Sorry for the awkward phrasing. What I meant is the Church does not consider trade unions as a response only for some special situations but recommends unions as a general good. In other words, not as something extraordinary to respond to extraordinary abuses but ordinary to respond to ordinary concerns.

Cardinal Gibbons made the case in Rome of the American model of trade unionism and received papal approval. In the immediate postwar period, the Holy See applied the American model to the Church Universal. Also, it was very kind of the Holy Father to appoint AFL-CIO President John Sweeney as a lay advisor to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. I have a longer article on this topic I can send you privately.

DC,

I don’t know of an HR office that elects its head and all other officers, holds monthly meetings open to any employee, submits all major decisions to a vote of the general membership, makes the financial files open to inspection of the employees and can proudly claim it was their bowling team that integrated bowling leagues in America.

Yes, certainly there are non-union examples of worker solidarity.

There are certainly non-union approaches to worker solidarity. From my last-week experience:

One of the women on our team (six people counting manager) had a miscarriage last week. Our boss told her to take the whole week off. There’s a paid time off and a paid medical time off account that we each have, but as per usual practice at this company, we simply won’t report this instance since it was an emergency and involuntary. We made up the load by a couple of us (the boss most of all) working an extra couple hours each day. Since we’re all salaried rather than hourly, her time out and our extra hours are no cost and invisible so long as all the work gets done. And indeed, we managed to keep on top of everything so that she had not extra load when she felt ready to come back.

As for in whose hands the power generally ends up — all of my experience has been in dealing with skilled jobs: office and warehouse. But I’ve helped with hiring at my current company and my previous one, and in both cases we were always simply desperate to find good people, and invariably willing to pay a fair step up from what the best candidate had made at his or her previous job. Getting a good person who seemed willing to stick around for a long time was _always_ the number one concern, and so in that sense the power was at least equally distributed, even though none of these involved unions.

Now I understand that with low-skill jobs, that’s not as much the case. (Though you still want a hard working, dedicated person who will get along with other workers and learn on the job and move up — I would assume.) And I guess I really find it hard to believe that a truly “low skill” (as in, you could pretty readily get rid of someone with five years experience and replace him with somene cheaper with no experience with no loss of productivity or quality) job is something any adult should be counting on for a long term career.

I assume you meant “do propose” rather than “do not propose.” In any event, I would note that while Catholic Social Thought does indeed support the right of workers to associate, the model of unionism traditionally contemplated by CST is quite different than model which prevails in America today.

Well, I think you are mistaken, at least under US labor law. I know little of overseas standards. No, a union cannot define roles (position descriptions or work duties) nor can a union set a pay range for a position. The workers and management can jointly come up with an agreement as to wage rates and job duties for the duration of a contract. Few would argue that in these negotiations, management does not have the upper hand. Further, federal law includes a long list of topics that it is illegal for the union to attempt to bargain over and which are reserved as management prerogatives. Typically, a contract will set pay rates for certain jobs for the duration of the contract, so yes, you are correct that the union bargains so to prevent Jose walking in the door and offering to do Joe’s job for $3/hr less (or, more commonly, management seeking a Jose). When the term of the contract is up, management is free to seek lower labor costs. Management usually bargains to include “re-openers” in contracts so if there is an economic reason, wages can be re-negotiated mid-contract. However, a labor-management contract usually does give workers some stability in their lives that as they take out a mortgage (a 30 year commitment), start a planning (a 18+ year commitment) or enroll a child in Catholic school (up to a 12 year commitment), they are not threatened with the loss of livelihood the day someone walks in the door offering to do their job for less.

The various social encyclicals do not propose that there are some situations in which it is necessary for workers to organize in order to seek just wages and working conditions. The letters teach that it is normative (not extraordinary) for workers to form unions and it is a reflection of the social nature of man.

I too think the ideal is that employees want the business to succeed and the business wants to see the employees enjoy some of the fruits of that success. Putting all power in one party’s hands does not seem to be something that promotes such a goal. Giving workers a voice at work, even the limited voice American labor law allows, seems to be essential to achieving that balance. Giving workers a written contract so that they know what is expected of them and what are their rewards and duties of their job does not seem extraordinary nor one step away from Sovietization. To me is seems to respect the dignity of work.

I’ll close with telling you about my week. I had two interactions of note. One a worker from a unionized workplace with a story I have heard a surprising number of times from both union and non-union workers. Three months ago he put in for leave and was approved. He put down a non-refundable deposit of $1,200 to take his family to Orlando. Last week, management rescinded his leave. He makes less than $30K/yr. The union steward managed to fix it for him. Second incident, a non-union employee who was dismissed from her job without a reason given to her. I had the circular discussion with her I have had many times before. The boss can’t do that. Why not? Its unfair. So, its unfair. Can’t I sue? Because your boss was unfair? No. Why not? What law was violated? There must be some law. It’s called ‘at-will employment.’ No reason or notice need be given.

I hate the second incident. They always look at me like I am lying and I think they hate me for not giving them the answer they want.

So sure, the company may be able to hire anyone (so long as that person later joins or pays the union) but the company is not able thus to seek a lower cost of labor — and depending on the rules may also not be able to seek higher productivity by combining roles that the union defines as separate.

I don’t think we need to assume anything in particular about the virtue or vice of employers or employees (and it would certainly be a relief on this blog to have a conversation in which “Calvinism” is never brought it) — it’s simply that in some situations (and union situations especially) the empoyees and the company have different interests. I don’t doubt that, as per various encyclicals, there are situations in which it is necessary for workers to organize in order to seek just wages and safe working conditions. (And indeed, I think it’s far better for companies in the long run if they do pay just wages and have safe working conditions.) However, once unions come into be as a standing entity, they need a reason for being to justify they money they take away from workers — and that reason for being tends to be squeezing above market wages and benefits out of employers while preventing reductions in pay or workforce that an employer might otherwise make as a result of improved productivity. What this means is that unionized companies tend over the long term to have higher cost models, innovate more slowely, and be less competitive than un-unionized companies. And in the long run this only serves to hurt the union employees. All of which we’ve been seeing play out in recent years in everything from the auto industry to the grocery stores.

The ideal, I would hope everyone agrees, is that the employees want the business to succeed, and the business wants to see that the employees enjoy the fruits of that success. In situations that become adversarial, the business tries to give the employees as little as possible in order to score bigger profits, or the empoyees trying to milk the company for as much money/benefits as possible while doing the minimum amount of work — and both of these extremes usually end up hurting everyone in the long run.

The fact that unionization will tend to make firms less productive and profitable is not dependent on whether “organized capital” (by which I presume you mean employers) or organized workers are virtuous. The rain falls on the just and unjust alike, and the law of supply and demand applies equally to saints and to the wicked.

Certainly if we presume organized capital is, by its nature, virtuous and organized workers are, by their nature, not virtuous, that is a fair conclusion. However, if we take to heart the Church’s teaching which rejects a Calvinist view of the nature of man and the social encyclicals which speak of the moral good of workers forming associations, you then have a more difficult time supporting that premise.

They may not be able to constrict employment directly, but they do do so indirectly by making unionized firms less productive and profitable than they otherwise would be.

The union is required by law to represent all persons in the bargaining unit, even if the person pays neither dues nor an agency fee and even if the cost of representation (say, in a discrimination or Workers’ Comp action) costs the union thousands of dollars.

Yes. That seems, to me at least, to be a manifest injustice.