The Department of Labor and the common good

God Bless the work of Bishop Zavala

Republicans have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are NOT for the working person or the rights of the working person. They are for the owners and managers of corporations and even small companies. They should not even be invited to the table on this topic. Obama should appoint some very left of center people to shake up The Department of Labor and give working people some real power to determine some of the most basic and fundamental rights in the workplace. Many unions have NOT represented their members well at all and they too, need new blood, especially rank and file people who are not interested in feathering their own beds and selling the average worker down the drain. Corporations have entirely too much power and it must be taken away from them. They have proven that they are dangerous to society as a whole and it is time for this to change. The common good must be served and this means the GOP, including Catholic Republicans must be faced down at every turn. They have done so much damage to the worker, workplace and society in general, that it is time for them to pay for their crimes and sins against humanity. Let's pray that Smith and Boylan are CONFIRMED immediately. Republicans have spit on the concept of the COMMON GOOD and they must pay a heavy price for the collateral damage to our democracy. They must be held accountable. The time is NOW!

This article by Bishop Zavala proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that our bishops should get out of politics and maybe consider getting back into religion.

Dems have to play hardball with these obstructionist Republicans.. hardball? =nominate Michael Moore for Deputy Secty of Labor and have hearings..

Thank you, Bishop Zavala. You are a credit to the cloth - and I don't say that lightly. Now, if you can just make sure that the USCCB and its member bishops refuse to fund the investigation into the congregations of religious women in this country, two good things will happen. I will certainly have a little bit, not a lot, more confidence in the USCCB and my contributions to my own diocesan collections will resume. They are currently suspended until I get that confirmation and it appears on www.usccb.org. This step would reassure me that funds were being spent on worthwhile projects and not being misdirected. This is the same kind of justice that the two women you cite are seeking to enforce as well. We must always defend the common good.

The paramount role of those institutions is to promote and secure justice -- particularly for those who are the most vulnerable to abuse...

Great quote.

"Physician, heal thyself."

Would that bishops who rule the Archdiocese would apply this sort of insight to the protection of and restorative justice for surivors of sexual abuse perpetrated by their own brother priets.

On other social justice issues they tend to be so spot-on, but when the problem is in the living rooms (and bedrooms) of their own rectories, it seems as if a giant blind-spot emerges.

First the resistance to the previously agreed-to and mandated release of priest personnel records related to the sexual abuse of children.

Then the more recent testimony that the Cardinal himself thwarted reporting the molestation of children to the proper law-enforcement authorities.

"Unconsciounable" doesn't begin to describe it.

With tears in my eyes of joy I read these powerful and prophetic and deeply religious words of Los Angeles Bishop Zavala, who in his ministry knows first hand the suffering of families deprived of just wages, who suffer stolen wages by unscrupulous employers who use anything, including imigration status, to deprive workers of the wages which feed their families. WHat does Jesus say about bosses who steal workers' wages?

See this now: "Their appointments were delayed, however, when Senators Johnny Isakson, R-GA, and Michael Enzi, R-WY, raised dubious objections related to Smith’s efforts to prevent wage theft in New York by forming partnerships with businesses and community initiatives in the state."

Republicans, from Georgia and Wyoming, where the illegalized worker is enslaved and has no recourse to require the promised wages, but the US DEpt of Labor so courageously led by SEctry SOlis but deprived of needed offices.

Read our Holy FAter's latest encyclical on social justice and what he writes on paying workers what they earn, and the right to unionize. Be no dissenter from His HOliness but uphold our Church's righteous work for justice.

Dear Bishop Zavala, I worked at the Department of Labor for many years, some of those under the original visionaries hired by Madame Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor, who was highly instrumental in the enactment of Social Security, unemployment insurance, the right of unions to organize, the NLRB, workers' compensation, the minimum wage, etc. Up until the 1970s there were powerful Secretaries of Labor like Arthur Goldberg (Dem), Willard Wirtz (Dem), George Shultz (Rep) and John Dunlop (Rep), all of whom were part of the President's core economic team and represented the concerns of American workers. Starting with President Reagan all that changed. The Secretaries of Labor, your friend Solis included, are no longer part of any Administration's core economic team. The Labor Department has been reduced to a do-good social service agency, usually headed, per affirmative action, by women such as your friend Solis who, the other day, was unable to give a single substantive answer to any major economic question posed during her interview with a cable business news channel. She is just a glorified social worker and is treated as such even by the Obama White House. The bishops, as you know, have long given up on emphasizing the social encyclicals and the rights of workers. Now, 24/7, it is all about abortion all the time, more specifically the politics of abortion, an quixotic exercise if ever there was one. It is all very depressing. Just another part of the decline of the Church in America.