Earlier this year, a few Catholic colleges drew a lot of national attention when they said a union of adjunct instructors would threaten their religious identity. But with no fanfare, hundreds of other Catholic hospitals, nursing homes, schools and, yes, colleges, bargain with unions representing their employees -- after all, the Catholic Church has taught for more than 100 years that workers have the right to organize!
Just in time for Labor Day, the DC-based Catholic Labor Network released a list of about 500 such Catholic institutions employing union labor. Washington-area examples include UNITE HERE food service workers in the cafeteria at the National Shrine, Newspaper Guild reporters at Catholic News Service... and of course, adjunct faculty at Georgetown and Trinity Washington universities represented by SEIU 500. Check out the report on our website at dclabor.org. On today’s labor calendar, catch up with all the latest local labor news at tonight’s meeting of the Metro Washington Labor Council, 6:30 pm at the AFL-CIO; complete details at dclabor.org, click on Calendar. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1981, nearly half a million unionists converged on Washington D.C., for a Solidarity Day march and rally protesting Republican policies. And in 2006, musician and labor educator Joe Glazer, often referred to as “Labor’s Troubadour,” died today at age 88. Some of his more acclaimed songs include "The Mill Was Made of Marble," "Too Old To Work" and "Automaton." In 1979 he and labor folklorist Archie Green convened a meeting of 14 other labor musicians to begin what was to become the annual Great Labor Arts Exchange and, soon thereafter, the Labor Heritage Foundation, both of which are still going strong. Today’s labor quote is by Joe Glazer, from his song "The Mill Was Made of Marble" “I dreamed that I had died, And gone to my reward, A job in heaven's textile plant, On a golden boulevard. The mill was made of marble, The machines were made of gold, And nobody ever got tired, And nobody ever grew old.”
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