Catholic Bishops, Health Providers, Unions Cooperate to Support Workers’ Rights

by Seth Michaels, Jun 22, 2009

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has announced a new step forward for workers at Catholic health facilities: a set of principles to ensure that workers have a fair process to bargain for a better life. 

In “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions,” the USCCB, in cooperation with Catholic health care providers and the union movement, has laid out guidelines for Catholic health care ministries across the country.

These guidelines, and the process that produced them, are an encouraging model of cooperation and collaboration in protecting workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain. 

The new guidelines cover seven principles for employers when workers seek a union:

• Respect;
• Access to information;
• Truthful communication;
• Pressure-free environment;
• Expeditious process;
• Honoring employee decisions; and
• Meaningful enforcement of these principles. 

Taken together, the guidelines comprise a “peace agreement” between Catholic health care providers and unions in which Catholic hospitals drop their aggressive tactics in fighting unions, such as delays, one-on-one meetings, captive audience sessions, and threats and intimidations, in exchange for a union’s pledge not to run a public leverage campaign against the hospitals. 

The guidelines envision a local agreement that would be enforceable through an agreed-upon neutral party. 

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, chaired the three-way dialogue among unions, health care employers and bishops that resulted in the agreement. McCarrick said the guidelines are the result of “respectful, candid, constructive dialogue” over several years and represent “a practical consensus” for Catholic health care ministries. 

Catholic social teaching can and should guide relationships between management and labor. 

It should be up to workers to decide through a fair process whether to be represented by a union….we want to ensure that workers make these choices freely and fairly. 

Health care is a fundamental social good, McCarrick said—a human right. Catholic hospitals and health ministries need to provide health care consistently with Catholic values and teachings on the dignity of workers, he said.

The Catholic health care network includes 600 hospitals and 1,200 other health care agencies, so these principles are important to thousands of workers and the communities they serve across the country.

John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, says this is a landmark moment for health care workers: 

The foundation for reaching this agreement was mutual respect for the histories of both Catholic health care and workers’ rights. Because of their willingness to engage in dialogue, the bishops and the leaders of Catholic health care displayed real courage and leadership and have set an example for all to follow. 

Pope Benedict XVI recently noted that Catholic social teachings are strongly supportive of workers’ freedom to form unions and recognized the importance of workers’ rights in a modern economy. Unfortunately, recent studies show the freedom to form a union is at risk from a legal climate that allows management harassment and intimidation. The principles put forward by the Catholic bishops are an important response to these trends in the workplace.

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