Employment at Will and Roman Catholic Social Teachings: A Study of Employment Praxis in America

This theology of the workplace investigation uses a criterion-predictor approach to assess U.S. “employment-at-will” (EAW) legal practice against Roman Catholic Social Teachings (RCST) for workplace justice. First, post-World War II Japanese receipt of U.S. New Deal labor legislation manifests remarkable path dependent divergence from U.S. EAW to a self-evangelizing pattern of court decisions. These resulted in case law and Japanese Supreme Court decisions for “lifetime employment” (終身雇用制 / Shūshin koyō). The second step “problematizes” EAW as recent labor law indicates precedent reflects a very deliberate post-Reconstruction Congress effort by corporate interest lawyers to restrict employment opportunities of recently freed U.S. citizen, impacting all U.S. private sector employees as industrialization proceeded. Next, RCST clarifies the point of data analysis: a continuing employment relationship, just cause dismissal protections, labor union support, and employee participation in managerial prerogative. The Data section summarizes a 2014 – 2023 longitudinal population study of publicly available hiring policy data from all U.S. 160 diocesan and 34 archdiocesan websites. Data indicate a systematic option for employer EAW, despite RCST and public sector just cause employment alternatives. Other national employment policies and Roman Catholic conferences, particularly Australia, join with Japanese history to support RCST predictor norms for social justice in U.S. private sector employment. The Discussion includes Table 5 sample text for implementation of RCST in the U.S. workplace. A Workshop goal is specification of steps for the proactive evangelization, based on Catholic leadership for restitution to employment in justice for all U.S. citizens.