State politician squares off against bishop in labor fight

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. -- State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski doesn’t like the position he’s in as a faithful Catholic and member of St. Mary of the Maternity Parish.

Pashinski is leading the battle in the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives against his own bishop. As sponsor of House Bill 2626, Pashinski is trying to resurrect the Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers, a union no longer recognized by Scranton Bishop Joseph F. Martino.

Earlier this year, Martino announced in the diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Light, he would no longer recognize the teachers’ association, implementing in its place an employee relations program critics have dubbed “a company union.” Martino has refused to meet with union representatives, and will not take questions on the matter from media outlets.

Pashinski, 62, a Pennsylvania native, admits to being torn, but he says he is being forced to take on his bishop because he must also be loyal to his constituents in this heavily unionized and heavily Catholic region of northeastern Pennsylvania.

“It’s a difficult position for a lot of people, all of us who love our faith,” he said. “This is not the kind of position we want to be in.”

Following the 2007 closure of some diocesan schools and the consolidation of others, diocesan officials assured teacher association president Michael Milz that the union would be recognized under the restructured system. Martino later changed his mind, a decision he announced last January in The Catholic Light.

-- CNS/Rich Banick/Catholic Light: Bishop Joseph F. MartinoMartino’s decision has set off a firestorm in parishes. Teachers and students have engaged in walkouts and pro-union rallies have been held throughout the diocese. Milz said he has received supportive phone calls from dozens of diocesan priests who back the union, but refuse to speak out publicly against Martino.

The union has turned to the legislature for help. Because Catholic lay teachers were not included for protections in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, the union has asked the state legislature to amend the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act to cover lay employees of religiously affiliated schools. If the bill passes both houses, and is signed into law by the governor, the Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers can start organizing in the schools again. Pashinski said the legislation has a strong chance of being approved next year.

Pashinski got some chuckles from the audience at the daylong hearing when he asked a panel of Catholic opponents of HB 2626 if the Vatican had a union. When none of the panelists knew the answer, Pashinski said the Vatican does, indeed, have a labor union.

Although Martino has refused to meet with the union or the news media, he was well represented at two hearings conducted by the House Labor Relations Committee in which it was clear the union had strong support from committee members.

Robert L. Paserba, superintendent for Catholic schools in the Pittsburgh diocese, which has some unionized teachers, spoke against the bill, saying it “would create a general statewide law with unknown consequences and dangerous involvement of the state in defining religious issues and mission in Catholic parish schools and Catholic high schools. Moreover, it would represent the choosing of sides in an internal church dispute over the application of church social teaching in one particular diocese.”

A different picture was painted by Irene M. Tori, vice president of the Association of Catholic Teachers, which she called “the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for the lay teachers in the 29 [high] schools of the archdiocese of Philadelphia.”

Tori, who spent 25 years as a math teacher in Archbishop Ryan High School in northeast Philadelphia, said the union has been unable to organize the diocese’s elementary schoolteachers and maintenance workers because they fear losing their jobs if they meet with union officials.

“The fear is pervasive,” Tori said at a Sept. 18 Labor Relations Committee hearing at Wilkes University. Tori said the workers always ask her: “ ‘Can I be fired for doing this?’ We would always answer them honestly and say, ‘Yes.’ At that point the teachers, no matter how bad the working conditions were, would begin to backtrack.

“Passage of House Bill 2626 would change the answer that the association has to give them.”

Rita C. Schwartz, president of the Philadelphia-based National Association of Catholic School Teachers, said HB 2626 would offer protections to Catholic lay teachers throughout the state. At the present time, six of the state’s eight dioceses have Catholic teachers’ unions.

“Since there is at present no protection under the law, all Catholic school teachers in Pennsylvania are one bishop away from what has happened in the diocese of Scranton,” she said.

Over the years, Tori said she has filed eight complaints “against various bishops” with the Vatican over union-related disputes. None was resolved in the union’s favor. “It’s kind of like Lions 8, Christians 0,” she said.

Last month, the Scranton teachers’ association lost its Vatican appeal over Martino’s decision not to recognize the union.

Canon lawyer Nicholas P. Cafardi, dean emeritus of Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University Law School, spoke against HB 2626.

Raised in a pro-union family, Cafardi said the Code of Canon Law gives the bishop full authority over church schools. “Teachers in Catholic schools are the bishop’s collaborators in this theological ministry,” Cafardi said at the hearing. “They are not simply employees, but are rather co-ministers with the bishop in his ministry of Catholic education.”

A “state-enforced labor relations model ... would impede if not destroy this co-ministry,” he said. “It would require the diocesan bishop to use the mechanisms of the state to deal with what is not, at base, a secular, but rather a religious and spiritual relationship.

“Should the proposed legislation be adopted, the church-state conflicts that it would propagate are enormous.”

In an interview with NCR, Cafardi said he was not familiar with the specifics of the Scranton standoff between Martino and the teacher association, but he added that the bishop also has a role to play in settling disputes.

“Speaking abstractly, because I don’t know the facts in Scranton,” Cafardi said, “if the code says these people are your co-ministers, you need to treat them as co-ministers. You need to treat them as your full collaborators in propagating the faith, which just means that you treat them with a certain level of respect.

“If the church says that, then act that way. While it means that the state should not interfere in that relationship, it also means that the bishop should prize it and nurture it.”

For his part, Pashinski would be happy not to be leading the charge of state interference with his church.

“I don’t like being in this position,” Pashinski told NCR. “If these five other [Pennsylvania] dioceses worked it out with their bishops, they don’t have a problem. Government’s out of it.

“I’m having difficulty as a Catholic trying to understand how, when the bishop represents the shepherd of Jesus Christ, why he can’t bring all the members of the flock together and settle it the way I believe Jesus would.

“[In Scranton] there doesn’t seem to be any movement to meet with the members of the flock. This is not a regular employer-employee relationship. These teachers are Catholic teachers. Every Sunday they put their money in the basket to support the schools, to support the churches, and on top of that they’re dedicating their lives to promote our faith for generations to come.”

Patrick O’Neill is a freelance writer living in Raleigh, N.C.

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National Catholic Reporter November 28, 2008