Catholic unionism

This from National Catholic Reporter on Chi area's Resurrection Health Care, which took over Oak Park's West Suburban Hospital a few years ago and has lots of other venues:

From the pope on down to local clergy and parishioners, the Catholic church has defended the rights of workers for decades, and in a 1999 document the U.S. bishops specified that hospital workers in Catholic facilities "have the right to organize themselves for collective bargaining and to be recognized by management for such purposes." Citing these teachings, many in the Catholic community of Chicago have sided with the workers trying to unionize Resurrection Health Care.

It's a story on attempts to get Cardinal George to pressure Resurrection H.C.  But as hospitals fall and users complain -- consider black West Siders protesting Advocate Health Care's partial closing of Bethany -- is C. George going to guarantee health care to users of West Sub, which turned in desperation to a buyer, and to other hospitals squeezed by costs?  (His man says he's staying out of it.)  And is there a connection between being non-unionized and surviving?  Ask U.S. automakers, whose market share has eroded while they pay exorbitant amounts to the select few who belong to the UAW.

 

As for Catholic teaching, it was hijacked by the Jesuit ghost writer Nell-Breuning 80 years ago, with popes going along sans any more authority in the matter than a tenured radical on a U.S. or Euro campus.  This is true Catholic leftism, and there's no better sample of it than NCR, which gives 1,479 words to this story, done by a writer from Toledo.  From Toledo?
--
Posted by Blithe Spirit to Oak Park, Home of Edgar Rice Burroughs at 3/14/2006 11:13:15 AM