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On Labor Day

And from that time, that is, more or less from the middle of the last century, begins the organization of workers on a larger scale in the name of the rights of man, in the name of the value and worthiness of labor. Everything that workers did in the name of their slogans was good.

And today one may say boldly that the cause of labor is the most important one, and that progress, the development and happiness of the whole nation, of all mankind, depends on its just resolution. Workers today have more privileges than they have ever had.

In this reasonable and just struggle for rights, bread for the family and education for children, for common control of the wealth created by the worker, our holy Church stands before the worker like a pillar of tire, and the hand of Christ blesses him in his work.

From an address by Bishop Francis Hodur at a reception for Maciej Leszczyński held in Scranton’s town hall on November 30, 1919. Mr. Leszczyński was in the United States as a delegate to the International Conference of Workers.

LaborDay09The struggle for the protection of workers rights continues. I urge my readers to look into the issue of wage theft and other abuses that are occurring at an alarming rate. Abuses as grave as virtual slavery and forced child labor still occur. Unfortunately, and I know this from first hand experience, this is not history but is happening down the street today. The pictures of abused workers from the early 1900’s are just as real today.

The cry of the abused worker struggling to feed his family, to obtain health care, to actually get paid for the value of his work echos the words from Deuteronomy 26:5-9:

“And you shall make response before the LORD your God, `A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.
And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage.
Then we cried to the LORD the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression;
and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders;
and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.'”

May their cry be heard and may we as a Church respond and lift them up. Bishop Hodur led the effort to lift up our grandfathers and great-grandfathers from hard bondage and this is our heritage and our call. Let us not forget.

Christian Witness, ,

Going to Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, or Long John Silver’s? Support YUM Brands Workers

Please help secure justice for workers who have been fired from YUM Brands fast food restaurants throughout the Midwest.

More than 100 workers in the greater Chicago area have been fired by Pizza Hut, purportedly based on SSA no-match letters. All of these workers have been told by Pizza Hut management to re-verify their eligibility for employment, or they would be fired. Many have worked at Pizza Hut for more than a decade.

These firings could signal that thousands of YUM Brands workers across the country are in jeopardy of losing their jobs.

Deliver a message to your local YUM Brands restaurant that their employees deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and the company needs to stop the unjust firings now!

Here’s what you can do:

  • Bring a group of concerned people to deliver this flyer [pdf] or a personal message to a local YUM Brands restaurant.
  • Call Pizza Hut President Scott Bergren at (972) 338-7700 and express concern and disappointment about Pizza Hut’s campaign against Latino workers.
  • Send a letter to: Scott Bergren, President and Chief Concept Officer, Pizza Hut, Inc., 14841 N. Dallas Parkway, Dallas, TX, 75254.
  • Talk to the management at a local Pizza Hut and convey the same message of concern and disappointment with the company’s treatment of long-time, loyal employees.

For more information, contact the Workers’ Rights Center in Madison, Wisconsin (a member of IWJ’s national network of worker centers) or the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative at (773) 655-0815.

Christian Witness, , , , , , ,

The theological economist

The Bishop of Rome issued his encyclical Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth) on the subject of Christian teaching on economics. The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J. comments on it in the Washington Post. A few excerpts here:

“Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end,” he writes in Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth), but “once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”

He decries that “Corruption and illegality are unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich countries…as well as in poor ones.” He also says that “Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers.”

…Benedict disappointedly acknowledges that “The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase” [italics in text].

“The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require,” he affirms, “that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner, and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone.”

In his encyclical, Benedict calls for charity guided by truth. “Charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples,” he says. “Justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs,” he writes. “Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence.”

The encyclical notes the globalization that has taken place since Paul’s encyclical was issued over 40 years ago. Alas, “as society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbors but does not make us brothers.” True “development of peoples depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side.” The goal of such development is “rescuing peoples, first and foremost, from hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy.”

Sounding like a union organizer, Benedict argues that “Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers, or abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country’s international competitiveness, hinder the achievement of lasting development.”

Rather the goal should be decent employment for everyone, which “means work that expresses the essential dignity of every man and woman in the context of their particular society: work that is freely chosen, effectively associating workers, both men and women, with the development of their community; work that enables the worker to be respected and free from any form of discrimination; work that makes it possible for families to meet their needs and provide schooling for their children, without the children themselves being forced into labor; work that permits the workers to organize themselves freely, and to make their voices heard; work that leaves enough room for rediscovering one’s roots at a personal, familial and spiritual level; work that guarantees those who have retired a decent standard of living.”

…

While Benedict acknowledges the role of the market, he emphasizes that “the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy.” He unflinchingly supports the “redistribution of wealth” when he talks about the role of government. “Grave imbalances are produced,” he writes, “when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.”

Although Benedict’s emphasis in the encyclical is on the theological foundations of Catholic social teaching, amid the dense prose there are indications, as shown above, that he is to the left of almost every politician in America. What politician would casually refer to “redistribution of wealth” or talk of international governing bodies to regulate the economy? Who would call for increasing the percentage of GDP devoted to foreign aid? Who would call for the adoption of “new life-styles ‘in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments'”?

Benedict believes that if people understood God’s love for every single human person and his divine plan for us, then believers would recognize their duty “to unite their efforts with those of all men and women of good will, with the followers of other religions and with non-believers, so that this world of ours may effectively correspond to the divine plan: living as a family under the Creator’s watchful eye.”

I say Amen! amen! It will be interesting to watch as Roman Catholic and other Christian business people and political leaders dance their way around this, or more likely choose to ignore it. The reaction will be much the same as that of Roman Catholics and other Christians who ignored, countermanded, or attempted to out theologize and teach John Paul II on the Iraq war.

Current Events, ,

Avoid getting taken when unemployed

The following is based in part on On Point Technology’s BullsEye Newsletter article: “Work At Home” & Other Scams Aimed At Claimants

Often desperate for income, unemployed individuals are likely to become victims of one of the many “work at home” scams. Unemployed persons should be aware of these scams so as to avoid becoming victims, which results in their situations becoming even grimmer.

“Work at Home” scams can take many forms, among the most prevalent are:

  • Rebate processing
  • Stuffing envelopes
  • Mystery shopping
  • Craft kit assembly
  • Medical billing
  • E-mail processing
  • Typing at home
  • Data entry
  • Transferring funds and stashing money
  • Counterfeit documents
  • Contests of all kinds offering compensation and prizes

Some good advice is to:

  • Beware of offers that sound too good to be true. Including those that promise big bucks for little work or no experience.
  • Never pay a potential employer for hiring you. Legitimate employers do not ask for banking or credit card numbers in return for hiring.
  • Always research a potential employer’s background. Three resources that offer free background information on businesses and companies are: The Better Business Bureau, The Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, Online bulletin boards such as scam.com provides information from individuals that know first-hand the unscrupulous tactics some companies use.

Also, unemployed persons should never use websites, other than official government websites, to file UI claims. Fraudulent websites have been charging unknowing individuals a fee in order to file a UI claim on their behalf.

Some of the websites pitch false hopes of being promised quicker service or assistance with a problem claim. To the contrary, if the claim actually ever gets filed at all it is more likely to delay the process, not hasten it.

The New York State Labor Department recently became aware of this scheme being perpetrated in their state. It is a scam that has been ongoing in a number of states over the last several years and unfortunately accelerated by the recession. New York Governor David Paterson summed it up best when he said, “The message here is clear, there is no cost to sign up for Unemployment Insurance Benefits. If you are told differently, then it’s a scam.”

Remember that non-government sites are not endorsed in any way by state governments. Users could very well become victims of identity theft in dealing with non-governmental sites promising assistance with unemployment insurance claims. Users of non-governmental sites may have a delay in receiving benefits or even jeopardize their eligibility to collect benefits.

Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

CNN – Autumn of Change, The New Poland

A huge retrospective on the fall of Communism led by Poland’s Solidarity revolution. Stories include:

Blog: Poles thrive in new Europe

Starting tomorrow, June 1st, CNN will present a week of programming focused on the changes in Poland over the past 20 years.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political, , , , ,

Soooo…. they’re not stealing ‘our’ jobs

In the no kidding department, a recent study published by the Immigration Policy Center finds Immigration Does Not Increase Unemployment:

There is little apparent relationship between recent immigration and unemployment rates among native-born workers, according to a pair of studies released May 19 by the Immigration Policy Center.

The reports analyze data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Census 2000 data . They are the first two installments of a three-part series, Untying the Knot, which seeks to —debunk the frequently misrepresented relationship between immigration and unemployment,— IPC said.

According to IPC, opponents of an immigration overhaul —frequently argue that immigrants ‘take’ jobs away from many native-born workers, especially during economic hard times.—

—We commissioned this report in order to take a serious look at whether or not immigration is in fact impacting unemployment among the native-born and what we have found is that scary rhetoric is not a substitute for good data,— said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Law Foundation. IPC is the research arm of AILF.

—These findings are in line with other long-term studies conducted around the world which have shown that immigration has very little impact on native unemployment,— Johnson said. —In order to have a serious policy debate, we need good, honest numbers and that is what we believe we have provided in these reports.—

Unemployment Rates Similar in High-, Low-Immigration Areas

According to the reports, if immigrants took jobs away from native-born workers, one would expect to find a high unemployment rates in those parts of the country with large numbers of immigrants, particularly recent immigrants who are more willing to work for low wages and under worse conditions than long-term immigrants or native-born workers.

However, —analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau clearly reveals that this is not the case,— IPC said.

—The level of unemployment in the U.S. is painful, scary and difficult—”so we shouldn’t belittle it,— said Dan Siciliano, senior research fellow at IPC and executive director of the program in law, economics, and business at Stanford Law School. —However, the very notion that immigration has anything to do with unemployment does just that. It belittles the challenge of unemployment,— he said.

Siciliano said the idea that immigration is causally linked to unemployment among the native-born is a —red herring distracting from the real causes of unemployment.—

According to the report, there is —no correlation between the number of recent immigrant workers in a given state, county, or city and the unemployment rate among native-born workers.—

For example, recent immigrants make up 8.4 percent of the population in the Pacific region (including California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii) but only 2.8 percent of the population in the East North Central region (including Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin). However, both regions have nearly the same unemployment rate, 10.8 percent in the Pacific region, and 10.0 percent in the East North Central region.

Another example cited in the report is between New Jersey, a state where recent immigrants make up 7.3 percent of the population, and Maine, where recent immigrants make up 0.8 percent of the population. Both states have similar unemployment rates—”8.3 percent in New Jersey and 8.1 percent in Maine, according to the report.

—Locales with high unemployment rates do not necessarily have large numbers of recent immigrants, and locales with many recent immigrants do not necessarily have high unemployment rates,— according to the report.

IPC said that on average, recent immigrants comprise 3.1 percent of the population in counties with the highest unemployment rates, which average 13.4 percent. Recent immigrants account for a higher share of the population (4.6 percent) in counties with the lowest unemployment rates (below 4.8 percent), the report found.

Immigrants Don’t Impact Minority Unemployment

Additionally, the report found that there was no connection between immigration and unemployment rates of native-born minorities, such as African Americans.

—On the question of race we find that there’s just no connection between immigration and unemployment,— said Rob Paral, senior research fellow at IPC and the principal of Rob Paral and Associates, a research consulting firm.

—The culprit when it comes to unemployment is not immigration,— Paral said.

In the 10 states with the highest shares of recent immigrants in the labor force, the average unemployment rate for native-born blacks is about 4 percentage points less than in the 10 states with the lowest shares of recent immigrants, according to the report.

Similar findings were found for the 10 metropolitan areas with the highest number of recent immigrants compared with the 10 metropolitan areas with the lowest number of recent immigrants.

—The absence of any significant statistical correlation between recent immigration and unemployment rates among different native-born racial/ethnic groups points to deeper, structural causes for unemployment among the native-born, such as levels of educational attainment and work skills,— IPC said.

As I have oft repeated, the people who complain most loudly about immigrants have other, more central issues, an animus against people of slightly darker skin tones, or against Catholics, or for a thousand other less well-informed/reactionary reasons. They’re the first to enjoy cheaper meals, lower cost construction, and the time and energy they saved not having to mow the lawn, plant the garden, or clean the house, all because José, Janek, Engjí«ll, Sonja, or Agnieszka did the work. They rarely speak against wage theft or the abuses these workers are subject to. They close their eyes, pay 10-20% less, and complain — Why can’t they just speak English?

Why? Because yes, they’re talking about you; your greed, laziness, and hypocrisy.

Huw gets it right in his I’m a bad Homosexual Activist and Californians and the Prop 8 thing… posts (thanks to the Young Fogey for the link). We stand to complain about high prices, high unemployment, unfairness from our comfort zone while the person working for us is getting squished. He says:

Making a —just for me society— instead of a Just Society is really rather sinful.

And I say Amen.

The PNCC, a Church founded by immigrants, understands the immigrant experience and honors people of all nations and cultures. The Lord asked us to go and preach to all nations because all are valuable in His sight. Human value is a totality and our call to value each person’s inherent dignity is absolute. That’s makes us, as Christians, as PNCC members, rather radical.

Christian Witness, PNCC,

Year of the Laid-Off Workers Support Group

From the Toledo Blade: Optimist works to nix negativity

The first week, Chris Cremean sat all by himself. The second week, two people showed up and yesterday – week three – both returned.

With the local jobless rate hitting 12.6 percent in March, Mr. Cremean is pretty confident his new support group for the unemployed will expand soon enough.

Yesterday morning, at Resurrection Polish National Catholic Church in Temperance, he was joined by the same two middle-aged women from last week’s session.

“First they came and said, ‘Do you have answers?’ Of course, everybody’s looking for answers. And I said, ‘No, we’re going to talk about your questions.’ Sometimes, that’s all you need, to talk it out.”

Should we just go ahead now and designate 2009 as the Year of the Laid-Off Workers Support Group?

Or does that sound too negative?

Mr. Cremean may be a college-educated, 57-year-old man enduring the second layoff of his lifetime, but one thing this Toledo man is not is negative.

“What I find exciting is that old saying about how when one door closes, another one opens. But if you don’t take the lessons you learned, you’re gonna get depressed. You’re gonna withdraw, you’re gonna retire.”

Mr. Cremean dislikes the word.

“It should be [struck] from the language,” he insisted.

If he’s learned anything from his 34-year career working with older people – as a social worker, and a long-term and home-care administrator – it’s how to age successfully.

“I’ve watched how people get to be 100, and they were involved and active their whole life.

“They may have had a job for 20 or 30 years, but they were always involved and engaged in something else. ‘Retire,’ the word itself, means to detach, to give up. It’s all negative.”

Like many unemployed folks, Mr. Cremean (jobless since October) feels he has nothing to lose by launching his own business.

The company’s name – Caregiver Resources Group – is self-explanatory.

“I always read there’s a need for support of the caregivers, so … I’m going to go out on my own, take the bull by the horns and see if I can make this work.”

See? Nothing negative about him. If anything, he’s a man for our times.

Losing a job these days is “so widespread there’s less of the stigma. It’s almost like, ‘Oh, I lost mine, too! Join the club!'”

Sure, he said, there are already some support groups around Toledo for the newly jobless.

“But I’d encourage every church or organization to think about [starting one] – the more the merrier!”

Well, maybe not merrier.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC, , , ,

Keeping the slaves

From TPM: What Part of Illegal Don’t Conservatives Understand — or Why do They Ignore Wage Theft

Wage theft is illegal. Yet rightwing politicians largely dismiss the problem and most systematically oppose laws to increase enforcement of wage laws. Yet at the same time in recent years, those conservative politicians have been attacking undocumented immigrants as undermining wage standards for native workers. The hypocrisy is palpable, but here’s a lesson: state legislators standing up against wage theft have been able to expose that hypocrisy.

At Progressive States Network, we’ve worked with community groups, advocates and legislators to promote wage enforcement directly as a counterpoint to anti-immigrant rhetoric and promote a policy agenda that builds support for all workers, native and immigrant alike. In states like Kansas, Iowa, and Connecticut, anti-immigrant legislation has been derailed once the issue of the failure to enforce broader wage laws entered the discussion. For example:

In Connecticut in 2007, a bill was introduced that would have made it a criminal offense to hire undocumented workers, but instead it was modified into a state law that goes after all employers who commit workers’ compensation premium fraud in order to cheat workers out of benefits.

When the Iowa Senate in 2008 approved SF 2416, a bill to toughen enforcement against employers who violate Iowa wage laws, it stalled movement in that chamber of an anti-immigrant bill approved in that state’s House and halted anti-immigrant legislation for 2008.

When the Kansas House in 2008 voted to gut an anti-immigrant bill by adding provisions to severely punish employers violating wage laws and exploiting undocumented immigrants, it led to deadlock on a purely anti-immigrant bill in the state Senate that lacked those wage enforcement provisions. Anti-immigrant politicians walked away from their own bill rather than support wage law enforcement amendments.

If anti-immigrant politicians resist such wage enforcement proposals, it just emphasizes that their supposed concern for wage losses by low-income workers is an empty smokescreen for hatred and nativism.

…

The point is that anti-immigrant resentment smolders across the country, partly because of racism and cultural xenophobia, but also with a greater number of people who recognize the unacceptability of illegal sweatshops, but wrongly have been told to scapegoat immigrants and the immigration system. When progressives stand up and attack wage theft directly and demand real enforcement of wage and hour laws, the elimination of illegal sweatshops will help blunt the effectiveness of much of the overall anti-immigrant political attack.

What most don’t seem to ‘get’ is that wage theft and other abuses heaped on workers — and most especially on undocumented workers — amounts to a new system of slavery. Call it indentured servitude or slavery, the effect is the same. State and Federal laws were enacted to protect all workers without concern over their status because to do otherwise would amount to complicity with corrupt employers. Employers who fail to abide by those laws, simply because the worker doesn’t speak English, or is undocumented, or is in some other way powerless, are no more than slave-holders.

People won’t buy goods from China because of its treatment of Tibet, but they feel perfectly content shaving a few nickels off their restaurant bill — those nickels being the unpaid wages owed to a new class of slaves.

These ‘new slaves’ are us. They are our grandparents and great-grandparents, the people Bishop Hodur stood with when they were abused by the coal bosses of Pennsylvania. That is our legacy. I stand with workers, to protect their God given humanity and dignity. As a Church we must stand with workers so that the words of a deceased coal miner won’t have to be recorded again (from King coal: a piece of eastern Pennsylvania history by Jill M. Beccaris and Christine Woyshner in Social Education, January 1, 2007).

Forty years I worked with a pick and drill,
Down in the mines against my will,
The Coal King’s slave, but now it’s passed
Thanks be to God I am free at last. –Tombstone of an anthracite miner in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

Perspective, PNCC, , ,

The PNCC and Labor – an old/new opportunity

A wonderful article from the Boston Review: God’s Work: What can faith-based activism do for labor?

—I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain, common workingmen,— recalled Frances Perkins. And so she did. From 1933 to 1945, Perkins helped create the core features of the New Deal state: minimum wage and maximum hours laws, legal guarantees for workers’ rights to organize and join unions, prohibition of child labor, Social Security, unemployment compensation, and fair labor standards. For all of the New Deal’s limitations, its laws and programs tamed Upton Sinclair’s —Jungle,— encouraged broad economic security and prosperity, and created, in economic terms, the most equitable America in history. And it was promoted and protected not only by strong unions but also by religious leaders, thanks to the prominence of a social gospel in the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish traditions at mid-century. During her twelve years as secretary of labor, Perkins herself spent one day a month in contemplative retreat at a convent. For her, the reference to God was not simply a rhetorical flourish.

Since the 1970s economic inequality has surged to levels not seen since the 1920s, Dickensian abuses of workers have returned, and deregulation has enabled the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. President Obama’s Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, faces challenges not unlike Perkins’s. Yet today, as in the 1930s, crisis also creates the opportunity for a bold new direction—”a New New Deal, potentially more inclusive of the nation’s diverse labor force than Perkins could have imagined. Might the nation’s churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples again have a role in rescuing a wayward economy?

In addressing this question, Solis can learn much from Kim Bobo, founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ). Bobo’s goal is to revive America’s justice-seeking prophetic tradition, with a particular focus on economic justice…

The PNCC has a strong tradition as an advocate for working men and women. Its immigrant and democratic roots were formed by men and women who were workers, who knew degradation at the hands of mine bosses, and who looked forward to a brighter, more democratic future. John J. Bukowczyk covers a lot of history in the Labor, Radicalism, and the Worker chapter in his book: Polish Americans and Their History: Community, Culture, and Politics.

The PNCC connection is both historic and full of opportunity. Knowing what I know from my 9-5 job, Ms. Bobo is correct in her assessments:

Labor laws today are such a mess that they bewilder and deter those who need them most. As Bobo notes, they are —woefully inadequate,— —incredibly confusing,— and barely enforced. She tells the story of Anka Karewicz, a twenty-year-old Polish immigrant to Chicago who, in order to stop a single employer from cheating and demeaning her and her fellow workers, would have had to contact three different federal agencies (the Department of Labor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and two state agencies. Karewicz gave up.

Whatever a person’s ethnic background, whatever their status, the Church, our democratic Church, cannot stand by as the exploitation of working men and women continues. We are to stand with them, pray for them, and work together for a brighter future for all of God’s children.

Current Events, , ,

Can my boss do that!?!

From Interfaith Worker Justice: Check out the new IWJ worker rights website, Can My Boss Do That?

Can My Boss Do That? is a one-stop source of information on an entire range of worker rights topics, from whether you have the right to go to the bathroom to workers compensation, health and safety, and the right to organize a union.

IWJ is launching the website in the face of the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, in which millions of workers are losing their jobs or fear for their job security. The website provides concrete resources for the unemployed, their families, and worker advocates, including topics such as keeping health care benefits, unemployment compensation, your rights during layoffs, “can they fire me?”, getting your last paycheck, and looking for work.

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