Dear Bishop Martino: February 27, 2008
I write you publicly with great reluctance, as a priest of more than fifty years and as an teacher, researcher
and activist of the Catholic Church’s ministry in labor-management relations for more than thirty years. However,
after four efforts – offering assistance to your education staff, a personal letter to you, a letter to the Papal Nuncio,
and a telephone request to chat with you, there has been only silence or refusal. I would have preferred to chat with
you privately, person-to-person.
Your public statement reveals the handiwork of the management consultant firm hired, to establish an
―Employee Relations Program‖, which is widely recognized simply as a ―company union‖. The phenomenon
appeared in the early 20th century with the so-called ―American Plan‖, well articulated by oil magnate John D.
Rockefeller. Patricia Cayo Sexton’s The War on Labor and the Left said, ―Under the labor relations plan advanced
by Rockefeller, barriers between employers and employees would dissolve, and the two opposing teams would
become one – the company’s. Representing this solidarity would be the company unions.‖ [p. 209]
I need not rehearse the teaching of Leo XIII, the U.S. Bishops’ 1919 Pastoral, Pius XI and John A. Ryan in
support of real unions. However, do recall that the 1971 World Synod of Bishops said those who preach social
justice must first be just in their own eyes, a corollary of which is support of real unions in Catholic institutions.
The U.S. Bishops issued a pastoral on Health Care in the 1970s, which affirmed the right of all hospital workers to
form their own union, despite financial challenges to those institutions. When Southeast Bishops (GA, NC, SC,
VA) endorsed the J. P. Stevens Boycott in 1980, they did not support a ―company union‖ but a real union, the
Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. In 1981 when Pope John Paul II wrote Laborem Exercens
(Human Labor) and said labor unions are indispensable in an industrialized world, he did not mean ―company
unions‖. When the U.S. Catholic Bishops issued their 1986 Pastoral, ―Economic Justice for All‖, they supported
real unions, not ―company unions‖.
―Company unions‖ abound in recent experiments in labor-management relations programs with such
attractive titles as ―Quality Work Circles‖, ―Human Resource Departments‖, etc. Some have been successful when
employees have a ―bona-fide ―grievance procedure i.e. recourse to independent ―outsiders‖ or to arbitration. Too
often, such ―company unions‖ gladly accept employees’ creative ideas but reluctantly their grievances. In your
Employee Relations Program not only is the moral right of workers to form their own union taken away, but their
moral right as adults to negotiate their wages, benefits, working hours, working conditions, job tenure (hiring and
firing) and grievance procedure. Without those rights, the employees’ jobs and livelihood are at stake and they are
afraid to speak out, to protest, to strike. Such company unions are referred to as modern day feudalism or worse.
This intrinsic human right of workers to organize themselves was derived in no small measure as an antidote to the
fear and intimidation which workers suffer in the policies and treatment of unfair, unjust, dictatorial and other
oppressive employers.
You insist that the financial status of the Scranton Diocese is so fragile that a real union might bring about
the collapse of the entire diocesan educational system. Yes, there is fragility, but why must the teachers have to
suffer financially and be denied not only their moral right to unionize, but also their moral right to an adequate
living wage – a bedrock of Catholic social teaching? Granted parents have a right to the Catholic education of their
children. However, if parents cannot pay more tuition and the wider Catholic population of the diocese is unwilling
or unable to contribute more money to the costs of its school system, the teachers still have a right to ample and
detailed information, to forego their moral rights to form a union and to receive an adequate living wage. Your
action pits the one right of parents against the two rights of the Scranton Diocesan Association of Catholic teachers
(SDACT) members. Furthermore, many teachers are already holding two jobs or living in four or five income
families. Thus, a third right is challenged – the practice of Catholic family values.
Consequently, in canon law and justice there is an even greater burden of proof than alleged in the original
and subsequent public statements. Records should be available not only to these dedicated teachers seeking a
union, but also to the entire community. Otherwise, credibility is at stake. In your original statement you referred
to the teachers’ association as selfish (recently revised to ―self interested‖) and unconcerned about the financial
viability of the diocesan educational ―ministry‖ -- the usual ―pitch‖ of management consultants! The proof of such
an outlandish charge beggars, unless the records of negotiation sessions and financial details are presented to the
public. Otherwise, an unjust accusation is made about the teachers. Thus, what steps has the diocese taken to
establish or enhance an endowment for Catholic education, as some dioceses have done? What steps has the
diocese taken to enlist the support of interested and competent lay people to contribute and/or elicit donations and
to guide diocesan financial and personnel policies, without the bias of a profit-making management consultant
firm?
Such statements also reveal the management consultants’ slight-of-hand about unions today as passé,
especially in non-profit organizations and/or service industries, such as education and health care. In the early
1970s the U.S. government did not think so when it placed health care under the Wagner Act. Also, public and
non-religious educational institutions are covered by many state laws. The U.S. Supreme Court decision to exempt
religious schools from coverage by the National Labor Relations Board was based not on separation of church and
state, but the failure of the Wagner Act to cover religious elementary and secondary education. The court punted!
However, immediately after that decision there were weak efforts to seek an amendment to the Wagner Act and to
establish diocesan personnel programs which included real unions, not ―company unions‖. However, such never
ensued, because Catholic educational administrators in most dioceses failed to heed the urgings of the U.S. Catholic
Conference (USCC) and the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA).
Now is the time for the Scranton Diocese to be creative. Whatever the arguments and differences, the
feelings and memories of the past, let there begin again negotiations with mutual respect and cordiality. Add to the
admonition that unions in Catholic institutions should be of a higher caliber than in industry or commerce, that so
should the employers! If it means conciliation, meditation or arbitration, let the Scranton Diocese take the steps
necessary to recognize and negotiate with the Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers. An effective
response would be to implement the creative ―gain sharing‖ model of the respected former President of Scranton
University and Catholic University, the distinguished economist and ethicist of ―work and management‖, Fr.
William Byron, S.J., in Labor-Management Relations: A Catholic Perspective, edited several years ago by the
present Cardinal of Detroit, Adam Maida.
Otherwise, the Diocese of Scranton will fail to heed the 1976 warning of the U.S. Catholic Church’s labor-
management expert, the late Msgr. George G. Higgins. Namely, in stalling for time in dealing with collective
bargaining Catholic school administrators ―will be asking for serious trouble and will do irreparable harm to the
reputations of the Catholic school system and of the Church as a whole in the United States.‖ One year later in
1977, the United States Catholic Conference, Subcommittee on Teacher Organizations’ conclusion, with the
Administrative Board’s approval, was that the concept of the ―community of faith‖ – to teach as Jesus teaches —
should persuade school administrators to accept and welcome employee initiatives, to establish their own teacher
organizations.
The Church has already suffered from too many losses and scandals. May we not add more pain and
shame!
Sincerely,
(Rev.) Patrick J. Sullivan, C.S.C., Ph.D.