By Beth Myers, Executive Director of STITCH
Around Washington, D.C. this week, it’s Pope-mania with Pope Benedict XIV visiting the United
States for the first time. It is an interesting
time to think about the Catholic Church and worker’s rights. While the Catholic
Worker movement is still going strong around the globe, does the Catholic Church
still publicly take as strong of a stand in support of unions as they once did?
And if they act badly towards their own workers are they putting their moral
authority on this issue on the line?
No Unions for
School Teachers
This week the Nation Magazine wrote
about the struggle and anti-union activity that teachers in Catholic schools
face when trying to organize unions in their schools. It’s a sad statement that
one of the strongest supporters of unionism and worker’s rights is now trying to
break the unions using company unions or just flat out not negotiating with
them. Teacher’s unions are responsible for making sure that women (the majority
of the members are women) are able to pass on their passion for knowledge and
still make a living wage.
Read this passage from the
article:
However, in
recent years in other parts of the country, Catholic bishops have been busting
longstanding Catholic school teachers' unions and stripping teachers of their
right to unionize. In 2004, Archbishop Sean O'Malley ended thirty-six years of
the Boston
Archdiocese's negotiation of a single contract with the high schools by
decentralizing the system and then refusing to recognize the union any longer.
Mary Chubb,
a veteran Catholic school teacher, spent nearly ten years trying to gain
recognition for elementary school teachers in St. Louis, Missouri. Bishop Raymond
Burke summarily killed that movement in 2004 by issuing an unequivocal written
decree stating that, "Neither the Archdiocese nor individual parishes will
recognize or bargain collectively with any organization as a representative of
the teachers."
You can read the full article
here:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080428/bonavoglia