(Lepanto Institute) — The United Workers Association (UWA) has received 16 grants totaling $760,000 from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) since 2004, including its most recent $25,000 grant for the 2024-2025 CCHD funding year.
In previous reports, we proved that UWA was involved in the push for same-sex “marriage” around 2011, and in 2020, we showed how UWA was fueling the flames of violence with its vicious rhetoric calling for the defunding of the police. All of that information will be provided at the end of this report, following these more recent discoveries.
Given what we are about to present, it is abundantly clear that UWA is solidly pro-LGBT – even to the point of advocating for publicly-funded sex-change surgeries – and it is currently operating through two proxy organizations of its own creation that are openly promoting abortion, birth control, funding for Planned Parenthood, and LGBT ideologies, including the public-funding of sex-change operations.
On March 12 of 2025, UWA urged members and supporters to sign a letter opposing cuts to Medicaid. Among the identified reasons to oppose the cuts, UWA complained that such cuts would include so-called “gender affirming care.”
UWA created Healthcare is a Human Right – Maryland
In 2012, UWA co-founded an organization called “Healthcare is a Human Right – Maryland.” In a profile for the organization uploaded to Idealist, Healthcare is a Human Right – Maryland wrote:
We are a statewide grassroots campaign that strives for universal healthcare in Maryland. We will achieve this goal through building a people’s movement that unites communities across our state, grounded in our human rights vision. We were founded in 2012 by the United Workers, Healthcare-NOW! Maryland, and Physicians for a National Health Program–Maryland. Our ultimate goal is to pass legislation that will create a single-payer healthcare system in Maryland. We have already developed organizing groups in several counties, including Carroll, Howard, Frederick, Montgomery, Baltimore, and Calvert.
This founding was corroborated by UWA on its website pertaining to his history, and in an article published in the Indypendent Reader. The problem is that this organization, co-created by UWA, is stridently pro-abortion.
On January 23, 2019, Healthcare is a Human Right – Maryland (HHR-MD) posted an article from the Communist-run publication Jacobin, which advocated for abortion to be covered as a part of Medicare.
On 7 Sept. 2018, HHR-MD said that “abortion rights are human rights.”
On 19 March 2019, HHR-MD claimed that banning abortion is “unconstitutional.”
On 8 February 2019, HHR-MD called “abortion coverage in the Medicare for All” bills a “massive victory.” It further declared that it must be ” bold and unapologetic in demanding full reproductive health care as a human right.”
On 2 January 2018, HHR-MD called for guarantees for “abortion and gender affirming care” to be included in Medicare.
On 18 January 2018, HHR-MD declared that “trans rights are human rights,” and lauded a bill that would “overturn the Hyde amendment, which bans federal funding for abortions.”
UWA is the fiscal sponsor for an abortion advocate
Created in 2012, Put People First – PA (PPF-PA) indicates on its end of the year fundraising campaign for 2024 that UWA is its fiscal sponsor, identifying not only the name of the organization, but its tax ID number as well:
For larger donations, consider donating via a check to avoid fees. Checks can be made out to our fiscal sponsor, United Workers, with Put People First! PA in the subject line. Send checks to United Workers, P.O. Box 41547, Baltimore MD 21203.
All donations through mightycause, our website, or via a check are tax deductible and will be processed through our sibling organization and fiscal sponsor, United Workers. Their tax ID number is: 20-4345458
In a fundraising campaign from 2020, PPF-PA stated that all donations “go directly to our fiscal sponsor, United Workers.”
In addition to this, we have discovered on UWA’s tax form 990s that over three years (from 2020-2022), UWA provided $584,307 to PPF-PA. In 2020, UWA provided $101,946 to PPF-PA. In 2021, it was $38,898. And in 2022, it was $443,463. Each of the statements provides the same language about the grants, indicating that PPF-PA “is engaging in grassroots organizing and outreach across the state of Pennsylvania … through their Healthcare is a Human Right campaign to demand universal quality healthcare for all.”
In fact, UWA is identified on the PPF-PA Facebook page as “responsible for this page.”
This now marks a second organization falling directly under the auspices of UWA engaging in “Healthcare is a Human Right” campaigns, and as with HHR-MD, PPF-PA is radically pro-abortion and pro-LGBT. But in addition to this, PPF-PA is tied to the Marxist Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) – an organization being investigated for possible ties to the Charlie Kirk assassination.
PPF-PA is an abortion advocate
In the Winter/Spring issue of PPF-PA’s newsletter called “Keystone News” is an article titled, “Medicaid Expansion Info.” Toward the end of the article, the authors ask how Medicaid expansion is “different than universal healthcare?” and answers the question by complaining that abortion is not included in the expansion, which is why it is necessary to push for universal healthcare coverage.
“While Medicaid Expansion is something we should all be celebrating, our struggle is far from over. Although Medicaid expansion means that many more Pennsylvanians will have new or improved health coverage, Medicaid doesn’t cover everyone, nor does it cover services like vision, adequate dental care, or abortion services.
It’s also important to remember that our health coverage, whether through Medicaid, the Marketplace (Obamacare), or through an employer, is still provided through private insurance companies like Aetna, Independence Blue Cross, and United Healthcare. Insurance companies are not transparent in the decisions they make. We as people do not have a voice in the way they influence and shape our healthcare. Even with increased Medicaid coverage, there will still be networks of doctors we can and cannot see, prescriptions that we must fight insurance companies to cover, co-pays which will be unaffordable, and high deductibles. Undocumented people and new immigrants are also still left out of Pennsylvania’s Medicaid, further marginalizing them.
We must continue to fight for the full realization of our human right to healthcare through a system that is based on the principles of universality, equity, accountability, transparency and participation. Pennsylvanians need a healthcare system where quality healthcare is a human right for all.”
On 1 October 2016, PPF-PA posted on X its commitment to fight for “reproductive justice.”
While “reproductive justice” may appear to be a generic term that may or may not include abortion, this matter was clarified on 22 June 2017, when PPF-PA marched in support of Planned Parenthood, calling for “reproductive justice.”
At the same event, one of PPF-PA’s own members stood up to speak in support of Planned Parenthood.
On 22 September 2017, PPF-PA posted an article attempting to make a Christian case for being an abortionist.
On 30 December 2020, PPF-PA posted an article celebrating the decriminalization of abortion in Argentina.
PPF-PA advocates for trans ideologies
In addition to its support for abortion, the UWA-funded PPF-PA actively and firmly promotes trans ideologies and agendas, including open support for publicly-funded sex-change surgeries.
On 11 June 2023, PPF-PA co-hosted an event with the Kairos Center titled, “Season of Jubilee: Trans Healthcare is a Human Right.” The description of the event indicates that “queer” members of PPF-PA and an organization called the Non-Violent Medicaid Army (of which UWA is also a member):
Season of Jubilee: Trans Healthcare is a Human Right — Leaders in Put People First! PA and the Non-Violent Medicaid Army that are queer will share their experiences and commitment to the struggle for Healthcare As a Human Right. We will testify that God’s love extends to all people, and that gender-affirming and sexual healthcare are a part of what we all deserve in God’s justice, and that the poor and afflicted are agents of their own well-being. Scripture: Isaiah 56:1-8, Mark 5:24-34.
On 6 May 2016, PPF-PA celebrated new Pennsylvania regulations banning the exclusion of “trans healthcare” from healthcare policies.
On 21 July 2016, PPF-PA celebrated the inclusion of sex-change surgeries as a part of healthcare coverage.
On 19 June 2023, PPF-PA celebrated how Medicaid helped someone obtain a sex-change operation.
On 11 August 2014, PPF-PA tabled at an LGBT pride event, showing pictures of their members in front of Trans flags, and children subjected to rainbow paraphernalia.
PPF-PA and the Party for Socialism and Liberation
As it tends to be the case with organizations engaged in political agitation and attacking the good morals of society, PPF-PA is a collaborator with Socialist organizations, in particular, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which is an avidly pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, Marxist organization claiming that “there are really only two choices for humanity today—an increasingly destructive capitalism, or socialism.”
On 9 February 2021, PPF-PA co-hosted an event with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). Though the event was canceled, PPF-PA did thank the PSL for their participation.
On 3 October 2020, PSL announced that they are PPF-PA would be holding a week of state-wide Medicaid Marches.
On the Facebook event page for this, PPF-PA specifically thanked “Socialist Alternative Pittsburgh” and the “Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)” for co-sponsoring the event.
On 14 September 2021, PPF-PA teamed up with PSL and the Nonviolent Medicaid Army (of which it is a member) in another week of Medicaid Marches. In the video of this post, the speaker for the Nonviolent Medicaid Army gives a special shout-out to the PSL.
On 10 March 2024, the PSL and PPF-PA got together to hold a rally/protest they called a “vigil” in support of Palestine.
Video from the event was posted by someone who was there, identifying speakers from both the PSL and the PPF-PA.
And just in case it wasn’t clear that PPF-PA was in league with socialism, here is their 6 March 2019 post for International Women’s Day from the Union Socialists in America endorsing Revolution.
All of this is unsurprising when considering the fact that UWA is directly involved in the promotion of Karl Marx and Socialist revolutionism. Some time after 2008, UWA partnered with the Baltimore Housing Roundtable to create a Leadership School.
On 5 June 2019, Nicole Fabricant – co-founder of another CCHD grantee, the South Baltimore Community Land Trust – posted a picture of a Leadership School session, tagging UWA in the post. In her post, she indicated that they were talking about Karl Marx’s revolutionism and “how to sow the seeds to resistance.”
On 9 January 2019, Fabricant anticipated this meeting by publicly stating that they would be talking about Marx.
Previous information
In a previous report published in 2011, UWA was discovered to have been a signatory on Equality Maryland’s website as standing in opposition to any ban on same-sex “marriage.” The original page identifying UWA as a supporter of same-sex “marriage” is still available here.
This information was presented to both John Carr (former director for the USCCB’s Department for Justice, Peace, and Human Development) and to Ralph McCloud, former Director for the CCHD). At the time of the meeting, the researchers who presented the information were told that Carr and McCloud would look into the matter and report back to us. A few weeks after the meeting, Carr and McCloud claimed that some low-level employee signed UWA onto Equality Maryland’s website as formal supporters of same-sex “marriage” without any authorization. However, subsequent to this conversation, the researchers discovered UWA’s board meeting minutes, wherein it was formally discussed and decided that UWA would partner with Equality Maryland.
The same former report showed that UWA was an “affiliate” of Progressive Maryland, which actively lobbied for same-sex “marriage.“
In 2020, during the summer riots that erupted all across the US, we tracked organizations that were openly calling for the defunding of police and fueling the riots with violent rhetoric. UWA was one such organization.
The city of Baltimore saw 292 incidents of gun violence in the period between June 5th and July 5th of this year. CCHD grantee United Workers’ Association (UWA) (granted 75,000 in the last reported grants cycle) is currently calling for the defunding of the Baltimore police department.
In this Twitter post from June 6 UWA explicitly called for the defunding of police.
UWA also posted a brief video from a May 30 protest pressuring the city to defund police:
UWA Retweeted this call to defund the police from June 8:
UWA again explicitly called for the cutting of the Baltimore Police Department on June 5:
Conclusion
Over the course of 20 years, the CCHD has provided over three-quarters of a million dollars to the United Workers Association. What is plain for all to see is that UWA is deeply involved in Socialist/Revolutionary movements, has an organizational history of supporting sexual deviancy (from its open endorsement of same-sex “marriage” in 2006 to its promotion of taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries in 2025), and it operates two proxy organizations pushing abortion, sexual deviancy, and Socialism.
This organization should never have qualified for a single penny from the Catholic Church, and had the CCHD performed the due diligence it claims to utilize in its “thorough vetting process,” that would have been the case. Instead, this stands as yet another example of the CCHD’s failure to protect Catholic funds and refusal to recognize and acknowledge gross violations of Catholic moral and social teaching. Once again, the Lepanto Institute is calling for the complete and permanent closure of the CCHD.
Reprinted with permission from the Lepanto Institute.
