In 1996, St. Louis’ Catholic elementary teachers shocked the church hierarchy by organizing. The archidiocese refused to bargain with them—but quietly made several improvements. Is the struggle over?
By Angie O’Gorman
Illustration by Jessica Jenkins
Martyrs to Mayhem. No, it’s not Stephen King’s newest title or the latest Iraqi insurgent group. It is a report, a casebook of sorts—one more chapter in the saga of the St. Louis Association of Catholic Elementary Educators and their 11-year struggle to achieve collective bargaining with the archdiocese.
The issues at stake: a fair wage, adequate benefits, acceptable severance packages and mutually agreed-upon policies that will not change from pastor to pastor, principal to principal, crisis to crisis.
Back in 1996, Archbishop Justin Rigali refused to recognize ACEE. His alternative: the Parent Teacher Compensation Committee, made up of 10 elected teacher representatives, five pastors and five parishioners. The committee would make recommendations on teachers’ salaries, benefits and working conditions. If the Archdiocesan Board of Education and the archbishop approved the recommendations, parish schools would be expected to conform.
The PTCC was simply advisory, without the power to make the mutually binding legal agreements the union sought as a basic right. Organizers saw the PTCC as an attempt at union-busting and a contradiction of the church’s social-justice teaching. They cited a 1986 pastoral letter from the U.S. bishops: “All Church institutions must also fully recognize the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively with the institution.”
Martyrs to Mayhem, a collection of stories compiled by ACEE president Mary Chubb in 2006, recounts why the teachers initially began their organizing effort and why it has, against all odds, endured. Names were changed to protect the teachers. Because of that anonymity, Bishop Robert Hermann, vicar for education, rejected the report’s credibility—an understandable position. However, as the teachers point out, he offered no safe way for them to come forward without fear of losing their jobs.
In Martyrs, teachers speak of harassment during contract renewals, unfulfilled contractual commitments, layoffs stemming from a teacher’s position on the salary scale (expressly forbidden by archdiocesan advisory guidelines), teaching assignments inappropriate to training and certification, and retribution for union involvement.
“Rufina” was a half-time teacher for two years. For the third year, she says, she was offered less than half-time pay for the same hours and responsibilities. “Cecilia” says that when two new priests arrived at her parish, she was told that she must reapply for her job—and that medical leave would result in the loss of tuition benefits for her son. “Anne” says she was due to sign her contract for the next school year, but the new principal could not tell her what her teaching assignment would be. Nothing mandated that she be informed any earlier than the day before school started, yet she’d be fined $1,000 if she broke her contract.
This is the mayhem that the report’s title alleges. “As long as policies are only advisory guidelines,” notes one teacher, “anything goes.”
Archdiocesan high-school teachers unionized in 1968, but archdiocesan officials have said they cannot negotiate with a union of elementary teachers, because those teachers are hired and fired by individual parishes. When Archbishop Raymond Burke arrived, he reiterated that even though benefits and guidelines are set by the archdiocese, the pastors are the teachers’ employers. And then he forbade pastors to bargain with the union.
Rita Schwartz, president of the National Association of Catholic School Teachers, snorts at the St. Louis archdiocese’s stance. “You have elementary teachers all over the place that are represented by a Catholic teachers’ union,” she says, listing successful groups in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Ohio. “It can be done any number of ways—by a standard contract, with addenda for particular parish circumstances or by individual contracts with each parish.”
Ken Short has chaired the PTCC, now called the Parish Teachers Committee, for eight years. Asked why it’s a better solution than a union, he says, “Well, I don’t know that I would put it in those words. Part of it is, this works extremely well for teachers. And if you inserted a collective-bargaining agreement into a parish, it could cause significant unrest to the community of that parish. By definition, a union advocates for the good of the members only, whether it’s for the good of the parish or not.”
The Catholic Church has a long history of support for unions—yet organizing a union within a church institution isn’t always easy. Varying definitions of justice, solidarity and obedience make rights and obligations harder to discern—and blur the boundaries of accountability. Catholic teachers tend to see their work as a vocation, a means of living out their faith. Church authority—management, in this case—presents itself as the voice of God. What, then, does it mean for a teacher to be faithful?
“I could never strike,” admits a teacher who asked that her name be withheld. She points out that school administrators are part of her parish faith community. “I couldn’t do it to them.” She supports the union’s goals, yet, like many of her colleagues, refused to join.
Others saw joining ACEE as an act of faith, a call for justice in a church top-heavy with power. “It is a disordered structure,” says another teacher who requested anonymity. “Neither my faith nor my teaching requires me to accept such dysfunction.”
There has been more than one nervous breakdown, more than one departure from the church. “There is a great gap between theory and practice in the church,” another teacher says slowly. “It leaves you not knowing what to believe. The hierarchy does not speak for God, that I know for sure. Forgive me, but they are just one more old-boys’ club.”
For an unrecognized union, ACEE has been uncommonly successful. Just about everything it sought has been achieved—although not, according to the archdiocese, because of ACEE. Salaries have increased: When the union formed, the elementary teachers were making $16,890 to $32,530 each year. Today, Short says, they’re making $25,000 to $53,000. (Chubb says the current range is $24,300 to $50,906.) Retirement contributions have increased from 3 to 5 percent. Medical leave has increased. Most of the teachers’ concerns have moved toward resolution—except for collective bargaining, which would require recognizing the union.
When Burke refused to do so—even after elections in 10 archdiocesan elementary schools showed majority support for representation through ACEE—the union filed suit with the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, alleging that he had violated church law. In early 2006, the suit was denied on a technicality. ACEE filed a further claim with the Supreme Tribunal, to which Burke was recently appointed. Their claim must be pursued through tribunal-approved attorneys in Italy, with all communication—written and verbal—in Latin. The union awaits a final decision.
Meanwhile, ACEE membership has fallen, thanks to school closings, teacher turnover, threats of firings and improvements already achieved. But ACEE isn’t giving up. Last sum-mer, after polite requests failed to persuade Burke to meet with union representatives, they staged marches, pickets and a sit-in.
Beneath all the rhetoric, both sides know that the logjam is not about money. The archdiocese has proved responsive on many financial issues. What the teachers haven’t won are the consistent, clear-cut policies that would require mutual accountability.
Angie O’Gorman worked for the archdiocesan human-rights office between 1993 and 2001. She is now a freelance writer focusing on religion and social issues.
