Welcome to our final session. Id like to introduce myself. Im education archivist at the American CatholicResearch Center and im a historian and assistant director for the institute of catholic studies. This panel is concerned with immigration and labor specifically and obviously its an extremely important topic. As most people who migrate to the United States, migrate here to work. And that causes all kinds of thorny issues as were going to see. Just a couple of announcements before i introduce our speaker. We have a couple of books i want to point out. Kimbell baker has a book called go to the worker on American Labor priests. Theres an order form on your table in case you want to order a copy. Second, the authors of this book are here. This copy is available for free and you can get it on your way out. I left a copy of a set of panels from a publication called the Treasure Chest of fun and fact which is actually pretty good. It was a catholic publication, a comic book publication intended to counter what was seen as a negative comic book culture in the 1940s. It was published by the commission of american citizenship. It went out to schools across the country between 1946 and 1972. I gave you this particular set because it concerns lina versot who was a labor activist from the 1920s to the 1950s. She was an extraordinary woman. She did great work for the conference. She did very detailed surveys of mexican migrants to the United States. She worked for minimum wage for women and children. And i just thought it might be interesting to see this panel. And this was published in 1953. Catholic children were reading about her in their popular culture. A little addendum for you. I would like to introduce our three excellent speakers that we have here. Next to me is Professor Joseph a. Mcarten. Hes a professor at Georgetown University where hes taught since 1999. He focuses on the hes really perfect for this panel which wants to look at Public Policy and history. His first book is labors great war, the struggle for industrial democracy and the origins of modern labor relations. But his most recent book is collision course. The air Traffic Controllers and the strikes that changed america. This book examines the origins and implications of the 1981 strike of air Traffic Controllers in the United States. This book also won a distinguished award for outstanding book on industrial relations and labor economics and this was published in tieche. 2011. He received a master from the rest of maryland. As additional graduate work here at Catholic University. His writings have appeared in smithsonian magazine, and a variety of other pu publications. He has an appointment to a National Advisory council of catholic immigrant immigration for the center of migration studies. You saw the director this morning. To round our panel out, we have father evelio menjivarayala. He is a native of el salvador. He emigrated to the United States in the late 1980s to flee civil war in his native land. After spending a few years in los angeles, he moved to maryland for better employment opportunities, which i am sure he will tell us about. Before he entered the seminary he worked as a janitor and took ged classes in the evening. As a priest, he has held different assignments in the archdiocese throughout washington including parochial vicar in washington, thed. C. He possesses a bachelors in a liberal arts and a masters in divinity from the Pontifical University of st. Thomas aquinas in rome. Now he is very involved in the washington community, especially advocating for immigrants, the homeless, and workers. He is a member of the priest labor social Justice Project initiative in chicago that focuses on continuing formation on priest and worker issues. The way we will proceed here is, professor mccartin will look at historical approach, Campbell Baker will look at the technical aspects of labor, and we can mix it up and take your questions. Mr. Mccartin thank you, thank you very much, maria, i am honored to share this panel with kim and father evelio. Catholicism, immigration, and the labor question have long been intertwined in American History. So deeply intertwined, you could say that they constitute a kind of trinity. It is difficult to understand any one of the phenomenon, the history of the u. S. Church, the history of the American Immigration experience, or the history of u. S. Labor without understanding its interaction with the other two. Organized labor, and the history of labor relation in the United States, everything relates to what we might call the labor question has been deeply influenced by both immigration and catholicism. The history of the Catholic Church in the United States has been deeply shaped by successive waves of immigration, and by the fact that for most of its history, this was a church whose pews were overwhelmingly filled by wage earning families, by workers. And the history of immigrants in the United States, even, i would argue, many who are not themselves catholic, has been deeply influenced by the interaction of catholicism and the labor question. Not a good mic. Sorry. Alright. So the trinity of catholicism, immigration, and labor i would say is a rich, complex, and multilayered interrelayered relationship. I do not have time to go deepliy into the trinity but here, i would like to first focus on and briefly sketch out some of the ways that we can think about the longterm impacts of the immigrant catholic experience on the history of labor and second, to suggest some ways in which the experience of immigrant labor affected American Catholicism, and finally, just offer some observations about the present moment and the ways we might see the new ways of the a new phase of the interrelationship between church and labor playing out right now and maybe in the coming years. First, regarding immigrant catholicism and its effect on labor in america, i would argue that the catholic immigrant experience had a huge impact on American Labor in terms of its leadership, its vision, its politics, its relation to government, its very organizational structure, and more. The impact on catholicism i would say is indisputable. Catholics, and especially catholic immigrants, played a disproportionate role in shaping the Labor Movement and its history in the u. S. Catholics provided the leadership of many of the most significant efforts of American Workers to organize. The leader of the Largest Labor organization in the 19th century was Terrence Powderly and the knights of labor. A child of Irish Catholic immigrants. The most prominent woman activist of the era in industrialization was mary harris jones, mother jones, of an irish immigrant background. The founding president of the aflcio was george meaney, of catholic immigrant stock. Three of these people were also raised in the Catholic Church, while the only one who wasnt raised catholic, named kirkland, took his advanced degree from a jesuit university, georgetown. Born and bred catholics played a huge role in the history of American Labor and its leadership, and they continue to play an important role, i would say, even today, both in and outside the aflcio. Mary kay henry, the leader of the nations largest general union, the Service Employees international union, argues that the values instilled in her catholic upbringing led her to her position as a leader. This helped shape the outlook of labors leadership over generations. The impact of catholicism on labors vision in the u. S. Is also, i think, also evident. The concept of the living wage which has been revived over the last couple of decades, as some of the people in this room well know, has been theorized and popularized more than a century ago by catholic theologians, johnny ryan john a ryan. The pastoral letter written by American Bishops after world war i on what they called reconstruction helped legitimize and popularize the idea and vision for labor in the years leading towards and culminating in the new deal, it was a vision called industrial democracy. The bishops endorsed this vision, which became sort of central to the Labor Movement and articulating of its goals in the mid20th century. Clearly, catholic influence also helped minimize the impact of socialism and communism within the u. S. Labor movement. Many scholars have written about that. It is a thing that i think most folks are familiar with. But we shouldnt look at catholicism influenced primarily for its negative impact, i think we really need to recognize its longterm vision is a positive force for defining a certain approach to government, and especially the uses to which government should be put and regulating workplace relationd. Relations. Catholicism also helped to influence the organizational structure of American Labor unlike their coreligionists in other settings. Catholics did not create separate unions or catholicthemed unions and related parties. Catholicism helped provide a unifying tie in the u. S. That mitigated, it didnt dissolve by any means, but it mitigated, to some extent, the rivalries that otherwise pitted rival groups against each other. Making it somewhat easier to draw irish, french, canadian italian, and latino into the same organizations. It is difficult to imagine the cio of the 1930s without the influence that catholicism had in providing a Common Ground for workers who joined industrial unions. But it wasnt only that immigrant catholics that helped shape the Labor Movement in the u. S. , immigrant workers helped shape the church. It pushed the church to articulate it social vision on labor, it opened up the church to a deeper engagement with the religions and periodically, it , called upon the church to take a prophetic stance. The immigrant labor experience in the u. S. Had a profound effect on the articulation on catholic social teaching. The controversy that swirled around the knights of labor, the labor of former henry george, or the activism of perhaps americas first labor priest Edward Mcglynn back in the 1880s, the controversy surrounding those things helped to bring to the surface the labor question in the u. S. , at the same time it was emerging in europe, and it helped set the context for the issuing of the first great labor encyclical. It was largely in response to catholic workers and their problems that ryan began articulating an american reading of the Catholic Church especially on that labor question in the early 20th century. I am by no means a church historian, and we heard from folks who are here earlier today, but it seems to me that this had an impact on the churchs relations with other religions in the United States. Labor issues pulled the american faithful into working with noncatholics, and it pulled their clergy into efforts to work with others as well efforts that, you know, could be seen as early expressions of ecumenicalism. Finally, i think the experience of immigrant workers has periodically pushed the church to take on a more prophetic role. I think that was true in the 19th century when the church felt compelled to speak up for exploited workers, as someone like Edward Mcglynn did in the 1880s in new york city. He was so prophetic that for a time he was excommunicated for taking such a militant stance on some of these issues. It was true in the 1930s, when dorothy day race of the issues dorothy day raised up the issues of workers in the 1930s, many of whom were immigrants in a very prophetic way, it was true in 1960s when cesar chavez did the same for farmworkers and other exploited workers, and latino workers at that time and i think it is true recently when the bishops went to the border and have been so outspoken and speaking up for the rights of the undocumented workers. So the church is periodically called to a prophetic stance by labor questions. Over more than a halfcentury then, immigrant workers have help shape the church and are approached to labor questions. Not only is there good question reason to think that these patterns have held for more than a century and that they may continue to hold, as we go forward, i think there are indications that we may be entering a new and more intense phase of this interrelationship. I think of the day laborers that congregate on corners and every large city of america, i think of the janitors like our copanelist, father evelio, at a time when he was studying for the priesthood. Janitors working in hotels or office buildings. I think of the workers in food service and construction sites and the immigrant workers who are struggling today in the United States. It seems to me that the church is poised to bring to bear on the experience of these workers, and to draw upon their experience and to turn come in powerful ways, but i think can open up a new chapter in this long interrelationship. I think the church today is poised to do three things. First, the church can bring to our consideration of labor questions now a global vision. As the most expansive unitarian institution today, a universal institution the Catholic Church is better prepared than the Labor Movement, and i would argue more so than any other institution to understand the Global Nature of todays labor problems. What is happening in jobs and the economy now is deeply intertwined with what is happening around the world to workers in other economies. And to deal with the problems , that immigrant workers face now requires that we also grapple with the problems that their colleagues are facing in the countries of their origins. So, a global vision. Second, a church can bring global clarity to economic questions that are becoming more and more complicated. The current head of the department of labors division of wage, and hour enforcement has just published a book that i would encourage everyone to read, because more importantly than anything i have read recently, it tells the story of why we are experiencing an explosion of inequality, it is called the fissured workplace. He argues that our economy has undergone a massive reorganization in the past generation including franchising and lengthened Global Supply chains, and that has destabilized what were along long stable relationships between workers and their employers. It has in fact learned what a worker is legally. Is a person a worker or an independent contractor . It has blurred who is their boss. Who ultimately are they working for . If you go into a hotel in the city today and you check in at the front desk, the person who is checking you in, they might be working for a contract that specializes in hiring out such specialized workers for those hotels. Who is their boss . It is not clear. In such jobs that are being fractured and fissured in this way, what we need is a moral vision the holds people accountable for Labor Conditions and standards. In such a world, i think the moral clarity that the church can provide is a necessary precondition for developing organizational and legal responses to the breakdown of labor standards that has led to these skyrocketing inequality that we are seeing right now. It is first a moral issue, and the church can help people articulate who is responsible. Finally, i think the church can bring to bear a powerful language of solidarity that helps clear away the thicket of opposition to developing effective Government Action in dealing with the problems that immigrant workers today face. We heard earlier today some reference to Pope Franciss exhortation of the gospel of inclusion, and placing the poor at the center of the gospel message, and that statement is one of the most important things he reminded us that catholic social teaching is based on the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. What he also did and i dont think is emphasized enough about that statement, is that he brought up the right relationship between subsidiarity and solidarity. In recent years, some market worshiping catholics, who oppose labor regulation, have tried to make the principle of subsidiarity into an allpurpose critique against government itself. But francis reminds us that subsidiarity is not a concept that is sort of equal in weight to solidarity. In his statement, he mentions solidarity 17 times, subsidiarity once. Subsidiarity, for him, is a doctrine to exist in helping to achieve solidarity, and only when it does, is it of equal weight. What we need is a vision of solidarity, and francis has helped us articulate. That this is a vision we need now, i think, more than ever because our economy is fractured in the way that it now is, because of the separation that has occurred from those at the bottom, often of whom speak a different language from those at the top. We need to be able to articulate our oneness. The church can help. The church, then, is poised to bring to theirbear the power of its moral vision, its language of solidarity, and do so in powerful ways that can help us confront the powerful issues that confront workers today. As in the past, engaging with