"The Most Memorable Labor Dispute in the History of U.S. Church-Related Institutions": The 1949 Calvary Cemetery Workers' Strike against the Catholic Archdiocese of New York
The Calvary Cemetery workers strike against the Catholic Archdiocese of New York was front page news during the early months of 1949, best captured in the unforgettable scene where New York City archbishop Francis Cardinal Spellman escorted two hundred of his own seminarians across union picket line...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2008
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| In: |
American catholic studies
Year: 2008, Volume: 119, Issue: 2, Pages: 1-33 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The Calvary Cemetery workers strike against the Catholic Archdiocese of New York was front page news during the early months of 1949, best captured in the unforgettable scene where New York City archbishop Francis Cardinal Spellman escorted two hundred of his own seminarians across union picket lines as replacement workers for the strikers. But beyond this single event rested important questions about the extent to which the great labor encyclicals of the church applied at its own institutions. The debate that followed pitted the archbishop against his striking union, but also against many of New York City's most determined Catholic labor activists, including some of the city's most celebrated "labor priests" as well as the lay leaders of the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists (ACTU) who provided the strikers with legal assistance throughout the conflict. Never a simple labor-management dispute, the strike was made more complex by the striking union's unasked for but real affiliation with the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union (FTA), a communist-led union within the CIO, and the fact that under New York labor law the archdiocese as a religious employer was exempt from collective bargaining responsibilities with all archdiocesan employees. ACTU intervention helped resolve the affair, but not without damage to the union and to decades of Catholic labor activism preceding the strike. |
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| ISSN: | 2161-8534 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American catholic studies
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