Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to pass a budget repair bill that restricts the rights of labor unions has created a public furor not seen in Wisconsin in our lifetime. Walker's plans to reduce a state budget deficit of $137 million by stripping public workers of almost all collective bargaining rights, has resulted in hundreds of thousands of citizens participating in marches and rallies in opposition to the governor's plans.
While everyone agrees that the budget deficit must be addressed, the steps announced by Walker have caused people to wonder if fairness to workers has been tossed out the door along with deficit spending.
In an effort to provide a moral foundation to the issue of worker rights, Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki, on behalf of the state's Catholic bishops, wrote a letter Feb. 16 to members of the state Legislature's Joint Committee on Finance. In his letter, Archbishop Listecki acknowledges that Walker and legislators have a duty to make budgetary decisions based on fiscal responsibility. At the same time, he says, hard decisions should not "nullify the moral obligation each of us has to respect the legitimate rights of workers."
Soon after the state of Wisconsin was established, popes and theologians were drawing on Scripture to form church teachings on the rights of workers. Especially during the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, when profound changes began to take place in manufacturing, mining and other new industries, the church provided guidance in the areas of social justice and labor.
From Pope Leo XIII's encyclical letter, "Rerum Novarum," and continuing on to statements from Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI, the church's social doctrine has been a warehouse of wisdom in the area of worker rights and labor issues. It is with this backdrop that Archbishop Listecki presented his statement to legislators.
According to John Huebscher, executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, the statement has been well received. However, some of the harshest critics of the letter have been Catholic bloggers who see no connection between Catholic social teaching and the elimination of unions' collective bargaining rights. Many of these same writers criticize their fellow Catholics for questioning the implementation of the upcoming revised Roman Missal, but have no problem objecting to Archbishop Listecki's statement on preserving workers' rights.
The shameful fact is that the ancestors of some of these critics have their church's long-standing support and protection of organized labor to thank for their prosperity today.
This is not to say that Walker's goal of a balanced budget or his call for state workers to compromise on benefits and pension packages is wrong. But as many people have pointed out, extreme demands that appear to be more than economically motivated should not be allowed to undo fair concessions.
Just about every family in Wisconsin is affected by what's going on in Madison today. Emotions run high, giving way to fits of anger. We would all do well to heed Archbishop Listecki's words, to "move beyond divisive words and actions and work together, so that Wisconsin can recover in a humane way from the current fiscal crisis."
As the motto of our great state tells us, we need to move "forward."
The Compass
Now before we get started, I really think Mr. Lucero is one of the best photographers I've seen in his field. And.... well, no offense to present company but The Compass
website might be the best of it's kind in this state. This article was published(in print)
before Bishop Morlino issued a clarification on the WCC document.
It's funny when I get a finger wagged at me from the liberal side. Many of you that have spent the time actually talking to me are well aware that
I'm not even a capitalist. And in fact I do believe in labor unions, back when they were called guilds. Mr. Lucero may have heard of the guild system when he was reading
Rerum Novarum.
History attests what excellent results were brought about by the artificers' guilds of olden times. They were the means of affording not only many advantages to the workmen, but in no small degree of promoting the advancement of art, as numerous monuments remain to bear witness. Such unions should be suited to the requirements of this our age - an age of wider education, of different habits, and of far more numerous requirements in daily life.
The difference between the "guilds of olden time" and our situation is they were
not public employees funded by tax dollars, and they were focus on trades. This was the guild of the shoemaker and the blacksmith, not the teacher and the social worker. It is a fantastic system and one that needs to be rediscovered, particularly in the health care industry.
In 1981, Pope John Paul II issued
Laborem exercens on the 90th anniversary of
Rerum Novarum.
“In this sense, union activity undoubtedly enters the field of politics, understood as prudent concern for the common good. However, the role of unions is not to ‘play politics’ in the sense that the expression is commonly understood today. Unions do not have the character of political parties struggling for power; they should not be subjected to the decision of political parties or have too close links with them. In fact, in such a situation they easily lose contact with their specific role, which is to secure the just rights of workers within the framework of the common good of the whole of society; instead they become an instrument used for other purposes.”
Back to today, obviously I never "objected" to the content of the WCC statement as any reader could tell you(and I don't think I'm necessarily bound to either). For whatever reason, Archbishop Listecki's words below
continue to be ignored by Catholic and non-Catholic media outlets alike.
It does not follow from this that every claim made by workers or their representatives is valid. Every union, like every other economic actor, is called to work for the common good, to make sacrifices when required, and to adjust to new economic realities.
That includes claim to bargaining rights on the benefit system itself. Remember, salary bargaining rights remain intact, and teachers are free to actually go on strike(as opposed to calling in sick). The reason states like California went under was because their legislators were unwilling to do the unpopular thing and confront the public sector unions because they would, I don't know, do exactly the same thing that happened in Madison. This benefit system for public employees is archaic. Fully paid pension programs are a thing of the past(back when people still had children). The only people who were not affected by rise in health care costs were public employees, since their benefits package continued to make up the difference. What we need to do is to move "forward." We have to
modernize this system instead of allowing public workers to have, let's face it extravagant benefits packages that include coverage for Viagra. It's not just a talking point. The sad reality that past administrations have not dealt with this growing problem and now our governor's
responsible actions have brought about some of the worst treatment legally possible for any human being in this country.
See, this crazy
Church teaching Catholic thought of Distributism brings out that it is not just the here and now to consider, but the people that came before us and the people yet to come. Bankrupting our children for our anyone's excessive comfort(unionized or un-unionized) is immoral. Believe it or not, fiscal responsibility is required in the Distributist form of government and commerce. I believe this is something the Church will have to touch on in the future. Most of the world's governments have destined themselves for bankruptcy. We have never had an age of the credit card before now. Just because one can obtain money to spend on something(even something good), it doesn't mean it is right to do so.
Is is possible to negotiate the benefits system? No, we are talking about an immediate need to overhaul the system and now.
The last collective bargaining agreement took 18 months with an entirely pro-public-sector-union legislature in place. Unacceptable. The cuts and changes that need to be made are not optional. I think Mr. Lucero seems to think they are; that we can spend two years negotiating this while the current benefits package remains in place. That could cost
millions of dollars of money that we do not have(and would have to get credit to borrow).
Another complicating factor is that
these public sector unions are pro-abortion and pro-homosexual "marriage." This is problematic for public employees who do not want to also support the union efforts to destroy society(especially Catholics). The change being made allowing employees to opt out of unions is a way to protect their right to not contribute in this evil. I'm not sure why Mr. Lucero would oppose this. Not to mention
as we have read that union tactics can take on a very violent and threatening nature, and no one should be bound to participate.
For a short example, one of the public labor unions, the
WEAC, supported:
- Taxpayer funded abortion(That is what the USCCB found with Pr. Obama's healthcare legislation)
- The National Education Association is the parent of WEAC. This is the NEA's statement on abortion: Resolution 1-12 (2003) Family Planning. "The National Education Association supports family planning, including the right to reproductive freedom. The Association also urges the implementation of community-operated, school-based family planning clinics that will provide intensive counseling by trained personnel."
- WEAC/NEA also opposed the marriage referendum (making marriage between one man and one woman), which passed 4 years ago. At the time, WEAC contributed $25,000 to Fair Wisconsin, a gay marriage rights organization.
If it is "shameful" to oppose this kind nonsense, then yes, call me Shamey McShamester. But I guess what some might call shamefulness, others might call common sense.
