The cafeteria employees he was chatting with were preparing for an arm-in-arm street blockade in front of the Dirksen Senate Office Constructing that may surely end in some arrests. The demonstration was held on July 20, but Brian Jordan, O.F.M., thought a range from the upcoming Sunday Gospel—Luke 11:9-10—was perfect for his purposes.
“…ask and you’ll receive;
seek and you will see that;
knock and the door can be opened to you.
For everybody who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds…”
Father Jordan told the employees: “Carry on asking, carry on in search of, carry on knocking; Don’t hand over.” Their perseverance can be rewarded, he told them. It’s right there in Scripture.
Those employees have been asking for a very long time: It took them over seven years to get union membership recognized after which to barter a union contract.
The Senate cafeteria employees will not be asking for much—just an improved hourly rate and something near the medical insurance abundance enjoyed by the senators they serve every day.
They will not be asking for much—just an improved hourly rate that has a probability of catching as much as inflation and something near the medical insurance abundance enjoyed by the senators, other members of Congress and staff they serve every day. The tentative contract also includes pension advantages that may mean lots of the cafeteria employees will have the opportunity to set some money aside for retirement for the primary time of their working lives.
After Father Jordan’s exhortation, 17 employees and supporters were arrested for blocking traffic as they called for U.S. senators to support the deal.
Father Jordan, pastor of St. Camillus in nearby Silver Spring, Md., is a component of a fraternity over again vibrant and visual within the U.S. church. He’s a labor priest, following a private invitation to tackle that role 40 years ago from the good mentor of generations of American labor priests, the late Monsignor George Higgins.
He conjoined his vocation as a Franciscan with a union movement that in its heyday helped create the American middle class, defining wage and profit standards most contemporary employees take with no consideration. Father Jordan sees his contemporary work with Local 23 as firmly within the Franciscan tradition. Franciscans were spiritual guides for the labor guilds from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century—blacksmiths, carpenters, masons and the like, he explains. Those guilds “laid the inspiration stones of labor unions as we all know them now.”
Within the footsteps of that legacy, a recent labor priest “is someone who helps take care of the needs of a selected local, a selected union, whatever their spiritual needs, their sacramental needs,” he said. Numerous the union members he counsels and supports now, he added, will not be even Catholic. “They only want someone they will talk over with.”
Father Jordan sees his work with Local 23 as firmly within the Franciscan tradition. Franciscans were spiritual guides for the labor guilds from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century—blacksmiths, carpenters, masons.
Father Jordan has been chaplain to employees within the Recent York constructing trades and firefighters within the F.D.N.Y., but in recent times he has been collaborating with Unite Here Local 23 in its efforts to arrange employees within the service industry. He views this largely immigrant, sometimes undocumented workforce as particularly vulnerable to exploitation by employers.
Now he stands with these cafeteria employees taking their campaign to the U.S. Senate. The employees seek to substantiate a contract Local 23 negotiated with the seller that gives food services at Dirksen, Restaurant Associates, a “premium food and guest services” subsidiary of the U.K. conglomerate Compass Group. Restaurant Associates took over the in-house operation of the Senate cafeteria in 2008.
So what’s the hold-up that has driven these employees to a street blockade outside a venerable Washington landmark? That query begins a somewhat convoluted saga of its own. Union organizers point to the offices of the Architect of the Capitol J. Brett Blanton, a 2019 Trump administration appointee, because the wrongdoer. The A.O.C. is a federal agency accountable for maintenance and operations on the United States Capitol Campus.
One organizer called the office’s inaction “frustrating.”
“At this point, the more that the senators can proceed to pressure the A.O.C. to get this [contract] to the finish line,” she said by email, “the higher on all fronts.”
But Christine Leonard, a spokesperson for the agency, said the Architect of the Capitol has no official role to play in contract negotiations between vendors and their employees. Ms. Leonard identified that federal law does require certain wage and labor standards from firms which are awarded federal contracts, adding that lots of them indeed employ union employees.
“We consider that subcontracted food service jobs could be good jobs provided that the client takes some responsibility for the job quality of the subcontracted workforce.”
“We do care in regards to the individuals who work on the Capitol and we would like people to be treated fairly,” Ms. Leonard said.
A letter dated Aug. 2 from the A.O.C. to an executive at Restaurant Associates reaffirmed “that the federal government is taking no motion that’s stopping RA from negotiating in good faith…with the union on a collective bargaining agreement.” The A.O.C. urged Restaurant Associates “to achieve a resolution with the union that may allow food service operations to proceed without further disruption to the Senate Community.”
Asked for clarity on the situation, a spokesperson for Restaurant Associates issued an announcement that mostly highlighted R.A.’s need for a similar, explaining that the corporate was “anxiously awaiting [a] response” after multiple requests to A.O.C. “to get clarification on the services the Architect of the Capitol would require, so we will provide additional clarity to our valued employees.”
While Restaurant Associates seeks more guidance “regarding various directives and confirmation on the long run state of our contract,” the spokesperson assured that the corporate stays “equally committed to fulfilling our bargaining obligations and dealing with UNITE HERE to achieve an agreement as soon as possible.”
Susan Valentine, political director for Unite Here, argued that guidance from the federal government client is needed to seal the deal. She said in an email to America: “After lots of pushing by these employees, the Senate community has taken some responsibility for securing additional funding to be sure that these employees can get the union contract with advantages that they deserve, however the A.O.C. is legally the client, and to this point [it] has failed to offer the corporate the total picture in order that they can settle this contract.
“We consider that subcontracted food service jobs could be good jobs provided that the client takes some responsibility for the job quality of the subcontracted workforce,” Ms. Valentine added. “They will’t just say, ‘Isn’t it too bad that these employees who serve public servants don’t have any advantages because these operations aren’t profitable.’”
Older employees like Mr. Cuevas hope to have a “just retirement” someday, too, “after having spent so a few years working here.”
While finger-pointing over which party is holding up the contract may proceed, David Cuevas, 57, a Senate cafeteria employee, waits in hope and patience for a positive consequence that for the primary time in his working life would reward him with union advantages. The daddy of seven and the grandfather of seven more, a laborer in america since leaving his native Mexico in 1990, Mr. Cuevas has worked within the Senate cafeteria since 2005.
“Certainly one of the most important things we’re fighting for is medical insurance,” he said in an interview facilitated by an interpreter provided by Local 23. “In case you don’t have medical insurance that’s accessible, given what you earn, you then can’t maintain your health, and lots of other things rely on that.”
The corporate offers a plan, but at $400 to $600 a month many of the employees couldn’t afford it. The brand new contract would bridge that affordability gap.
He is particularly completely satisfied that a pension profit is included within the proposed contract. Older employees like him hope to have a “just retirement” someday, too, Mr. Cuevas said, “after having spent so a few years working here.”
Having the support of the church through the presence of Father Jordan reminds the employees of Local 23 that they will not be alone on this fight, he said. “We all know the church has all the time been really aware of the needs of people that have the desire to make a greater situation for themselves on this country,” Mr. Cuevas said. “For us, that support is actually vital.”
“A labor priest brings the church to the people,” Father Jordan said. “You don’t expect the people to go to you in a constructing. You go to them; you give them a way of church.”
“How in regards to the collective behavior of those that are given government concessions?” he asks. Who holds them accountable “for not providing just wage, nor a just contract?”
His presence at the road motion in July, he said, looked as if it would cheer the employees before they began the demonstration that led to the arrests of lots of them. He’s glad to function a stand-in for the church and its teaching on just wages and the dignity of labor at such demonstrations.
But as a faithful citizen, Father Jordan is a bit embarrassed to must take this fight for what he perceives because the bare minimum in justice to the doorstep of the Senate. “How could this be in our nation’s capital?” he asks.
“Right by the U.S. Capitol, right there on the Dirksen Constructing, right there in sight of the Washington Mall, of the Lincoln Memorial and all these senators and their aides and their chiefs of staff that want an exquisite lunch?
“I’m just outraged.”
He notes one other, to his mind, shameful paradox. “I’m pretty sure the feds have done background checks on all these [cafeteria] employees to be sure that they weren’t arrested or that they’re not some deranged terrorist,” Father Jordan said. “But who’s doing background checks on the employers to see in the event that they’re providing just wages and advantages?
“How in regards to the collective behavior of those that are given government concessions?” he asks. Who holds them accountable “for not providing just wage, nor a just contract?”
These employees are going up against the Senate and a vendor with international contracts and vast resources at its disposal. “And so they’re playing hardball against these working-class people,” Father Jordan said.
“It’s simply not fair.”
You already know who believed in fairness for working people? he asks. “Everett Dirksen.” Father Jordan is pretty sure the Recent Deal-supporting Republican wouldn’t approve of arresting employees outside the Senate office constructing bearing his name.
