Volume > Issue > Is a Union Good or Bad?

Is a Union Good or Bad?

CHRIST & NEIGHBOR

By John C. Cort | September 1985

When last we met we were discussing the am­biguous record of Roman Catholic institutions to­ward trade unions, particularly as analyzed in an excellent pamphlet written by Ed Marciniak. We agreed to continue the discussion by addressing the question why anti-unionism is not a “legitimate moral, Christian, Catholic option.”

The title of this column — “Is a Union Good or Bad?” — is a foolish question, a foolish title, and we stuck it up there only to lure the unwary read­er into reading the column, if only to find out why anyone should ask such a foolish question.

The question is foolish because a union is a human organization and it is either good or bad de­pending on the human beings who control it, some being very good, some very bad, and the rest somewhere on a continuum in between.

Unionism is something else. Unionism is sim­ply the principle that human beings working to­gether may derive benefits from banding together in an organization, usually called a union, guild, or association, on the elementary basis that “in union there is strength.”

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