On labor issues, bishops say one thing, do another

The following editorial appeared in the National Catholic Reporter, June 27, 2009. The author is Rita C. Schwartz, President, National Association of Catholic School Teachers.

On labor issues, bishops say one thing, do another

On June 22, 2009, “Respecting the Just Right of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions” was released by a Coalition consisting of the AFL-CIO, SEIU International, Catholic Health Association and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The National association of Catholic School Teachers, a national union representing teachers in Catholic elementary and secondary schools, takes issue with the members of the Bishops’ Conference because of their negligence in the application of Catholic social teaching when their fellow bishops are involved, especially in regard to employees most directly under the bishops’ control, in particular, Catholic school teachers.

In the foreword to “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers,” Bishop William Murphy talks about the ten year dialogue exploring “how Catholic social teaching should shape the actions of unions, management and others in assuring workers a free and fair choice on questions of representation in the workplace.” What follows is a blueprint to be followed by management and labor in Catholic Health Care institutions to ensure a process that is “free, fair and respectful.”
Throughout the document, the U.S. Bishops are making clear to Catholic healthcare employers that a worker’s right to unionize is “a fundamental principle of social justice recognized by the church.”

This is the latest social justice document of the U.S. Bishops that all but sky writes DO AS WE SAY, NOT AS WE DO. Where were the bishops when Cardinal Sean O’Malley cut the archdiocesan high school system into individual units and discarded the 30 year history of union recognition and negotiated contracts, making the teachers employees at will?

Where were the bishops when former St. Louis Archbishop, Raymond Burke, wrote to teachers in the fledgling elementary teachers’ union that “Neither the Archdiocese nor individual parishes will recognize or bargain collectively with any organization as a representative of teachers,” while at the same time recognizing and negotiating with the high school union?

Where were the bishops when Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino not only busted the Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers after some 30 years of union recognition but established his own “company union,” something which is illegal in every other workplace in America?

Cardinal McCarrick, formerly of Washington, D.C. sums up the DO AS I SAY, - “Catholic social teaching can and should guide relationships between management and labor. It should be up to workers to decide through a fair process whether to be represented by a union. . . we want to ensure that workers make these choices freely and fairly ...” while Cardinal McCarrick’s fellow bishops, O’Malley, Burke and Martino, serve as the poster children for the bishops’ Catholic Social Teaching Wall of Shame (NOT AS WE DO).

The National Association of Catholic School Teachers is actively working with local Catholic School Teacher unions throughout Pennsylvania to achieve passage of House Bill 26, legislation that will provide safeguards for a fair process of union recognition and collective bargaining.

Here, as well, the bishops of Pennsylvania have gone all out to block the bill’s passage.

Until the U.S. Bishops begin to address the just rights of other church employees, the laborers in the church’s educational vineyards can only regard “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers” as but one more example of the bishops’ failure to practice what they preach.

Health, labor leaders OK principles to help workers decide on unions

The following article appeared in US Catholic magazine, June 23, 2009:

Health, labor leaders OK principles to help workers decide on unions

After more than two years of consultations, leaders from Catholic health care, the labor movement and the U.S. bishops' conference have agreed on a set of principles designed to ensure a fair process as health care workers decide whether to join a union.

A 12-page document laying out the principles, titled "Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions," was made public June 22 during a teleconference call from Washington.

"The heart of this unusual consensus is that it's up to workers -- not bishops, hospital managers or union leaders -- to decide ... whether or not to be represented by a union and if so, which union, in the workplace," said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington and a participant in the consultations.

"Because Catholic health care is a ministry, not an industry, how it treats its workers and how organized labor treats Catholic health care are not simply internal matters," the cardinal added. "They are also not just another arena for labor conflict and tactics, but ought to reflect long-standing Catholic teaching on work and workers, health care and the common good."

The document calls on unions and employers to respect "each other's mission and legitimacy" and to pledge not to "demean or undermine each other's institutions, leaders, representatives, effectiveness or motives." Both sides also must be "dedicated to ensuring that organizing campaigns will not disturb patients or interfere with the delivery of patient care," it says.

Among the document's other "principles for a 'fair and just' organizing model" are: equal access to information, truthful and balanced communications, a pressure-free environment, a fair and expeditious process, meaningful enforcement of the local agreement, and honoring employee decisions.

"This document offers 'guidance and options,' not easy answers," Cardinal McCarrick said. "It calls for similar dialogue and agreement at the local level, recognizing that principles are often more clear in high-level discussions than in the midst of local realities and personalities, especially where there is real pain and anger resulting from previous or ongoing disputes and tactics."

He also said the document "offers options and alternatives rather than commandments and mandates."

Among the participants in the consultation that began in December 2006 were Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who is president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association; John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO; Dennis Rivera, chairman of the health care sector of the Service Employees International Union; and Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., chairman of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

John Feerick, former dean of the Fordham School of Law and executive director of the Feerick Center for Social Justice and Dispute Resolution at Fordham, and his staff facilitated the discussions.

Feerick called the document "a tribute to the commitment made by these leaders to hear each other out on these difficult issues."

Sister Carol said Catholic health care leaders believe that "the greatest resource of Catholic health care" is its workers and said the new document "serves first and foremost the employees, but also management."

She cautioned against assumptions about how the document would apply in any particular situation and said participants in the consultation were careful "not to make a judgment on any individual situation when we don't have all the information."

Sweeney, participating in the conference call from Brussels, Belgium, said he and other members of the consultation group had been "determined to make this a successful dialogue."

"The theme that runs through all this is the workers' right to organize as part of church teaching," he said.

Rivera said he was "very proud of the process" and expressed confidence that Catholic health care employees -- if offered a choice free from pressure, harassment or intimidation -- will choose to be represented by unions.

He said he had "nothing but the highest expectations that these guidelines will be adhered to by the majority of Catholic organizations."

In a foreword to the document, Bishop Murphy said past instances "of conflict and controversy surrounding Catholic health care and labor have diminished Catholic values, health care ministry, the labor movement and our common commitment to a fair and just workplace."

"It is time to renew our focus on the heart of Catholic health care, the patients we serve and the workers who provide the care," he added. "This will require restraint and cooperation, new attitudes and behaviors by all those in our health care ministry -- workers and managers, bishops and consumers."

Cardinal McCarrick stressed, however, that the document was not binding on bishops, hospital systems or unions.

"We're not in a position to bind," he said. "We're not an agency to which any of those groups has pledged allegiance."

Bishops’ labor document seen as breakthrough

The following article appeared in the National Catholic Reporter, June 24, 2009:

Bishops’ labor document seen as breakthrough

A new U.S. bishops’ document aimed at improving long-troubled labor relations in Catholic health care “is an enormous breakthrough,” said Manhattan College religious studies professor Joseph J. Fahey, chairman of Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice.

“This is a milestone event,” said union leader Gerald M. Shea, assistant for government affairs to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney.

“It’s just stunning,” said John Carr, secretary for justice, peace and human development at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “I mean, you have the highest levels of the labor movement and the Catholic Church reaching an agreement when nobody else can, and it’s a wonderful process.”

The 16-page document, released June 22 by the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, is titled “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions.” It is available on the Web .

The result of two years of dialogue by a team of bishops, national labor leaders and top representatives of Catholic health care, it offers a constructive alternative to what retired Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington called the “antagonistic, confrontational and resisting tactics which too often come in” when workers in Catholic hospitals seek union representation. Cardinal McCarrick chaired the dialogue.

“The heart of this unusual consensus,” he said, “is that it is up to workers -- not bishops, hospital managers or union leaders -- to decide ‘through a fair process’ whether or not to be represented by a union and, if so, which union, in the workplace.”

Fahey said that although the document is addressed to the health care field, it could mark a major watershed for all labor relations in the U.S. church -- in Catholic schools, colleges and universities and even diocesan and parish employment.

“It’s firmly rooted in Catholic social teaching” on workers’ rights, he said.

Specifically, the guidelines call for the employer and the union or unions seeking certification to agree beforehand to a series of procedures that establish a pressure-free environment in which employees have equal access to balanced information from both sides.

The process includes avoiding lengthy hearings or other legal delays and mutual acceptance of a neutral authority to ensure that the principles established in the guidelines are followed and to resolve any issues that arise.

Employers and unions are to agree to honor the results of an election and not engage in negative or disparaging conduct.

“All parties are committed to respecting each other’s mission and legitimacy and (acknowledging) that a fair and just work place can exist in a unionized or non-unionized environment,” Cardinal McCarrick said at a media teleconference introducing the document.
For Catholic hospitals -- collectively the largest non-profit employer in the U.S. health care industry -- use of the guidelines could mark an end to that difficult, almost invariably self-defeating situation in which the Catholic agency has to explain the apparent contradiction between its clear commitment to Catholic social teaching in the ministry of health care and its apparent denial or obstruction of the church’s teaching on the inherent right of all workers to organize and engage in collective bargaining with their employers to protect their rights and improve wages and social conditions in the workplace.

“It’s not going to change things overnight,” said Shea, a participant in the dialogue, but “it offers an alternative” to the contentious relations of the past.

He added that the three main parties to the agreement -- the bishops, the Catholic Health Association and its affiliates and the key unions (the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union) -- have committed themselves to a common educational effort in coming months, using the same materials, to familiarize their respective constituents with the document and promote its implementation.

He said the bishops are to have a workshop on the guidelines at the next USCCB meeting in November, and the Catholic Health Association and the AFL-CIO have similar plans to educate their members on the guidelines.

“None of us -- Catholic health care, the labor movement or the church -- has been well served with the status quo with all of its conflicts and contention,” said Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., chairman of the USCCB domestic justice committee, under whose aegis the dialogue took place.

“It is time to renew our focus on the heart of Catholic health care, the patients we serve and the workers who provide the care,” he added. “This will require restraint and cooperation, new attitudes and behaviors by all those in our health care ministry -- workers and managers, bishops and consumers.”

“The pain and damage from past disputes is real,” he said. “But in our hearts we know the contentious status quo diminishes all of us -- Catholic health care, labor and the church.”
The document is clear in its starting point that health care, in Catholic social teaching, is “both a service and a ministry” and that Catholic social teaching not only frames that service to people in need of health care but also governs the church’s commitment to provide “a just and fair workplace for workers” who serve those people.

Cardinal McCarrick said, “Because Catholic health care is a ministry, not an industry, how it treats its workers and how organized labor treats Catholic health care are not simply internal matters. They are also not just another arena for labor conflict and tactics, but ought to reflect longstanding Catholic teaching on work and workers, health care and the common good.”
He said the document is based on two key values -- “the central role of workers themselves in making choices about representation” and the principle that employers and unions should come together to reach “mutual agreement” on how workers can be assured of an opportunity to “make their choices freely and fairly.”

US Bishops issue guidelines for labor disputes

The following article is from the Catholic News Agency, June 24, 2009:

US Bishops issue guidelines for labor disputes

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), with leaders from Catholic health care providers and the labor movement, has released guidelines for creating a “fair process” for health care workers to decide whether or not to form a new union.

The new document outlining the guidelines is titled “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions,” and took more than 10 years to come to a consensus about. (Follow this link for the document)

Parties to the agreement include the USCCB, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, the Associated Press reports.

According to the USCCB, the effort to produce the document intended to find “common ground” on “alternative approaches” for applying Catholic social teachings on the rights of workers to choose whether or not to be represented by unions.

“Though they had different perspectives and points of view in many areas, the participants shared the conviction that it is up to workers—not bishops, hospital managers, or union leaders—to decide how they will be represented in the workplace,” said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who chaired the dialogue.

“This remarkable dialogue produced an unprecedented agreement because of the principles of Catholic social teaching and the quality of the leaders involved,” the cardinal said.

The new document lists seven key principles for appropriate conduct by employer and union representatives intended to help ensure employees are allowed to make informed decisions without undue pressure.

It suggests that unions and employers agree on specific ways they will “demonstrate respect” for each other’s organization and mission; provide workers with “equal access” to information; adhere to standards for truthfulness and balance in communications; create a “pressure-free” environment; allow workers to vote through a fair and expeditious process and honor employees’ decisions regardless of the outcome.

The document also advises that unions and employers create a system to enforce these principles during organizing drives.

The Associated Press reports that under the agreement hospital managers agree not to use “traditional anti-union tactics” such as hiring union-busting firms to defeat organizing drives. For their part, unions agreed not to publicly attack Catholic health care organizations during labor campaigns.

Bishop William Murphy, Chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development and a participant in the dialogue, said the approach depends on “civil dialogue” between unions and employers who are focusing on how workers’ “right to decide” will be respected.

“By placing workers at the center of the process, the group affirmed the core of Catholic Social Doctrine,” he said.

The “Guidance and Options” document is not binding on individual bishops, hospitals and unions but is intended to provide guidance for their conduct during organizing efforts.
The USCCB describes the document as offering “principles and practical alternatives” for leaders of Catholic health care and unions who want to avoid the “tension and conflict” that can accompany organizing drives.

Speaking to the Associated Press, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said the dialogue has emphasized “workers' rights to organize as part of Church teachings.”

Reportedly more than 600,000 employees work in nearly 600 Catholic hospitals nationwide.
“Because Catholic Health Care is a ministry not an industry, how it treats its workers and how organized labor treats Catholic Health Care are not simply internal matters, but should reflect Catholic teaching on work and workers, heath care and the common good,” Cardinal McCarrick said.

Labor unions, Catholic hospitals to end conflict

The following article from the Associated Press was released on June 23, 2009:

Labor unions, Catholic hospitals to end conflict

Labor unions and Catholic leaders have reached an agreement designed to end years of bitter hostilities that often surrounded union efforts to organize workers at Catholic hospitals.
The accord, announced Monday, seeks to apply Catholic teachings that recognize the right of workers to "freely and fairly" decide whether to join a union.

One of the key principles directs both employers and unions to refrain from harassing, threatening, intimidating or coercing workers.

The agreement touches on a thorny situation for Catholic hospitals, some of which have aggressively resisted union organizing amid complaints that their conduct contradicts Catholic doctrine on social justice.

In Chicago, for instance, union leaders have accused hospital officials at Resurrection Health Care of worker intimidation and other unfair tactics to thwart a six-year effort to unionize workers at the company's eight hospitals. The company has denied those claims.

"The central actors in these dramas have to be the workers themselves, that's what we feel is the strength of the document," said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, D.C., who helped lead the discussions.

Under the agreement, hospital managers agree not to use "traditional anti-union tactics," including hiring firms, known as union-busters, that work with companies to defeat organizing drives. Unions also agree not to publicly attack Catholic health care organizations during labor campaigns.

Nearly 600 Catholic hospitals that employ about 600,000 workers are covered under the agreement. Roughly 15 percent of those workers are currently believed to be union members.
The recommendations do not bind individual bishops, hospitals or unions but provide guidance in how they are expected to conduct themselves during union organizing efforts. Union leaders believe it will be easier to organize workers at the nation's Catholic health centers if hospital managers abide by the agreement.

"The theme that runs through all of this as far as I'm concerned is the emphasis on workers' rights to organize as part of church teachings," said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney.
Parties to the accord include the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union.

Catholic Bishops, Health Providers, Unions Cooperate to Support Workers’ Rights

When Bishop Martino busted the union which had represented Catholic school teachers in the Diocese of Scranton, there was an immediate outcry, not only from the teachers, but from all who understood that the Bishop’s actions were contrary to established Catholic social teachings and basic human rights. On June 22, The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) published “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions.” Not only is this a new step forward for workers at Catholic health facilities: a set of principles to ensure that workers have a fair process to bargain for a better life, but it reaffirms why what Bishop Martino has done to his own employees is so egregiously wrong.

In the USCCB publication, in cooperation with Catholic health care providers and the union movement, the Bishops have laid out guidelines for Catholic health care ministries across the country, and by extension, for all who work for the Catholic Church. These guidelines, and the process that produced them, are an encouraging model of cooperation and collaboration in protecting workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain.

The new guidelines cover seven principles for employers when workers seek a union: Respect; Access to information; Truthful communication; Pressure-free environment; Expeditious process; Honoring employee decisions; and Meaningful enforcement of these principles.

Taken together, the guidelines will ensure that Catholic employers drop their aggressive tactics in fighting unions, such as delays, one-on-one meetings, captive audience sessions, and threats and intimidations. The guidelines envision a local agreement that would be enforceable through an agreed-upon neutral party.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, who chaired the three-way dialogue said, “Catholic social teaching can and should guide relationships between management and labor. It should be up to workers to decide through a fair process whether to be represented by a union….we want to ensure that workers make these choices freely and fairly.”

Health care is a fundamental social good, McCarrick said—a human right. Catholic hospitals and health ministries need to provide health care consistently with Catholic values and teachings on the dignity of workers, he said.

Because of their willingness to engage in dialogue, the bishops and the leaders of Catholic health care displayed real courage and leadership and have set an example for all to follow. That coupled with the fact that Pope Benedict XVI recently noted that Catholic social teachings are strongly supportive of workers’ freedom to form unions and recognized the importance of workers’ rights in a modern economy. Unfortunately, recent studies show the freedom to form a union is at risk from a legal climate that allows management harassment and intimidation. The principles put forward by the Catholic bishops are an important response to these trends in the workplace.

Bishop Martino has in the past proclaimed that the rest of the US bishops don’t speak for him. Will he continue to act in the rogue fashion he has so far chosen, or will this latest development show him the path back to the Catholic mainstream?

Diocese eliminates 55 teaching positions

The following article appeared in the Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice, June 12, 2009.

Diocese eliminates 55 teaching positions

After 36 years of teaching high school students social studies, first at Bishop Hoban and then at Holy Redeemer, Jim Maloney received the notice in the mail.

The Diocese of Scranton doesn't need him anymore.

"The most disappointing part was our administration did not have the courage to call us and tell us to our faces that we are being dismissed," he said.

Maloney's job is one of 55 teaching positions eliminated across the Holy Redeemer and Holy Cross regional school systems, which include schools in Luzerne, Lackawanna, Wayne and Bradford counties. In addition, salaries will be frozen for all employees, but school employees' health insurance premiums will not increase.

Letters informing teachers of their status were mailed Monday, but the official announcement was not made until Thursday in The Catholic Light, the diocese newspaper.

The majority of the eliminations, 36, come from the closing of Ss. Peter and Paul Elementary School in Plains Township, St. Aloysius Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre and St. Vincent Elementary School in Honesdale. The remaining 19 eliminated positions are due to continued declining enrollment across the two systems.

Projections for the 2009-10 school year show Holy Redeemer system enrollment down 357 students, from 3,496 to 3,139. The Holy Cross system enrollment is projected to decrease by 296 students, from 3,198 to 2,902.

"The Diocese hopes to see its school systems grow and continue to operate into the future. At the same time, we must continue to monitor the viability of all of our schools. Hopefully, parents will recognize the value of a Catholic education and enrollment will stabilize," diocese spokesman Bill Genello said via e-mail.

Teachers will be eligible to fill open positions at other schools with the diocese, based on seniority and other criteria outlined by the diocese. They will continue to receive salaries until Aug. 21 and health benefits until the end of August.

Michael Milz, president of the Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers, which is fighting for recognition from Bishop Joseph Martino, said he is upset that because the union is not recognized, the teachers have no protection and are at-will employees that can be let go at any time.

"The fair system, and the way any other system works, is last hired is first to be asked to leave in a layoff," Milz said.

Teachers build seniority in the school system, in a specific school, in either elementary or secondary education and in a specific subject area. When teachers change schools because of consolidations, they lose seniority built up over years. Therefore, teachers like Maloney with decades of experience with the Diocese of Scranton can have low seniority because they changed schools, and be first to let go during layoffs.

"They used them up and threw them away when they didn't need them anymore," Milz said. "This will destroy the system. It destroys morale. It rewards no one for dedication."

If enrollment increases by the beginning of the school year, it is possible that the laid-off teachers could be hired to handle the additional students, according to the diocese.

A similar version of this story appeared in the Scranton Times Tribune.