Pillar Three of Fain’s Four Pillars of Collective Bargaining: Retirement Security
By Father Michael Seavey and Rabbi Hillel Katzir
When UAW President Shawn Fain addressed the Maine AFL-CIO state convention in Bangor in October, he listed four foundational pillars for their union and contract negotiations. Those pillars are “A Living Wage," “Adequate Health Care," “Retirement Security," and “Our Time." This is the third in series of articles by Father Mike Seavey and Rabbi Hillel Katzir that takes each of these foundational pillars and manifest the Faith/Labor connection. You can read the other columns here and here.
Retirement security constitutes Shawn Fain’s third pillar of contract negotiations. Noting a significant number of Americans having no retirement savings and relying exclusively on Social Security, retirement benefits are an essential component of any negotiations. This area also has significant connections to faith expressions for workplace justice.
After World War I, many political, social, and religious entities offered their ideas for a new society to emerge from the ashes, rubble, and human horrors of Europe. In the United States, the Roman Catholic Bishops gathered to offer their own vision for a renewed and just society in our own country.
Focusing on economics and worker rights, the bishops included this paragraph following their call for higher wages, “Until this level of legal minimum wages is reached, the worker stands in need of the device of insurance. The state should make comprehensive provision for insurance against illness, invalidity, unemployment and old age.
“So far as possible, the insurance fund should be raised by a levy on industry, as is now done in the case of accident compensation. The industry in which a man is employed should provide with all that is necessary to meet all the needs of his entire life. Therefore, any contribution to the insurance fund from the general revenues of the state should be only slight and temporary.”
The bishops were highly influenced by the writings of Pope Leo XIII, especially his encyclical letter Rerum Novarum, on the question of labor in 1891. In that official teaching document, Pope Leo placed the Catholic Church squarely on the side of labor’s right to organize, and the right to good-faith collective bargaining.
Using Rerun Novarum and natural law principles, the bishops determined the foundational rights and minimum necessities for all workers. All their ideas flowed from the dignity of every human person, a dignity flowing from being created in the image and likeness of God. These worker necessities became reality almost twenty years later in President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
From Judaism’s perspective, The Torah commands us to "show deference to the elderly (Lev. 19:32)," and, in the Ten Commandments, to honor our parents (Exod. 20:12, Deut. 5:16). In Jewish tradition, one element of this deference and honor is to provide for the elderly, for their basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, etc.
In ancient times, families often lived together in multiple-generation arrangements. In today's mobile society, that now seems rare. When our elderly do not have family nearby to care for them, Judaism puts that responsibility on society: Jewish tradition emphasizes acts of kindness (Gemilut Chasadim) and responsibility for the poor, rooted in Torah verses like Deuteronomy 15:7-8 ("If there is a poor person among you... do not be hardhearted or tightfisted") and Proverbs 19:17 ("Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord").