Organized Labor and the Church/The CIO's Left-Led Unions:
Cort, John C.
for you at 4....1 have wanted to see you "The world will thank me for not mar- two-pronged appeal to put our own house for a long time but...." She went, and it rying you,"...
...young historian, he started his academ- the Soviet Union was such a "brutally auAnyone who was actually in the CIO in ic career and learned his biases when an- thoritarian" failure...
...For Rosswurm, Marxism is still politdecency," and that characterization of From Stalinists we expect this kind of ically correct and he does not see the conMurray struck this reviewer as deeply of- abuse, but Rosswurm is no Stalinist...
...That's the kind of day l had...
...This is a hot issue right now on the labor APOSTLE FOR JUSTICE front in the halls of Congress...
...in the First World...
...workers' side against the heads of Catholic million five hundred kilowatts were used this Higgins has done a noble service in telling schools and hospitals...
...of sisters: "You're asking for leadership and clerical, found the labor movement an Monsignor Higgins has given in the church...
...Today, AnCatholic college course in social ethics or but any friend of justice and a larger role drew Greeley notes, Catholics are the moral theology...
...She went, and it rying you," Gonne once told Yeats after in order before we get too self-righteous was the last time she saw him...
...He was writ- one of his many proposals...
...The rich the factory or the office, on the street or grow richer, the poor and middle class the picket line...
...employers to destroy the labor William Bole versities, and hospitals to prevent the movement...
...and Eastern Europe...
...ful influence of the Stalinists...
...This book is different...
...Higgins climaxes this section by quot- There was a time-in the thirties and ing a talk he sometimes gives to groups forties, mainly-when many Catholics, lay Let us beat about no bushes...
...r idabfetinni ILrpc,Cnfli» sC.rvadeCtd...
...Other than South Africa, the Paulist Press, $12.95 (paper), 245 pp...
...Well, you've got the lead- exciting place to demonstrate their Chrisus a book that is the best thing ership in the hospital field, and you're not tian commitment to justice...
...Those were ever written on the subject doing much with it...
...afternoon...
...ing poetry up until the time he died...
...plus labor history plus profiles of major Blacks, Hispanics, Asians are even labor leaders plus a no-holds-barred ac- worse off than the whites...
...They complain about Rutgers University Press, S17 (paper), 250 pp...
...Few of them brothers, and sisters are once again fightreveal a sense of what really happens in ing for their most basic rights...
...Times have changed...
...will tell you came politically correct...
...Too bad that (a) in 1949 was a terrible mistake that is re- Union" and that the Soviet Union and its they were fatally mistaken, and (h) more sponsible for all the had things that have satellites were "brutally authoritarian...
...Commonweal 13 August 1993: 27...
...Higgins's work with the U.S...
...with the union, but was outspoken in public testimony in favor of legislation to outlaw the permanent replacement of strikers...
...Here's a chance to re- the glory days, when the workers-many and should be required read- ally step forward and show us how to do of them our fathers, mothers, brothers, sising in every Catholic seminary in the something better...
...Steve Rosswurm, who ACTU...
...JOHN C. CORT is a Boston-area writer, au- Paperback • $15.00 thor of Christian Socialism (Orbi.s), and con- 9 HarperSanFrancisco tributor to John Courtney Murray and the A nni:w, j 1-i,Tmc A n,rkblivrr,x Al...
...wings...
...She lives in Brookline, about the movement...
...of those who were and are right did not, happened to the labor movement since And as a Catholic himself he is also hon- and do not, emulate their zeal and their then...
...Included ELIZABETH SHANNON, a frequent Com- are case studies, reflections monweal contributor, is the author of I Am on experiences, and a series of questions and answers of Ireland (Little...
...from its founding in 1937 to about that they had good reason to be anti-Comwrites several of the essays, characterizes 1955...
...It is time once count of the major strikes and disputes in again that Christians looked to the labor which the church and Father Higgins have movement for a place to prove that their been involved, sometimes with him on the "What kind of day did I have...
...26: 13 August 1993 Commonweal The CIO's Left-Led Unions also has unions should be enough to refute it as far "hostility toward religion...
...But setting him straight the thirties and forties and knew anything ticommunism was politically incorrect...
...As George Higgins testifies...
...Many of our fathers, mothers, cial teaching there is no end...
...for women in the church must applaud this most affluent gentile group in the U.S...
...olic church in general and the ACTU (Association of Catholic Trade Unionists) in particular should he ashamed of themselves because they not only opposed Communists in the CIO, but, after 1945, abandoned whatever progressive policies they A Third World had had and made anticommunism their "sole focus...
...But Of making many books on Catholic so- look again...
...There was just Rosswurm is only one of eight conthat Philip Murray was one of the most de- too much hard evidence about the fail- tributors to this book, and their essays are cent, moral, and effective labor leaders that ures of communism in the Soviet Union mostly factual accounts of the activity of ever lived...
...The book makes a powerful case for a ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE CHURCH In a chapter titled "Practicing What We major overhaul of U.S...
...More than six love of justice is not a sometime thing...
...neither want- who brought them forth in suffering and break away from the anti-union hospital ed to see the other, but at the last we had in the highest beauty, and our children had association and sign a separate agreement come together...
...Higgins notes that the average is Catholic social teaching plus personal CEO income in 1988 was $2,023,285, memoir of a man who for fifty years has some ninety-two times the average factobeen at the center of the church's concern ry worker's earnings...
...He is honest enough cal workers, leather, and agricultural wants us to believe that the expulsion of to admit that the Communists in the CIO workers...
...ters-were fighting for their most basic U.S.A., as well as a mandatory text in every One can't applaud the split infinitive, rights...
...bishops and the AFL-CIO, the farm work- A comprehensive and practical handbook to the grassroots ers, and a hundred other beleaguered Basic Community movement that is bringing new vitality to the Catholic Church...
...So Rosswurm tries Communist-led longshoremen, electriAs for "wrongheaded," Rosswurm to have it both ways...
...is the only industrial country whose fide unions, in carefree disregard of a hun- employers, in the main, have not abandoned THE CID'S LEFT-LED UNIONS dred years of the church's support of the the dream of operating in a totally nonSteve Rosswurm, editor right to organize...
...for you at 4....1 have wanted to see you "The world will thank me for not mar- two-pronged appeal to put our own house for a long time but...
...American Civil Conversation (Eerdmuns...
...were your poems of which I was the fa- Higgins pays tribute to Cardinal John Several years after his death, Gonne ther sowing the unrest and storm which O'Connor of New York, who not only orwrote to a friend: "Politics had separated made them possible and you the mother dered the Catholic hospitals in that city to us for quite a long while...
...love-and-kisses compared with their own...
...Most of the hospitals, the union environment...
...George G. Higgins with geous campaigns by Catholic schools, uni- by U.S...
...A nection between Marxism and the fact that fensive to both morality and decency...
...As to the Catholic working people, who had good Catholic church, and various labor lead- ACTU, this reviewer can testify that it is reason to be anti-Communist...
...Even after 1945, anticommunism re- munist and in no mood to be controlled by Philip Murray, head of the CIO, as "ob- mained a minor part of ACTU's overall leaders with "a slavish loyalty" to a "bruscenely wrongheaded...
...Brown...
...Millions are earnfor labor and labor's concern for justice ing nothing, unemployed...
...worst offenders, are run by orders of reli- the adversarial attitude of the unions, but gious women independent of the bishops the unions' adversarial attitude, if any, is John C. Cort in whose jurisdiction they are located...
...On the first teen years of full- and part-time work for tholic working people, it follows logically page, the editor...
...us why...
...Revolution For First of all, this latter charge, still made in some academic circles, is a total lie, First World falsehood, or misstatement, depending on the knowledge or intent of the person who People repeats it...
...labor laws that are Reflections of a "Labor Priest" Preach," Higgins documents some outra- contributing to a partly successful effort Msgr...
...Not only that, but he thinks the Cath- est enough to concede that the Stalinists' dedication...
...Massachusetts...
...ers...
...But what it has to say is very differ- also a total falsehood since he spent eigh- Since the ACTU was composed of Caent from the Higgins hook...
...Our children about the sins of others...
...fined as "deeply offensive to morality or union and pro-Catholic...
...organization of their employees into bona U.S...
...Higgins writes, "I would argue that the cardinal is the best friend organized labor has had in the American Catholic hierarchy in recent years...
...It poorer...
...on that is an exercise too long for this reabout Murray and was not under the bale- Then, about 1988, anticommunism be- view...
...Discover the movement that has swept REVIEWERS through the Third World and is creating a revolution in a growDARIA DONNELLY teaches literature at ing number of churches Boston University...
...Some of these Communists the Communist-led unions from the CIO displayed "a slavish loyalty to the Soviet were admirable people...
...antagonized much to say about organized labor, the as the church is concerned...
...Obscene" is de- focus, which was still consistently pro- tally authoritarian Soviet Union...
Vol. 120 • August 1993 • No. 14
