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from the President

  Last year, my Labor Day message compared a fledgling teacher organization just opening negotiations (St. Denis Teachers Association, Manasquan, NJ) with a longtime group on the verge of a strike (ACT, Philadelphia).  This year, there is a new fledgling about to embark on contract talks (St. Rose Teachers' Association, Belmar, NJ) and last year's new kid on the block is gearing up for a possible strike.  With over 100 years of Church teaching on the right of workers to unionize and the responsibility of an employer to bargain in good faith, what could possibly be going wrong here?
 Throughout my 35 years as a teacher union advocate, the most difficult teachers to organize have been in the elementary schools.  Primarily (no pun intended), it is an issue of the Church wanting to have it both ways.  The party line from each diocese is that every parish school is an entity unto itself.  While those of us working with elementary teachers to secure a negotiated contract compare this to reinventing the wheel, we sit at the table and attempt to negotiate with each parish as a freestanding unit.  The problem we have encountered, however, is that the diocese consistently intrudes itself.  In the St. Denis situation, there is a diocesan representative on the parish team and the proposals must be approved by the bishop.  The diocesan handbook which has not been revised in 20 years has, by and large, been the school's proposal.
 The main stumbling block at St. Denis, in addition to salary (top of the scale on the Bishop's Minimum Salary Guide last year was $28,400), is a meaningful grievance procedure.  According to the attorney retained by the parish to act as chief negotiator, the grievance procedure proposed by the parish/diocese/bishop is "in stone."  Let me review these stone carvings with you: the final decision-making on all problems/disputes/grievance rests with the pastor.  In cases of suspension or termination of a tenured teacher, the pastor's decision can be appealed to an in-house board, then to the superintendent, the education secretary and, finally, the bishop.  The Teachers Association is seeking a neutral third party for the final decision in all matters other than faith and morals.
 On August 21st, the teachers, parents and teachers' supporters conducted a prayer vigil at the parish.  They read petitions for wisdom for all parties involved and for a fair and equitable settlement.  We can only pray that this will occur.
 In the meantime, teachers at St. Rose School are putting their contract proposals together so that negotiations on their first labor agreement can get underway sometime in September.  They also seek salary increases, a say over their working conditions and a grievance process which has a neutral third party as the final decision maker.
 The teachers in these two elementary schools are part of the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey.  Perhaps it might be good to mention here that their colleagues in the diocese's unionized high schools (Holy Cross, St. John Vianney and Mater Dei) all have negotiated contracts that contain grievance procedures which end in a decision by a neutral third party.
 The bishops cannot promulgate a document in which they state that "all the moral principles that govern the just operation of any economic endeavor apply to the Church and its agencies and institutions; indeed the Church should be exemplary," and then patently ignore it.  It is time for those who have the power and responsibility for Catholic schools to exercise this power equitably and responsibly.
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Teacher Resources: Red Ribbon Week

The National Family Partnership, a non-profit organization that eduates parents and communities about keeping children drug and alcohol free, has joined with TulipWorld.com to launch a new theme for its "Say No To Drugs" Red Ribbon Campaign, October 23-31, 2001.

The theme, "Plant the Promise to Keep Kids Drug Free," encourages families, schools and businesses to work together to reinforce the drug-free and alcohol-free message.  National "Plant the Promise Day" is Tuesday October 23.

Peggy Sapp, President of NFP, notes that "some 80 million young people and adults show their support of drug, alcohol and tobacco prevention each year by wearing or displaying red ribbons during Red Ribbon Week.  This year we hope to make an even larger impact by encouraging everyone to plant red tulips together."

Packages for schools are available through www.tulipworld.com, and come with lesson plans. Teachers who want further information about Red Ribbon Week can find it at www.nfp.org.

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THE FAITH COMMUNITY IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
by John J. Reilly, founding president of NACST
following are excerpts from an August/September 1994 Momentum article, "Is faith community at risk in unionized schools?" 
In my view, a faith community incarnates a genuine Christian love, mutual trust and respect, a spirit of sacrifice and a sharing of power, responsibility and resources among the partners, according to their abilities.  Without these components of partnership, there can be no faith community.
What is expected of the Catholic school administrator with regard to achieving and maintaining a faith community?  After all, the administrator is the person charged with planning and developing a truly Catholic school.
More often than not, Catholic school administrators are uncomfortable with the implementation of a faith community in their schools.  Although many know and use the proper terminology, they are unwilling to accept and give witness to the fundamental components of partnership that must be present in a faith community.  They fail to recognize that partnership means much more than words.  It requires action.
What about unionized schools?  Do they impede or support the creation of a faith community?  In a unionized school, we are talking about a negotiated contract, mutually agreed to, that serves as the basis for the relationship between the administration and the teaching staff.
Collective bargaining affords all parties, teachers as well as administrators, the opportunity to present their concerns about the conditions of employment.  The ability of both parties to express themselves on the questions before them is key.
If either the staff or the administration is remiss in living up to the agreement, provisions in the contract usually enable the aggrieved party to take steps to ensure adherence.  In the unionized school, the active participation of the entire faculty in the provisions of the contract fosters the spirit of mutuality needed for a faith community.

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THE CHURCH AND JUSTICE
excerpts from "Justice in the Church: the unfinished business of Catholic social teaching," keynote address by Rev. Richard McBrien at the 1996 NACST Convention in Philadelphia.
We belong to, and remain in, the Church because we believe ourselves to have been called to offer the rest of the world - our families, our friends, our neighbors, the wider human community - a credible and compelling sign of hope.  By the quality of our own lives and the integrity of our own faith we proclaim that created reality is ultimately good and gracious, that there is more to life than meets the eye, that we are called to eternal life around the heavenly banquet table, a table that knows no artificial boundaries.
We belong to, and remain in, the Church because we believe ourselves called not only to faith, but to justice, indeed a faith that does justice.  Justice for the world.  Justice for the Church.  Justice in the world.  Justice in the Church.
What the Church needs, indeed what the world itself needs today more than anything else is a lived spirituality of martyrdom, that is, the corporate witness of a people who actually practice what they preach, who act as they speak, whose faith issues in justice.
To be for justice is to stand up for the Catholic school teachers for whom the social teachings of the Church are a dead-letter, and to defend their right to unionize, even against the well-funded power of anti-union law firms employed and directed by the local bishop.
To be for justice, in the final accounting, is to be serious about our faith and about our participation in the faith-community that is the Church.  Otherwise, our Christian faith is a pious fraud, and our affiliation with the Church, an illusion of righteousness.

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Editorial: Power v. Dignity
In a New Jersey Catholic elementary school the viability of Catholic social justice teaching is being put to the test.
With more than 100 years of teaching about the dignity of labor and the rights of employees, the church hierarchy should be the champion of workers.
Teaching about the dignity of labor and the person is contrary to a culture in which workers are merely cogs in the economic machine.
Members of the hierarchy continue to present pro-employee Labor Day messages and speak out against the oppression of workers.
Members of the hierarchy also continue to direct pastors and Catholic school administrators not to "give up control" of the schools by agreeing to neutral third-party oversight of negotiated contracts.
Such is the case at St. Denis in Manasquan, NJ.
In fact, when members of the hierarchy frame Church employer/employee relations in power terms, they are not being countercultural, they are not championing workers' rights, they are not giving authentic witness to the Gospel values underlying the Church's social justice teaching.
Members of the hierarchy must frame labor relations in terms of dignity and Gospel values, not cultural power terms.
Amazingly, the small group of teachers at St. Denis are evangelizing more effectively than those who wax eloquent about justice and dignity, but then act as power brokers in the culture to which the Gospel is a challenge.

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Previous Issues
April 2001
February 2001
December 2000
September 2000
April 2000
September 1999
December 1999