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On Sept. 2, we observe our national Labor Day holiday. This observance was established to honor the men and women of our U.S. labor force and to celebrate the dignity and vital importance of work.

More recently, however, Labor Day has become more associated with parades, picnics, the last gasp of summer vacations and the beginning of the school year. It is important, then, that we pause to recall the original purpose of this holiday and to give some reflection to the state of working men and women within our nation.

As Labor Day approaches this year, there are both some hopeful and some ominous signs. The unemployment rate has fallen to 7.4 percent, the lowest since 2008, as the economy has added jobs for 34 consecutive months.

But as Bishop Stephen Blaire, the author of our U.S. bishops' 2013 Labor Day statement, writes: "Over four million people have been jobless for over six months, and that does not include the millions more who have simply lost hope; for every available job, there are as many as five unemployed and underemployed people actively vying for it. This gap pushes wages down - half of the jobs in this country pay less than $27,000. Over 46 million people live in poverty, 16 million of them children."

Furthermore, income inequality has grown at an alarming rate. In the 1960s, the average compensation of an American CEO was about 25 times the average compensation of a production worker. That ratio rose to about 70 times by the end of the 1980s, and to around 250 times these days.

Growing gap
Equally distressing is the growing income disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrialized country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is the "land of opportunity."

Research from the Brookings Institution reveals that only 50 percent of those born into the bottom fifth of low-income earners move out of that category, and only six percent born into the bottom fifth move into the top. Thus, economic mobility in the U.S. is lower than in most of Europe and all of Scandinavia.

How do we explain this? Some of this inequality has to do with persistent discrimination. Latinos and African-Americans still get paid less than Caucasians. For example, an Urban Institute study found that, as of 2010, white families on average earn $2 for every $1 that black and Hispanic families earn - a status that has remained constant for the past 30 years.

This study shows that, more recently, there has developed an even greater wealth gap between whites and non-whites. Before the recession, non-Hispanic white families on average were about four times as wealthy as non-white families. By 2010, the Institute's analysis of Federal Reserve data showed that whites were six times as wealthy.

Also, women still get paid less than men. Though gender disparities in the workplace are less than they once were, there is still a glass ceiling.

Education needs
However, Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Laureate in economics, a professor at Columbia University, a former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors and chief economist for the World Bank, posits that "discrimination is only a small part of the picture. Probably the most important reason for lack of equality of opportunity is education: both its quantity and quality."

After World War II, he says, the U.S., "with its GI Bill, extended higher education to Americans across the economic spectrum. But then [things] changed in several ways."

Dr. Stiglitz notes that "while racial discrimination decreased, economic segregation increased. After 1980, the poor grew poorer, the middle stagnated and the top did better and better. Disparities widened between those living in poor localities and those living in rich suburbs. A result was a widening gap in educational performance."

As he states in "Whither Opportunity," Stamford University sociologist Sean Reardon found that "the achievement gap between children from high- and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born 25 years earlier."

Local statistics
These findings are borne out by the results of the standardized tests for math and English proficiency in New York State released earlier this month. Statewide, the pass rate for both the math and English/language arts tests was only 31 percent.

More to the point, among the top performers in the Capital District were students from the suburban schools. For example, at Voorheesville Elementary School, 74 percent of third-graders passed math; at Boght Hills Elementary in North Colonie, 72 percent of sixth-graders did the same. By contrast, entire grades of students failed math or English exams at Albany's Achievement Academy Charter School and Arbor Hill Elementary School, at Franklin D. Roosevelt Elementary School in Schenectady and at Troy's School 2 and Ark Community Charter School, among others.

What can be done to reverse this trend? Certainly, universal kindergarten, Head Start programs and better pedagogy are essential, as are parental/family support. Also essential is increased government support for many state schools, which has steadily decreased over the years.

Can't afford college
Meanwhile, students are being crushed by student loan debts that are almost impossible to discharge. The total federal student loan debt in the United States is over $1 trillion.

This is happening at the same time that college is more important than ever before in getting a good job. While a high school education might have been adequate a half-century ago, it isn't today - yet we haven't adjusted our system to conform to contemporary realities.

Consequently, Dr. Stiglitz states that "young people from families of modest means face a Catch 22: Without a college education, they are condemned to a life of poor prospects; with a college education, they may be condemned to a lifetime of living on the brink. And, increasingly, even a college degree isn't enough; one needs either a graduate degree or a series of (often unpaid) internships. Those at the top have all the connections and social capital to get those opportunities. Those in the middle and bottom don't."

Unions in decline
While educational failure is a significant contributing factor to the growing income inequality in our society, just as important is the decline of labor unions. In his book, "The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It," author Timothy Noah points out that, "at one time, union membership was highly effective in reducing or eliminating the wage gap between college and high school graduates. That's much less true today.

"Only about seven percent of the private-sector labor force is covered by union contracts," he adds, "about the same proportion as before the New Deal." The New Deal was launched by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the wake of the Great Depression. By the 1950s, nearly 40 percent of the work force in our nation was unionized.

No one maintains that the marked decline of labor unions is what connects the gap between the one percent (those whose incomes average $1 million or more per year) and the 99 percent. But even within the 99 percent, there is a gap between affluent-to-rich families (with incomes of more than $111,000 annually), working class families in the middle (with incomes between about $39,000 and $62,000) and those living below the federal poverty level ($22,000 for a family of four).

Noah notes that "labor's share of the gross domestic product is shrinking, while capital's share is growing. Since 1979, except for a brief period during the tech boom of the late 1990s, labor's share of corporate income has fallen."

Need reviving
Noah concludes that "reviving labor unions is, sadly, anathema to the right; even many mainstream liberals resist the idea. But if economic growth depends on rewarding effort, we should all worry that the middle classes aren't getting increases commensurate with the wealth they create for their bosses. Bosses aren't going to fix this problem. That's the job of unions, and finding ways to rebuild them is liberalism's most challenging task."

John DiIulio Jr., director of faith-based initiatives during the presidency of George W. Bush and author of "Godly Republic: a Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future," makes the same assessment.

He opines that "an 'America without unions,' defined as an America in which fewer than one worker in 20 belongs to a union, would be disastrous for unionized and non-unionized workers alike, for the desperate-for-a-job unemployed and for the all-American idea of a middle-class democracy anchored by sustainably middle-class families."

DiIulio notes further that "an America without unions would be a constitutional and public law travesty. Given the ongoing spike in anti-labor legislation in many states, by the year 2032 and the 100th anniversary of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which gave federal protection to collective bargaining rights, workers' rights might actually be less well-protected by law then they were just after the New Deal."

Catholic view Most significantly, he says, "an America without unions would violate core Catholic social teachings." Indeed, he continues, "the Church teaches and preaches an unambiguously pro-labor doctrine."

The 1986 pastoral letter of the U.S. bishops, "Economic Justice for All," proclaims that "the economy should serve people, not the other way around." The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the human person "is the author, center and goal of all economic and social life. By means of labor, [people] participate in the work of creation," and "work united to Christ can be redemptive."

Patricia Ranft, author of "The Theology of Work," puts it well when she summarizes our Catholic perspective on work: "Work is intrinsically invaluable because it gives humanity the power to transform self, society and nature. Labor is necessary for survival, an agent of change and an equalizer of classes and sexes. It allows us to optimistically anticipate a better future. It fosters individualism, yet binds community and forms the basis for social justice. Work, in short, is what we do to obtain happiness. Without work, we have no power, no equalizer, no social justice, no change, no survival."

That is why Ranft suggests that "high unemployment rates are unacceptable not solely for economic reasons, but for the psychological and moral well-being of citizens. Without work, a person is deprived of power over self and society and of the opportunity to fulfill potential. Without work, social problems multiply. Without work, true happiness is elusive."

Papal perspective
Ranft's perspective is reflected in many papal encyclicals, from Pope Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum" ("On Capital and Labor") to Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical, "Caritas In Veritate" ("Charity in Truth"). Catholic social teaching considers labor unions "indispensable" not only because they protect the rights of workers, but also because they provide a check on the concentration of economic power that threatens equality across society.

In the words of Benedict XVI, in his 2009 encyclical, any attempt "to limit the freedom or negotiating capacity of labor unions" clearly is not in conformity with Church teaching. Pope Benedict puts particular emphasis on the importance of labor unions because, he says, "Through the culmination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interest of workers, partly because governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions. The repeated calls issued within the Church's social doctrine for the promotion of workers' associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past."

Certainly, labor unions are not perfect organizations and have, at times, overstepped their bounds and been guilty of greed and corruption. However, overall they have contributed to human solidarity and the common good that must exist in a just society, and to fostering a better and more equitable distribution of goods within our nation and throughout the globe.

Next week, we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream speech," delivered in 1963 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in which he pleaded so poignantly for social and economic equality for all Americans.

I believe labor unions, along with opportunities for higher education, are the moral and ethical path to a just and peaceful society, and to the elimination of excessive income inequality and poverty in our midst, which Dr. King envisioned.[[In-content Ad]]

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