February 2001 
from the President

     The separation of Church and State has long been at the center of the long-standing debate on vouchers for students attending non-public schools.  As the new administration in Washington places vouchers prominently in the new education initiative, we can hope that there will be some movement toward justice for the parents of students attending our schools.

     My focus in this article, however, is a wall of separation that impacts on Catholic School teachers and their right to form teacher associations and to have these groups recognized by their employers as they seek to negotiate wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment.

     Strictly speaking, with over 100 years of Catholic social teaching championing the rights of workers to organize and to negotiate, it should be a slam dunk for teachers in Catholic schools.  Unfortunately, this is too often not the case.  The U.S. Bishops, for example, frequently ignore the rules they established for employers (themselves included) in their 1986 Economic Pastoral.  They exhort employers to practice fair and just labor relations; they state that the Church should be "exemplary" in this regard.  What happens if it is not?  Where do Catholic School teachers go when their employers deny them their right to organize, when they threaten to close schools and fire teachers when words like union, negotiated contract, due process, job security and just wage are spoken?  Whom do they petition when they are told, "if you don't like it, leave"?

     In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the National Labor Relations Board was off-limits to Catholic elementary and secondary lay teachers.  NLRB had no jurisdiction.  While Catholic teachers in New York and Minnesota can organize under the auspices of a state agency, this is not the case for most every other group of Catholic teachers.  The Catholic Teachers Union in Camden, New Jersey, took their diocese to court when elementary teachers there were prevented from unionizing.  A favorable New Jersey Supreme Court decision has made it possible for Catholic School teachers throughout that state to unionize and to negotiate with their employers.

     Prominently listed on the Bishops Report Card which the National Association of Catholic School Teachers unveiled in Washington last November was the RIGHT TO ORGANIZE.  The Bishops received and F because they "frequently hire antiunion lawyers to fight unionizing."  "In many diocese, present practice is to issue ultimatums, not to negotiate."  This failing grade has, for a number of bishops, been one in which they have shown little or no improvement over the years.

     Shortly after the 1979 U.S. Supreme Court decision, NACST wrote the U.S. Bishops and urged them to set up a Catholic Labor Relations Board or at least to establish a process which dioceses and teachers could use should the teachers wish to exercise their right to unionize.  In 1986, the Bishops promulgated their Economic Pastoral in which they exhorted Church employers (Bishops included) to be exemplary in their labor relations.  This is another example of Bishops writing a social justice document and approving it, but not abiding by its tenets.

     NACST issued its own response to the Economic Pastoral and sent a copy to every Bishop.  We, again, urged them to recognize their employees' right to organize not just on paper, but in actual practice.  Some have, but a number have resisted, thereby setting up their own wall of separation.

     As NACST fights vigorously to knock down the wall separating the parents of our students from financial justice in regard to vouchers, we also continue to put pressure on the U.S. Bishops to address the wall of injustice they have erected between their employees and themselves.

     It is well past the time for the Bishops to knock down the wall separating Church employees from economic and social justice.  Let the Church lead by example and put its own house in order first.