Where it all Began: Union of Catholic School Teachers Assembles in Baltimore
Clayton Sinyai | Oct 27 2016 - 12:29pm
On Oct. 8, in my capacity as Executive Director of the Catholic Labor Network, I was invited to speak at the annual convention of the National Association of Catholic School Teachers. They met in the historic see where the U.S. bishops, gathered at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884) had called for the construction of a comprehensive system of Catholic schools mirroring America’s parishes. The bishops wanted to ensure Catholic children an education rooted in their faith, rather than entrusting them to the Protestant-dominated public schools.
James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, who presided over the assembly, would soon distinguish himself as a labor advocate—he defended Catholic participation in trade unions (specifically the Knights of Labor) before Pope Leo XIII, not long before the Holy Father issued the social encyclical “Rerum Novarum.” Surely Gibbons was looking down on the N.A.C.S.T. assembly with some satisfaction. Delegates representing nearly 4,000 Catholic elementary and secondary school teachers had gathered to discuss the challenges they faced in collective bargaining, handling grievances and teacher retention.
Wait a minute, you are surely asking: Didn’t the supreme court rule in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago (1978) that the National Labor Relations Act did not apply to Catholic elementary and high schools because of the first amendment?
Well, yes. But the court did not rule that the teachers couldn’t have a union, just that the National Labor Relations Board couldn’t get involved. And after all, Catholics are bound by a higher law. When Leo XIII wrote “Rerum Novarum,” and said “workingmen’s unions…exist by right” he did not make an exception for employees of Catholic schools. Admittedly, in a time when the schools were largely staffed by men and women religious, he probably did not conceive of today’s lay workforce. But America’s bishops reached the obvious conclusion in 1986, indicating that “all church institutions must fully recognize the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively with the institution through whatever association or organization they freely choose.” Today, hundreds of Catholic schools bargain with unions representing their teachers.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/where-it-all-began-union-catholic-school-teachers-assembles-baltimore