Association of Catholic Trade Unionists
The Association of Catholic Trade Unionists (ACTU) was a labor organization associated with Catholic Worker newspaper (founded in 1933 by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin).
History[edit]
The Association of Catholic Trade Unionists, or ACTU, formed in founded in February 1937.[citation needed]
The ACTU encouraged Pope Pius XI's March 1937 anti-communist encyclical Divini Redemptoris and promoted mainstream Catholic teachings in the United States labor movement. It served as a hub for Catholics who opposed the growing influence of communists and other radical trade union organizers affiliated with the Communist Party USA.[1] While not a union itself, the ACTU sought to "educate, stimulate, and coordinate on a Christian basis the action of the Catholic workingmen and women in the American labor movement."
The ACTU played an important role in opposing left-wings in a number of unions. Such unions including the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and Transport Workers Union of America (TWUA). It played a particularly important role in building the International Union of Electrical Workers, which split from UE. In late 1939, the ACTU described the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as a "breeding nest of American Communism."[2]
Following World War II, the ACTU declined and eventually dissolved in the late 1960s.[2][3][4][5][6]
Notable members[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Cort, John C. (May 5, 1939). "Catholics in Trade Unions". www.commonwealmagazine.org. Commonweal Magazine.
- ^ a b Lubienecki, P. (2015). Catholic Labor Education and the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists. Instructing Workers to Christianize the Workplace. Journal of Catholic Education, 18 (2). http://dx.doi.org/10.15365/joce.1802062015
- ^ Deslippe, Dennis A. (1991). ""A Revolution of ITS Own" the Social Doctrine of the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists in Detroit, 1939-50". Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. 102 (4): 19–36. ISSN 0002-7790. JSTOR 44210275.
- ^ Seaton, Douglas P. (1981). Catholics and radicals : the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists and the American Labor movement, from Depression to cold war. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. ISBN 0-8387-2193-1.
- ^ Taft, Philip (January 1949). "The Association of Catholic Trade Unionists". ILR Review. 2 (2): 210–218. doi:10.1177/001979394900200203. S2CID 153419111.
- ^ Ward, Richard J. (September 1956). "The Role of the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists in the Labor Movement". Review of Social Economy. 14 (2): 79–100. doi:10.1080/00346765600000012.