Labor Day, Dorothy Day, and the Spiritual Roots of Unions

Growing up, Labor Day meant two things: watching my favorite singers perform for 24 hours straight on the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon and attending the Labor Day picnic on the grounds of the Kelly-Springfield (later Goodyear) union hall.

I often saw the picnic as a necessary break from sitting in front of the television all day. It was a chance to eat barbecue, listen to live music, and play carnival games before returning to the more important activity—seeing how much Jerry and Ed McMahon raised for the kids. Looking back, it’s the picnic, and all it represented, that lingers most in my imagination.

My dad began working at the tire plant shortly after he returned home from the Vietnam War and remained there until his retirement. Kelly was a family affair. 

Two of his brothers worked there, one of whom was the longtime president of United Rubber Workers Local 746, John Nash. My uncle Johnny passed away earlier this year, and his funeral was attended by many of his co-laborers in the fight for fair treatment of workers.

Even though it ensured my family could see a doctor without breaking the bank and my parents could retire with some dignity, I didn’t always understand the labor movement. During an extended strike in the 1980s, my dad drove us by the union hall, and I noticed a list of names written on a billboard. When I asked him what the names meant, he told me they were “scabs”—those who crossed the picket line to go to work.

This confused me. “What if they need the job?” I asked. “We all need the job,” he told me.

This led to some back-and-forth and a lifetime of trying to understand how concepts like solidarity and workers’ rights could exist alongside ideas like free enterprise and profit margins. I assumed the best of people, which meant I figured company owners always considered the best interests of their employees to be at least as important as those of their shareholders.

I had a lot to learn but eventually lost interest and moved on to what I considered more eternal matters. I studied religion and followed the long tradition of children who rebel against their upbringing—I became a Republican.

But I eventually learned I wasn’t a good conservative. I believed company owners had the right to do what they wanted with their companies but also had a responsibility to their workers. 

I quickly realized that these two ideas were often in competition with each other and that corporations sometimes needed an outside force to compel them to do the right thing. (Later, I would replace “sometimes” with “often” in that formula.)

What I didn’t know for much of my life was that Christianity has a deep tradition that speaks to these matters. That changed in seminary when I was assigned to read The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day.

People Matter

Born at the end of the 19th century into a family that wasn’t particularly religious, Dorothy Day grew up intrigued by Christian thought and the responsibility people of faith have to the most destitute among us. She also explored anarchism, communism, socialism, and labor movements, wavering among different ideas about how society should be ordered.

In her late 20s, Day converted to Catholicism. She met Peter Maurin, a Catholic social activist who was heavily influenced by St. Francis of Assisi, and together they created the Catholic Worker. The publication, which still exists, became a valuable resource for workers and poor people looking for a spiritual connection to their earthly struggles.

Although she explored many “-isms” over her life—pacifism, anarchism, communism, socialism, etc.—what remained steady was a fierce belief that the Bible’s teachings on “the body” were relevant to the plight of workers.

In a 1971 interview, she connected her earlier labor work with Pauline theology. “The IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] has this motto: ‘An injury to one is an injury to all,’” she said. “That appealed to me tremendously because I felt that we were all one body. I had read Scripture, but I don’t think I’d ever really recognized that teaching of the ‘Mystical Body’—that were [sic] are all one body, we are all one.”

She added, “The idea that when the health of one member suffers, the health of the whole body is lowered is a teaching of Saint Paul, which is timeless.”

In The Long Loneliness, Day reflected on her journey, which included solidarity with workers, time with Benedictines, and many years spent on picket lines. For her, the “-isms” were irrelevant. “It is people who are important, not the masses,” she wrote. (Emphasis mine.)

She ended the book by writing, “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”

That community comes in many forms: a church, a bar, or a picnic where workers gather to remind one another—and their employers—of their inherent dignity and worth.