Labor unions can – and should – exist at most Catholic employers

A new annual study from the Catholic Labor Network, titled “Gaudium et spes 2024,” notes that there are more than 600 U.S. Catholic institutions where operations seem to reflect the Church’s teachings related to collaborative, mutually rewarding relations of collective bargaining with their direct and indirect (contract) employees.

However, none of those hundreds of employers is in central Illinois, and just one downstate.

“Gaudium et spes” (“Joy and Hope”) is the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, one of four such documents from the Second Vatican Council in 1965.

“Catholic social teaching endorses the right of workers to form labor unions and calls upon labor and management to establish cooperative relationships to advance their craft and the common good,” wrote Clayton Sinyai of the Catholic Labor Network. “When Catholic institutions and trade unions establish mutually rewarding partnerships, they teach in deed as well as in word.”

The employment sectors of the U.S. Catholic Church:

 

* HEALTH CARE

The Catholic Health Association reports that there are more than 600 Catholic hospitals and nearly 1,600 nursing homes, and more than half the workers who enjoy union representation in the health-care sector work there. Catholic hospitals alone employ more than 500,000 full-time employees and another 200,000 part-time workers.

Catholic hospitals aren’t usually controlled by a diocese but managed by lay managers. Still, they’re required to follow guidelines established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who can revoke their status. One directive requires administrators to treat workers with respect and recognize staffs’ right to unionize.

Illinois has eight health-care institutions with labor relations with unions (AFSCME, Operating Engineers, SEIU and Teamsters), and all are in Chicago.

 

* K-12 SCHOOLS

The National Catholic Educational Association says there are almost 6,000 Catholic schools with 146,000  workers teaching 1.6 million kids.

Typically operated by the Church, whether a parish, diocese or religious order, they are exempt from federal labor law, according to court rulings based on the First Amendment right protecting the free exercise of religion. However, about 300 K-12 Catholic schools are unionized, from AFL-CIO affiliates to the independent National Association of Catholic School Teachers.

None are in Illinois.

 

* HIGHER EDUCATION

The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities says the United States has about 260 Catholic institutions of higher education serving more than 850,000 students, from the University of Notre Dame (with a study body of almost 9,000) to St. Elizabeth University in New Jersey (where enrollment is about 600).

“Tenured faculty are considered management employees,” Sinyai writes. “Although they can and sometimes do form unions, the National Labor Relations Board will not protect them from retaliation if they do so.

In recent years adjunct faculty in colleges across the United States — who have been assigned increasing amounts of the college teaching load — have sought to organize in unions,” he continues. “While a handful of Catholic colleges have resisted unionization – and even cited their Catholic identity as a reason! – a growing number of Catholic colleges have recognized unions of adjunct instructors.”

In Illinois, four universities have some workers represented by unions (Operating Engineers, SEIU and Unite Here), all in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

 

* OTHER CATHOLIC SERVICES

The Catholic Church has dozens of other employers. Catholic Charities USA alone has more than 60,000 U.S. workers serving some 9 million people in need.

Illinois has seven Catholic employers, from Catholic Social Services in Belleville to Maryville Academy in Des Plaines (AFSCME, SEIU and the Teamsters).

 

Throughout Catholic institutions, responsible managers are expected to be faithful to their own teachings. Indeed, in the 170-page “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” the Vatican elaborates in “The Rights of Workers” section that there is an unmistakable “right to assemble and form associations; and the right to strike ‘when it cannot be avoided, or at least when it is necessary to obtain a proportionate benefit’.”