Two Catholic Committees adopt resolutions supporting the rights of Peabody Energy miners to form a union without interference from management
The Catholic Committee of the South and the Catholic Committee of Appalachia both formally adopted resolutions on December 12th supporting the right of Peabody Energy coal miners to organize a union without interference from Peabody management.
The resolution, entitled "A Call for Justice at Peabody Energy," urges the nation's largest coal company "to be truly neutral with respect to employees' rights to form or join a union and to voluntarily recognize a union when a majority of their employees sign authorizations."
Both committees are a network of Catholic ministers—lay, ordained and professed—who work throughout their respective areas. The groups study social problems confronting the Church in there regions—and helps find viable solutions. The Catholic Committee of the South has recently been involved with poultry workers and their fight for safe and better working conditions while the Catholic Committee of Appalachia has in times past been instrumental in bringing the plight of the working poor to the forefront of the fight for justice.
”It is both a God-given and legal right of each and every worker to join a union and it is the bishops' voice that coercion and intimidation not deny this right," said Father Les Schmidt, special liaison to the Catholic Bishops of the South.
Hundreds of non-union miners at Peabody's facilities across the country have requested assistance from the United Mine Workers of America to organize a union. In December 2005, the UMWA responded by launching the Justice at Peabody campaign.
Copies of the resolutions were sent to Peabody CEO Greg Boyce.
Justice at Peabody
http://www.justiceatpeabody.org