Workers’ Rights and Socially Responsible Investment in the Catholic Tradition: A Case Study Gerald J. Beyer Introduction: The Precarious Situation of Workers’ Rights Today In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, Archbishop von Ketteler of Mainz, Germany, Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore and many other lay and ordained Catholics became staunch advocates of labor rights. 1 Encouraged by the pro-labor activities of these “social Catholics,” Pope Leo XIII released Rerum Novarum in 1891. This encyclical advocated wages that allow for “reasonable and frugal comfort” and “workmen’s associations,” among other workers’ rights. 2 Catholic social teaching and many movements inspired by it have since then unwaveringly supported the rights of workers. 3 Gerald Beyer is Associate Professor of Christian Social Ethics at St. Joseph’s Univer- sity (PA). 1 I gratefully acknowledge permission from the Journal of Catholic Social Thought to publish a version of this article as a web-based report. I am also indebted to a number of people at Saint Joseph’s University for their generous assistance with this project. In particular, Dr. Susan Clampet-Lundquist of the Department of Sociology provided invaluable help with data analysis, along with feedback throughout the project. Dr. Robert Moore and Dr. Amy Lipton have been helpful conversation partners about various components of this article. A student research assistant ably digitized the quantitative data from the questionnaires. I am also thankful for a Morris Research Grant from the university, which funded portions of my project. Finally, I am grateful to the Unite Here staff and the hotel workers who participated in the Unite Here study for allowing me to make use of it. 2 See Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, nos. 34, 36 and Marvin L. Krier Mich, Catholic Social Teaching and Movements (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1998). Unless otherwise noted, papal social encyclicals are quoted from David J. O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon, Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1992). 3 See Marvin L. Krier Mich, “The Living Wage Movement and Catholic Social Teach- ing,” Journal of Catholic Social Thought 6, no. 1 (2009). On Christians from various churches, including Roman Catholics, see C. Melissa Snarr, All You That Labor: Religion and Ethics in the Living Wage Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2011); JOURNAL OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT – 10:1, 2013, 117-153.