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DOROTHY DAY'S LESSONS FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF WORK

By David L. Gregory *
Hofstra Labor Law Journal
Fall 1996
14 Hofstra Lab. L.J. 57

"Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable." 1

"Widely regarded as the most influential lay person in the
history of American Catholicism for her steadfast living
of the Gospel message." 2

"And whenever I tell them about Dorothy Day, they always
think I'm saying Doris Day." 3

NOTE: This article is reproduced with permission of the author.

 CONTENTS:

I. Introduction
II. Dorothy Day: A Life
A. Family Life
B. The Early Years
C. College and Conversion
D. Hedonism and Radicalism
E. Turning Points
F. The Catholic Worker Movement
1. The Catholic Worker Newspaper
2. Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality
G. Middle Age Pacifism
H. The Circle Closes
III. The Political Theory of Dorothy Day
A. The Philosophy of Personalism
B. The Principle of Subsidiarity
C. The Interrelations of Personalism and Subsidiarity
IV. Dorothy Day's Lessons for Labor
A. Labor Praxis
B. The Labor Theory of Dorothy Day
V. The Transformation of Work
VI. Conclusion

NOTES:

* a. Professor of Law, St. John's University School of Law. B.A., 1973, The Catholic University of America; M.B.A., 1977, Wayne State University; J.D., 1980, University of Detroit; LL.M., 1982, Yale University; J.S.D., 1987, Yale University. Michael D. Jew, B.A., 1993, Cornell University; J.D., 1996, St. John's University, provided excellent research assistance. This article also benefited from many helpful comments, upon being presented at the Yale Law School Policy Sciences Institute Annual Meeting, October 28, 1995. Helen M. Alvare, Gregory Baum, Ronald Brunner, Robert Coles, Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Barbara J. Fick, Jack Getman, Mary Ann Glendon, Emily Fowler Hartigan, George G. Higgins, Lawrence Joseph, Randy Lee, Peter Linzer, Ian R. Macneil, John T. Noonan, Jr., Leo J. Penta, Robert E. Rodes, Jr., Philip Runkel, Thomas L. Shaffer, and Michael Zimmer independently provided encouragement for the project and additional valuable suggestions, upon reading various drafts. I especially thank Dennis R. Nolan for vigorously challenging virtually every premise of political economy and philosophy asserted in this article. The Fund for Labor Relations Studies provided generous financial support.

1. These words were bestowed upon Dorothy Day when she was awarded the Laetare Medal, the University of Notre Dame's highest honor, in March, 1972. See Alden Whitman, Dorothy Day, Outspoken Catholic Activist, Dies at 83, N.Y. Times, Nov. 30, 1980, at 45.

2. The Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Collection, Memorial Library Newsletter (Marquette University), Mar. 1994, at 1.

3. Voices from the Catholic Worker 317 (Rosalie Riegle Troester ed., 1993).