The Brawler was happy to see Archbishop Listecki denounce Walker's budget repair bill as "union busting". For as much as cafeteria Catholics like Patrick McIlheran salivate at Walker trying to bust unions, it is contrary to the Vatican position as laid out in Cenesimus Annus.
7. In close connection with the right to private property, Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical also affirms other rights as inalienable and proper to the human person. Prominent among these, because of the space which the Pope devotes to it and the importance which he attaches to it, is the "natural human right" to form private associations. This means above all the right to establish professional associations of employers and workers, or of workers alone.19 Here we find the reason for the Church's defence and approval of the establishment of what are commonly called trade unions: certainly not because of ideological prejudices or in order to surrender to a class mentality, but because the right of association is a natural right of the human being, which therefore precedes his or her incorporation into political society. Indeed, the formation of unions "cannot ... be prohibited by the State", because "the State is bound to protect natural rights, not to destroy them; and if it forbids its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence".20
The Brawler suspects that the state making it very difficult for unions to function -- as is the objective of "right-to-work" laws or actions Walker is calling for -- hinders the right of association.
So now Walker has the Packers and the Catholic Church against him. Well played.
The Brawler's been over how purported Catholics overlook Catholic social teaching before.
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