Copy Desk Daily, Sept. 7, 2020

Recommended for you today, from the National Catholic Reporter / Global Sisters Report / EarthBeat copy desk:

Unlike much of the world, which celebrates the worker on May 1, the United States picks the first Monday of September as Labor Day. It's usually a time for special sales, swimming, a last long weekend before the school year begins. This year, of course, everything is different, and some see the constraints as a way to challenge the former status quo.

Here is a selection of recent articles on that:

• From the bishops: Given the "somber" realities imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, for companies to put profits over safety is "unjust," said Archbishop Paul Coakley in the ' annual Labor Day statement.
• NCR's political columnist Michael Sean Winters: "The fables of rugged individualism that condition so much of the culture's core beliefs, combined with the dominance of neoliberal economic ideas and globalization have brought us to where we are." He has hope in the resurgence of solidarity.
• The 2020 edition of the annual "Gaudium et Spes Labor Report" issued by the Catholic Labor Network has found more than 600 Catholic institutions with unionized workforces.
• As many people around the world face economic uncertainty due to the pandemic, a paradigm shift is needed that places the good of the many over the benefit of the few, Pope Francis said. Read more.
• Eviction moratorium seen as short-term fix causing long-term problems. It started Sept. 1 but is only a delay.

Finally, if you wish to read about someone who has worked on solutions to the shortage of affordable, decent housing, GSR has a good news story by New York and international correspondent Chris Herlinger on Mercy Sr. Mary Scullion, whose Project HOME organization is keeping up the fight to end homelessness in Philadelphia. Read about this "woman of faith, action and energy."

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