world
through the ecumenism found in the IAF and UFW. Niebuhr’s thought influenced three
Union Theological Seminary-trained ministers who played significant roles in the grape
boycott— Chris Hartmire, Jim Drake, and Phil Famham. Saul Alinsky had also used Moral
Man and Immoral Society in his classes for organizers. Larry McNeil, formerly the lead
IAF organizer in Los Angeles, believes Reinhold Niebuhr has influenced most of the lAF’s
Protestant organizers into the 1990s (McNeil Interview 1998).
Niebuhr’s contribution to the story is important because organized labor had
settled into a more formal business relationship with corporate America. The organizing
o f workers and strikes continued but without the drive and missionary zeal o f the late
1930s and early 40s. By the 1950s, Philip Murray, Walter Reuther and other industrial
union leaders found themselves negotiating highly complex and technical contracts with
the secondary goal of gaining greater influence on managerial decisions. The Industry
Council Plan promoted by Philip Murray for the steel industry, although never fully
implemented, was straightforward Catholic corporatism giving workers greater voice in
workplace decisions, which included managerial questions (McDonough 1992, 107).
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387
Catholic labor schools continued their classes, but once workers had won the right to
organize, unions began to train their own members in labor affairs. The social justice issue
in big unionism became less evident for Catholic activists. Dorothy Day’s Catholic
Workers, who held strong social justice and communal beliefs, became less involved in
labor issues.
Large industrial unions, however, tended to become large service centers for their
members (i.e., processing grievances and administering benefits). Aggressive organizing
had turned problematic with the advent of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 The passage of
right-to-work laws around the nation further stymied union expansion. The curmudgeon
union boss stereotype begun to take hold in the imagination o f some anti-unionists, not
without the encouragement of corporate America and the media.
The liberal Saul .Alinsky. in Reveille for Radicals, questioned the passiveness and
narrowness of business unionism as early as the mid-1940s.
The labor unions have concerned themselves primarily with their
own problem o f bettering working conditions within the industrial areas of
their nations. They have placed other issues in a very secondary position
and frequently concentrated their all on getting higher wages and shorter
hours. They have neglected to recognize that political and social action are
as important to their ultimate objective as their economic ends; that money
is only meaningful in terms of the kind o f life, the kind o f housing, the kind
of security and health which a people can purchase with it. (Alinsky 1989
Vintage Edition. 200)
Twenty years later in the second edition o f Reveille for Radicals (1969). Alinsky
commented:
Many o f the predictions I made some twenty years ago in Reveille
for Radicals have, to my intense regret, been fulfilled. An example o f this
is to be found in the organized labor movement, which today is a part o f
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388
the establishment and not even the progressive part of that (Alinsky 1989
Vintage Edition. 220)
Ed Chambers, in 1998. had a similar impression of the union movement's history
and present state.
How is the search f o r ju stice differen t f o r the labor m ovem en t a rid the
IAF*
Well the union's way is getting lock stepped into being given check-off as a
result of WWII and coming out at the other end with growth and progress
in a marriage with big corporations, and [then] they dropped the justice end
of it. They went for wages and fringe benefits and began grieving for
people who could grieve for themselves I mean, they hired people,
business agents, to represent workers in grievances, so then they centered
on the twenty percent w ho were either many times shiftless or had alcohol
problems you know what I mean [The workers] saw the union as a
protection agency, so they tied up the business agents [who were] taking
care of people who couldn't take care of themselves (Chamber Interview
1997).
Reinhold Niebuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society repudiated the liberal
Protestant view that the morality of religion provided sufficient means to resolve the
inequalities and injustices o f industrial society The ideal of social gospelers. the kingdom
o f God. could not be realized in the world. Christians had to live with the tension between
the actual world and the ideal o f love Since disinterested love could not exist in this
world. Niebuhr suggested a Christian realism where justice in the political realm
approximated the Christian love of the transcendent (Beckley 1992. 201-203) The
tension between the ideal and actual, according to Niebuhr, was the source of every
Christian’ s quest for justice. Nonetheless, some Christians attempted to avoid the tension
by withdrawing from participation in society while others relieved the tension by
dismissing love as outside o f the historical context. Niebuhr’s analysis of industrial society
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389
and Christian participation in it made involvement in power conflicts more palatable for
some religious people (Beckley 1992,208).
Saul Alinsky, IAF organizers, and the UFW required theological justification for
building power and using power to promote the have-nots o f society. Niebuhr's theology
undoubtedly helped. According to Neibuhr. the relations between groups depended as
much upon power as they did upon reason and religious morality (Niebuhr 1932, xxiii).
This new perspective animated Christians who supported the farm workers, although more
than one former UFW organizer, including Protestant ministers, have underscored the role
o f Catholic social teaching. Clearly. Cesar Chavez used that teaching for himself and the
farm workers who were primarily Catholic, but the growers recognized the UFW because
of the union’s power. Catholic social teaching seldom if ever uses language like “ power,’’
“conflict.” or “class” when speaking for social change. Cesar Chavez and his Protestant
supporters worked in a world as it is and not as it should be. and the influence of Christian
realism aided their efforts.
Niebuhr was pragmatic because he ultimately settled on approximate justice. As a
Christian realist, he could endorse movements that were not completely just, and one can
argue that IAF and labor union goals, although arguably good, are not always just in the
eyes o f all the effected parties. People who understand Niebuhr’s position are more likely
to engage the powerful in struggles rather than withdraw to their own communities or
simply accept the sinful world as it is (defeatism). As this theology developed Niebuhr
understood that social movements and political actions to gain equality for the have-nots
would not necessarily achieve their ends. He saw this most clearly in the totalitarianism o f
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390
the Soviet Union. He became more pragmatic about social change and sought
approximate justice in the balancing of freedom, equality, and order. Moreover, Christians
would always have to evaluate this goal o f approximate justice with the ideal of
disinterested love (Niebuhr 1976, 28). Chavez kept a firm grasp on his faith and never
forgot to love his neighbors who included powerful growers and agribusiness leaders.
Christian neighbor-love was central to his organizing.
Social gospel adherents and John Ryan-Type" Catholics had seen the fruits of their
efforts in the New Deal social policies. The New Deal however, was limited in that it
never led to further progressive achievements which would give, at least according to
Ryan, greater opportunity for self-fulfilling development for all Americans. The New Deal
simply did not go far enough. Ryan promoted industrial democracy and Rauschenbusch
had endorsed Christian socialism. In fact, business interests in the United States took back
the labor gains in the Wagner Act (1936) with the Taft-Hartley Act (1947). Later Cesar
Chavez, the farm workers and their church supporters won the Agricultural Labor
Relations Act (ALRA) through the success o f their movement. In a Niebuhrian sense,
they built their power with a conscious awareness o f ideal love to gain approximate
justice. As Niebuhr understood and other men and women Ieam, the world has very few
people, if any, who live out of disinterested love and possess no will-to-power— religious,
managers, or unionists. Consequently, California growers interested in maintaining
control over agricultural wage rates and policies shortly turned the ALRA into a paper
tiger. Economic power once again superceded democratic power in California’s
agricultural labor relations (Daniel 1987, 380).
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The social ethics o f Rauschenbusch. Ryan, and Niebuhr are found in Los Angeles
labor struggles and experiments in the 1990s. Justices for Janitors and SEIU have the
support of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious and laity. Catholics— e.g.. Father
Pedro Villarroya. Sister Rosanne Belpedio, and Adrain Gomez— normally point to the
Catholic social encyclicals for their theological support although discussions of these
encyclicals with labor practitioners is practically nonexistent. Even without a survey o f the
Protestant supporters, I believe we can assume that some o f them continue to work out of
a social gospel and kingdom o f God view of the world. They participate in Justice for
Janitors/SEIU Local 1877 activities because they feel God is at work in these labor
organizing efforts. Reinhold Niebuhr’s vision of justice as a strategy approximating love is
undoubtedly found in Justice for Janitors’ power building and confrontational tactics
which allow the janitors to bargain with employers from a position o f strength. Through
the training and organizing o f the IAF, UFW, and SEIU, both Catholic and Protestant
participants at some level— whether it is faith, intellect, or intuition— understand the
need to build worker power to match the concentrated economic power found in our
society today. Rauschenbusch and Ryan’s distinct versions of a God-designed social order
and the desire to see the natures o f men and women fulfilled helped win social victories
(e.g., the New Deal) but not industrial democracy. Similarly, Niebuhr’s push for the
church’s engagement in the political sphere to help balance industrial power and worker
power has moved some Christians from worshiping and thinking about God to striving for
some amorphous “peace and justice” to set the world straight. These are all attempts by
religion to accommodate to the social order. In part, Rauschenbusch, Ryan, and Niebuhr
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all leverage off o f the moral mortgage built up by Christian communities; likewise, political
liberalism relies on the wellspring o f Christian culture to keep people reconciled and
talking.
Difficulties arise in Catholic Church and labor union relationships when some
Church activists and labor people mistakenly equate political liberalism with the Christian
tradition. The best aid the church can provide the world is to be the church which is never
a simple nor painless proposition. Standing for the poor, the orphan, and foreigner may
lead to social change or it may not, but the singular dedication of faithful Christians, and if
need be the martyrdom of Christians, will keep the Christian narrative fully engaged with
the social question. For this reason, the Roman Catholic Church serves people best when
devoting its time and resources to being the Church; i.e., raising up communities of
Christian character.
The Catholic response to the social question in 1998 follows the tradition of the
Catholic community which includes the Catholic social encyclicals. This response has
been constant though not always consistent in the Church’s journey with the workers of
L A. Sister Diane Donoghue, Father John Seymour, Adrian Gomez, Father Villarroya,
Maria Sanchez, Bishop Blaire and others are participating in a community of character
and, therefore, are attempting to live lives of character. They stand on the shoulders of
other such men and women who have been engaged in a faith that does justice throughout
the history of the Church in L.A. The interviews of the 50 Los Angeles labor, community
and religious people normally contained some personal history that pointed to their
development in a religious tradition. Even those who were critical of what they saw as
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injustices in organized religion and no longer participated in religious communities
normally had early development in some faith community. None o f those interviewed
spoke in explicit terms of equality, liberty, or order, and perhaps this was a given in their
minds. They often spoke of justice, but they also seldom spoke of their activities in
scriptural or religious terms unless asked. Perhaps this, too, was a given in their minds.
The practitioners need to better understand which traditions they are using for their work
and when. This will help unions, community organizations, and the Catholic Church, as
allied institutions, to support the well-being o f working families while acknowledging
social issues which are areas of disagreement. This may mean that the various
organizations can together promote justice in the workplace, but remain sensitive to each
other’s position on personal morality issues. For instance, the Church has supported
efforts to end discrimination of all kinds in the workplace, but it cannot be expected to
promote same-sex unions.
Roman Catholic priests, other religious, and laity, therefore, fail to serve their
purpose by working as “rent-a-religious” and showing up for one picket line and press
conference after another. Their actions ought to be distinctly tied to tradition, the story of
their community, and this means educating themselves and those around them—
organizers, workers, and others. Some twentieth-century theologians (e.g., H R. Niebuhr)
have pointed out that the church seems to live out of various institutional forms, from
sectarianism to false universalism/Constantinianism. H.R. Niebuhr’s preference for a
church model was “Christ the Transformer o f Culture.” The result is a tendency to
accommodate to democratic liberalism out o f concerns for tolerance.
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[N.R.] Niebuhr set up the argument in such a way as to ensure that
the transformist approach would be viewed as the most worthy. A
democracy like ours must believe that it is making progress, that the people
are, through their own power and choice, transforming the world into
something better than it would be without their power and choice. Thus
Niebuhr set up the argument as if a world-affirming “church” or world-
denying “sect” were our only options, as if these categories were a faithful
depiction o f some historical or sociological reality in the first place. In
good, liberal fashion, Niebuhr ensured that the most inclusive ecclesiology
would be viewed as the most truthful, that any church becoming too
concerned about its identity and the formation of its young, would be
rejected by American culture as incipiently “sectarian,” as irresponsible in a
state that had give us the political tools to transform the world. Christ and
Culture thus stands as prime example o f repressive tolerance. Since
Niebuhr could appreciate the “rightness” o f all the types of churches he
described (after all, he claimed that he was only describing, not
prescribing), his own pluralism underwrote the implicit assumption that his
position (pluralism) was superior to other, more narrow ecclesiology.
Pluralism in theology became an ideology for justifying the alleged
pluralism o f American culture. In Christ and Culture, liberal theology gave
a theological rationale for liberal democracy. (Hauerwas and Willimon
1989, 40-41).
In other words, if sectarianism is chosen, then the church has nothing to say to the
wider world. If universalism is selected, then whatever the church has to say must be
cleansed so as not to be offensive. Pluralism, inclusiveness, and tolerance become
controlling principles for any religious participation. In the case of Roman Catholic
participation, this requires silence on human life and human sexuality questions to gain
hearing on economic justice questions in some Democratic Party and social activist circles
(e.g., organizing with “progressive” unions). But the Church cannot embrace political
liberalism. Cardinal Mahony became uncomfortable with the Catholic Labor Institute
breakfast because the pro-abortion views o f the Democratic Party and the partisan
environment apparently became too dominant for him. The L. A. Archdiocese has also
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vociferously protested the anti-immigrant and anti-welfare recipient bashing by some in the
Republican Party. Of course both political parities adhere to political liberalism. For this
reason, the Church’s role is to be the Church and not to endorse 20th century political
democracy as a new and improved form of Church or some further evolution of
“Christian culture.” Hauerwas and Willimon (1989, 41-43) remind church members that
to identify wholeheartedly with our liberal democracy is to countenance the bombing o f
Hiroshima, the fire bombing o f Dresden, the Viet Nam War and other similar acts of
violence. Political liberalism has helped protect many goods for human beings (e.g.,
freedom of speech and freedom of association) but it is not a substitute for Christian
community.
The Los Angeles Archdiocese will continue to serve Catholics and non-Catholics
alike by teaching how people in its community o f character have lived out the Christian
story in the past and then by accompanying the listeners in the ongoing journey. In
addition to worship and instruction, the Archdiocese might further serve the community by
teaching the social encyclicals and further encouraging community organizing. Perhaps
labor schools or the Catholic Labor Institute are no longer the appropriate vehicles, but
unions and the Church need to establish some circle o f discussion. This will benefit the
Church, labor organizers, and community organizers in Los Angeles. If one believes labor
organizing is an economic development tool, this work will help build the social fabric o f
Los Angeles.
LAMAP and SEIU Local 1877 are organizing large Catholic and Hispanic
populations, and the Catholic Church contributes to the improvement o f workers’ lives by
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supporting this organizing. The relationship, however, is weak when labor practitioners
fail to develop significant relationships within the Catholic community and, instead, rely on
faxes and phone calls to inform Catholic religious o f the next rally or march. When labor
representatives meet with workers, they need to ask them the name of their parish or
pastor. As this data is amassed, they will find certain key parishes and churches, and the
organizers should take worker delegations to meet wfth their religious leaders. This
means the effort is worker-controlled, worker-led, and worker-defined. When the labor
movement relies on sympathetic clergy spokes-people to make rally appearances, short
term gains are sometimes won, but broad-based and deep-rooted organizing does not take
place. Workers who meet with their pastors and parish leaders educate them about family
and workplace concerns and in turn the Church has an opportunity to share the richness o f
the social teaching. As mentioned in the LAMAP conclusion, sometimes community
organizing groups (IAF, ACORN, and PICO) already have relationships with
congregations. These groups can be quite helpful if some mutuality exists in the effort.2
The Justice for Janitors/SEIU Local 1877, LAMAP and LISTO case studies make
one point clear: The Church’s responsibility is to share the gospel message with the
faithful and worship God. Faithful Catholics have to remind themselves of the failings
found in all forms o f Constantinianism and this includes Reinhold Niebuhr’s attractive
Christian realism which builds a social ethic around liberal democracy while
2 Larry Fondation, a Los Angeles IAF organizer, recalled a group o f nonunion
baby-diaper delivery drivers and workers who all came from the same state in Mexico and
attended the same Catholic parish in the San Fernando Valley (Fondation Interview 1997).
Any union interested in organizing workers would want this information.
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acknowledging the tension between the ideal o f love and the social reality. In others
words. Catholics will drift away from their story if they believe they somehow serve God
by achieving a political or economic balance o f power. John Ryan believed the New Deal
failed to move the industrial workplace as far along the road toward economic democracy
as he would have liked, and he never thought the state had the means of solving all social
problems. Yet his moral expediency and natural law thinking may have also been too
accommodating to a democracy in which special interests and economic power held sway.
Catholic faithful need to show caution in supporting new social justice programs and
reforms because the gospel is above all else a way o f life, not a program. The Wagner Act
and the Fair Labor Standards Act have aided millions o f people but legislation is never a
substitute for lives which witness charity as church. Similarly, Rauschenbusch knew that
social movements with good intentions— e.g., the labor movement and socialism— are
susceptible to their own injustices. His social gospel proposal offered a new form of
Constantinianism described as Christian democracy.3
Justice for Janitors/SEIU Local 1877, LAMAP. and LISTO are all attempts at
organizing to improve the lives of low-income people. They have attracted the support o f
professional Catholic religious and Catholic laity because their efforts resonate with the
social teaching o f the Church and the deeper Christian story. Nevertheless, the degree of
support is minimal given the numbers of low-income Los Angeles residents and the
influence o f the Catholic Church. In part, some Catholic religious are hesitant to
3 See Stanley Hauerwas’ Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with
the Secular. Ch. 4 “Democratic Policing o f Chrisitianity” for a description o f
Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr’s accommodations to political liberalism.
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participate because unionists sometimes want to borrow their moral authority on
economic questions but not hear the Church’s teaching on personal morality questions.
Catholic religious and laity, to live as Christians, should respond to the needs of
the unemployed and low-income workers in Los Angeles today, and they will serve the
poor and themselves by first worshiping God. This means remembering the Christian
narrative, praying, forgiving, sharing the sacraments, and serving one another.4 (Although
some commentators have criticized Cesar Chavez for his charismatic and/or authoritarian
leadership (Zehnder 1997, 3-4), he was an example of a Catholic who attempted to live
out this narrative with the support of a wider community o f believers.) Praying, the
liturgy, and reception of the sacraments are the foundation blocks of the Christian
community. Catholics in Los Angeles will grow in Christian virtues by living out the
Christian narrative that remembers Jesus Christ. This means that registering voters,
holding actions against unresponsive politicians and employers, or walking on a picket line
must not become equated with religious practice. Nor are we always responding to God
by joining the most recent social justice coalition or movement. These activities are only
worthy of a Catholic’s participation if they reflect a community of Christian character and
“make ties that bind them to God” (John XXIII 1963, #45). In other words, people of
good faith need to present the issue for discussion, reflect with the wider community about
4 ...those who profess Catholicism must take special care to be consistent and not
compromise in matters wherein the integrity of religion or morals would suffer harm.
Likewise, in their conduct they should weigh the opinions o f others with fitting courtesy
and not measure everything in the light of their own interests. They should be prepared to
join sincerely in doing whatever is naturally good or conducive to good (John XXIH,
Pacem in Terris. #157).
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responses, pray for guidance, and act with prudence (See John XXIII 1963, #160). This
requires patience and the building of relationships on the part of community and labor
organizers who face the exigencies o f the moment. For this reason, the formation of
relationships within the Church community are essential.
What is the primary social task o f the Catholic Church and the church?
The church is a people on a journey who insist on living consistent
with the conviction that God is the lord of history. They refuse to resort to
violence in order to secure their survival. The fact that the first task o f the
church is to be itself is not a rejection of the world or a withdrawal ethic,
but a reminder that Christians must serve the world on their own terms;
otherwise the world would have no means to know itself as the world
(Hauerwas 1981,10).
Catholics and other Christians are to live in the world and act as a contrast model
to it. When people o f faith worship Jesus Christ and follow him as disciples, they are to
walk with the anawim. the poor and outsiders who are raised up in the sacred scriptures.
As Catholics attempt to follow Jesus, they will create a community which offers
alternatives to the social question, and perhaps the Mondragon cooperative complex is
one such alternative. This also means living within the American context as a people who
are open to the foreigner and non-believer.
Some social commentators (e.g., Milton Friedman) believe that society needs the
church because the church community trains others in the virtues which make social
relations possible. Relations are ultimately built on trust, and the individualism of the free
market and political liberalism in part survive to a large degree because o f the trust taught
in communities o f believers. (I am certainly not arguing that religious practice should be
encouraged to support the status quo.) Christian communities have hope in God. God
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provides some authority for living one’s life which keeps people from placing all authority
in themselves (See John XXIII 1963, #160; Hauerwas 1981, 84). I believe the so-called
free market and political liberalism, as we know them, will falter as more people live out
of the moral fragments they recall from the Christian tradition or other faith traditions,
because they are living unsupported by any community. Relations become primarily
contractual and, therefore, always open to being reinterpreted, renegotiated, and/or
broken (e.g., contract-at-will agreements in employment and pre-nuptial contracts in
marriage).
The nonviolent resistance to the political and economic powers o f the 1990s
includes the vocal support and public witness that faithful people give to the poor of Los
Angeles who are both native bom and foreign. This clearly expresses the religious
exhortation found in the Bible. These public stances are rebukes against employers and
civic leaders who fail to hear or respond to the cries Gf the poor. In effect, the IAF public
actions and SEIU street demonstrations point out to the wider public that the “economic
imperialists” (F.D R .’s term), the “haves” as John L. Lewis called them, are wearing no
clothes. The public actions are organized and peaceful, although uncomfortable for the
targets. Organizing for change in this manner is surely more welcomed by people than
civil disturbances. Christians o f character who participate in organizing actions or street
demonstrations do not hate the less than charitable civic leader or employer but love the
neighborhood resident or worker. The vindictiveness of class conflict and its all or
nothing thinking is averted because tragedy, failure despite righteousness, is part of this
world. We will always have the poor. The LAF, ACORN, and PICO national trainers
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keep their members sensitive to the vagaries o f an ever changing world by reminding them
that there are no permanent enemies and no permanent friends (or only a few permanent
friends if you agree with Aristotle). The church exists in a divided world, but must
maintain a position o f peace.5
The Catholic community activist or labor activist also needs to know the people he
or she supports as friends. The charity and self-subordination for brothers and sisters
comes from one's own awareness o f Jesus’ friendship for oneself. As God humbled
himself and befriended humankind, so does the Catholic of character. This story of
befriending the other is appropriated within a community of character. We. however, fail
as community members when we simply pick and choose ways o f living from this
narrative. A Christian community’s stance around economic issues does not preclude the
sharing of clear positions on “personal” morality issues. A faithful Catholic realizes that
the public/private dichotomy is an artificial division. Our public and private lives are never
separate.
Cardinal Roger Mahony saw the abortion issue becoming endemic to Democratic
circles in the early 1990s even at the nonpartisan Catholic Labor Institute breakfast. The
Catholic community, however, speaks clearly on this social and private concern. If Father
Pedro Villarroya is right and Catholics no longer know this position or care about it, then
interestingly, Thomas Geoghegan (1992, 158) in Which Side Are You On: Trying
to Be for Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back writes that he often sat with church deacons at
banquets held by Teamsters for a Democratic Union. The Christian narrative also has
something to say about the leadership o f organized labor and the divisions that appear
within the movement. Many unionists are people of faith and they want unions o f
character. Clearly, Christians of character are trying to improve the Teamsters, too.
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the Church community is failing to recall its story. The Catholic Church serves itself
better by remembering its own tradition, than contributing to a political vehicle which
carries a mixed bag o f political goals (albeit many admirable ones). This also means that
the progressives in the Los Angeles labor movement will have to decide if the abortion
issue is important enough for its goal o f organizing workers to alienate the Catholic
community. Labor and community organizers might take some time to try to understand
the Catholic narrative before aligning themselves as a body with views inimical to many in
the Catholic community. As for other issues o f apparent division, e.g., homosexuality and
gender questions, the progressive elements o f labor might find the pronouncements of
Catholic Church leaders to be more reasonable than originally thought and the practical
living of Catholic communities to be more Christian than first perceived.
On the pragmatic side of labor and community organizing, the best and hardest
way to organize is through multiple one-on-ones. (Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and
others built the UFW with one-on-ones.) With the pressure of immediate crises,
organizers, religious activists and union officials seem to have little time to know the
people they organize or the people who support them. Too often organizers focus on
winning individual rights and building institutional power, when they need to begin to
think about building a community for the long-term. Friendship/relationship building takes
time, and organizers who want to gain the support of religious communities need to spend
time in those communities. This process is probably not as forced or burdensome as
harried organizers might expect. If labor organizers, and the workers they are organizing,
are participating in faith communities already, they might first build relationships with
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other members of these communities, and then share community/work related concerns
with them.
A true community o f character responds to the needs o f both members and
foreigners. Workers have to feed, educate, and care for their children. Because many
Americans are struggling with their present incomes, prepared organizers will have little
problem convincing parishioners and their pastors to support greater income equity in
their communities. Certainly, unions sell themselves by offering this possibility.
The IAF has had success at organizing in Catholic communities because their
organizers and leaders have developed relationships with clergy and parishioners.
Similarly, if a union organizer is Jewish. I assume she will receive a better hearing in a
synagogue where she practices her faith. Just as she will probably receive a better hearing
in a Catholic setting because she practices her faith. Religious people o f different faiths
can at least dialogue with people who have a higher authority than themselves. Unions
that round up peace and justice committee members or a few church activists for marches
and press conferences are not organizing deep enough for long-term effectiveness.
The labor organizers and their supporters will have to consider the self-interest
(not selfishness) of the churches they approach for support. Parish communities are more
likely to respond to requests from their own members or requests from organizations that
aid their members. In the past, labor unions sometimes had their initial organizing
meetings in parish halls, and some priests spoke from the pulpit to animate workers and
their families during labor strikes. As mentioned in the LAMAP case study, a good
working relationship with the local IAF, ACORN, or PICO organizer is helpful because of
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the intellectual capital and social capital the organizer has gained from previous organizing
with area faith institutions. This also means an awareness o f the community
organization’s self-interest. Intellectual and social capital are built with effort and over
time. Community organizers are not going to exchange membership lists and make
personal introductions unless there is some benefit to their own work. The union,
community organization and churches all need some return from their involvement. In the
case of Catholic religious groups, the benefit occurs when their narrative is more fully
lived and their character as a community is discovered: worshiping God. serving the poor,
proclaiming the word, receiving the sacraments, and so on.
When organizers are too militant in their methods, they build a militant
constituency without taking the time to build trust and cooperation. This may explain why
some aggressive campaigns lead to successes in the short-term and then internal union
dissension in the long-term. The old guard faces a new mobilized constituency which may
have never faced the long- term struggles related to maintaining an institution. Building a
union, like a Church, requires trust and solidarity, and these virtues come with practice.
Union leaders and Catholic leaders have to come to know one another, and Church people
are more willing to build relationships with people who use effective tactics that build
solidarity to achieve wins.
Catholics ought to help organize low-income people. At a time when the labor
movement is under increasing attack and labor law has failed to protect workers. Catholics
need to recall the historical relationship between organizing and the Church. The Justice
for Janitors campaign has roots in the UFW, ACORN, and the IAF. These groups have
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taken positions and promoted values which are not inimical to Catholicism. The Catholic
participant, however, should ground herself in her own faith, like a Cesar Chavez, to
understand the importance o f one’s primary community. Worship, prayer, service, the
Word and sacraments should lead us to taking positions which witness our love for Christ
and our neighbor. Both SEIU Local 1877 and LAMAP will benefit from closer ties to the
institutional Church which means understanding and respecting the Church’s stand on
issues; e.g., family life, that are seemingly unrelated to the immediate demands o f union
campaigns. Moreover, the family is really a secondary social unit to the wider social body
called the Church which consists o f multiple families. If the labor union organizers turn a
sympathetic ear toward Catholic leaders, these leaders will stand as witnesses to the need
for protecting and improving the lives of all workers and, o f course, their families.
With the precipitous decline in union membership in the United States, Catholic
bishops and clergy ought to familiarize themselves with the academic studies which point
to de-unionization as a cause o f income inequality. Multiple studies have made two points
clear; 1) the average American worker makes less in real wages today than she or he did
twenty years ago, and 2) that unionized industries tend to have less wage inequality in
firms and between-firms (Rothstein 1997, 1 and 11). ’Tn 1996, the American economy
added 3 million jobs while successful union organizing drives covered fewer than 100,000
potential new members, and not all victories led to successful first contract negotiations”
(Rothstein 1997, 11). Unions are becoming less significant in our economy in part
because o f international competition and national economic structural changes, but
powerful economic and political forces have also fought to keep trade unionism, a form o f
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free association and social organization, from becoming vehicles for economic
development and income distribution. As discussed in the Chapter 6, national labor law is
not serving its original legislative intent. In the clearest explanation o f the NLRA’s
purpose, the Act was not designed to pit union against employer, but to allow the workers
to decide if they wanted collective representation or not. With the various amendments
made to the NLRA, the process has broken down into the expensive and often
unscrupulous campaigning of union against employer and employer against union
(Rothstein 1997, 14). The abuses, chicanery, and outright illegal activities which transpire
during an employer’s anti-union campaign are too numerous to report (See Rothstein
1997, 13-18). Catholic officials are remiss in failing to meet with national labor officials
and other religious leaders to call for a return to the Act’s original intent. This will
sometimes require a courageous stand when the relationships with the economic powers
o f a region or the nation have benefitted the Church. Such a stand will also require
effective organizing of the great majority o f Church people so they are capable o f standing
in solidarity with their pastors.
In the case of LISTO, the L.A. .Archdiocese and the Campaign for Human
Development are supporting an immigrant population in job creation. The cooperative
nature of the venture resonates with a long tradition in Catholic teaching which supports
worker-ownership. The resources invested in these sorts of institutions are much too
small for them to become sustainable, although finances are not the only concern. The
Campaign for Human Development and other Catholic foundations ought to
systematically merge their support of community organizing with economic development
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projects like LISTO. This also means bringing together the intellectual and spiritual
capital required to lead the members and advisors. I contend that religion has a role to
play in these efforts.
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APPENDIX
Interview questions:
1. How did you come into the labor movement, community organizing, and the
Catholic Church (or other faith group)? Your story.
2. What groups are you presently organizing? Why0
3 How have you used your relationships with religious communities, especially
the Catholic Church?
4. What do you know of the Catholic Church in the American Labor movement?
5. What is your image of the Catholic Church and its social teachings? How do
you interact with professional religious?
6. Could you give me some reflections on the work of Cesar Chavez and his
tactics? What do you understand o f the role o f religion in his work? (Many
o f today's seasoned organizers learned their work in the UFW.)
7. Are there obstacles to organizing with religious groups, especially the Catholic
Church?
8. Distinguish for me the difference between a community organizer and a labor
organizer.
9. What are the sources of income for your work? Is the Catholic Church
providing funds?
10. Is the Hispanic immigrant population finding a home in the Los Angeles
Archdiocese? How have you worked with the Archdiocese on immigrant
questions?
11. How do you distinguish between neo-AIinsky community organizing groups?
What is the difference between ACORN, CLUE and the IAF?
12. How important was the passage of the L A. living wage ordinance in
408
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reestablishing grassroots labor organizing in Los Angeles? Do you see any
connections between that win and labor organizing in general9
13. What about generational influences on one’s willingness to work with Church
groups? Do younger organizers see the Church as an ally?
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adamic, Louis. My America: 1928-1938. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers,
1938.
Adler, Susan, Ronaldo Babiera, Carolina Briones, Guadalupe Duran, Quentin Givens,
Suzanne Hoffman, Edward Iny, Josenna Jimenez, William Kramer, Srithip
Sresthaphunlarp, and Danilo Torres. “Union Jobs for Community Renewal: A
Feasibility Study for the Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project.” Masters
thesis. University of California at Los Angeles, 1995.
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Creator Schultze, George Edward (author)

Core Title A study of the influence of the United States Catholic church on union organizing and community organizing: A historical review, Los Angeles in the 1990s, and future relations

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Religion

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag American studies,OAI-PMH Harvest,religion, general,sociology, industrial and labor relations

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor May, Bill (committee chair), Cooper, Terry (committee member), Miller, Donald (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-396228

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Legacy Identifier 9919105.pdf

Dmrecord 396228

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Schultze, George Edward

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Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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