Special Section: Labor and Worker Justice
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In his encyclical Laborem Exercens [1] (On Human Work), Pope John Paul II wrote that through work, people achieve fulfillment as human beings. Because of this, as a society, we must protect the dignity of workers and their rights for respect and fair wages in the workplace. These articles honor Labor Day [2], a national holiday set aside to celebrate the achievements of the labor movement and the contribution of each worker to the prosperity—both social and economical—of our nation.
Features
Let's get organized: Domestic workers fight for their rights [3]
Deemed indispensable by the families who hire them, why are domestic workers excluded from legal protection?
Labor pains: What Wisconsin tells us about Catholics and unions [4]
Catholics have a long history of support for unions, but the recent protests in Wisconsin show how strained the relationship has become.
Dispatches from Decatur [5]
Community is the first casualty in America's labor wars
The way we work [6]
Change seems to be the only constant in what Americans do for a living and how they do it.
Inside a Bangladesh garment factory [7]
Meet the woman who makes Walmart’s low-priced clothes. She works 10-hour days for $103 per month. And her factory is one of the good ones.
Interviews
What can the church do for worker justice in America? An interview with worker advocate Kim Bobo [8]
U.S. employers routinely violate the seventh commandment when they refuse to pay their workers their legally mandated wages.
Reader Surveys and Sounding Boards
Pay up [9]
Putting a little more money in the pockets of workers earning the minimum wage can give the entire economy a raise. In Feedback, readers provide a cost-benefit analysis on increasing wages.
Is your faith working? A Labor Day survey on faith and work [10]
When U.S. Catholic readers punch the clock, they don't forget that they are still on God's time, according to a Reader Survey in honor of Labor Day.
Essays and Columns
Power to the public workers [11]
Should a librarian have any less of a right to unionize than an auto worker or a nurse?
Danger zone: Do our workplaces value human dignity? [12]
Employers are falling down on the job when it comes to ensuring worker safety.
Rerum roots: A brief history of American Catholic support for unions [13]
Cardinal James Gibbons' support for the Knights of Labor in the late 19th century helped lay the groundwork for Rerum Novarum.
Rerum Novarum: On the Condition of the Working Classes [14]
Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Leo XIII issued on May 15, 1891.
The true cost of our low-priced clothing [15]
Buyer beware: That low-priced shirt might have cost someone their life.
We're sticking to the union [16]
Don’t paint public workers as a public enemies; they’re just working for the common good.
Blogs
It's almost Labor Day, and there's much work to be done! [17]
A Catholic case for raising the minimum wage [18]
Work should provide dignity, not death [19]
Et tu, Brute? Unions take two more hits--this time from Catholic institutions [20]
Catholics must take a stand in support of Walmart employees [21]