News

January 9, 2009

Catholic teachers to hold rally

Rally to support unionization to be held Jan. 24 outside St. Peter’s Cathedral.

By Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com
Education Reporter
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SCRANTON – The Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers plans to rally Jan. 24 outside St. Peter’s Cathedral to mark the one-year anniversary of its fight to unionize local Catholic school teachers.

The rally will be held one year to the day after the diocese announced, through its paper, The Catholic Light, that newly formed regional school boards had rejected the association’s request to represent teachers.

Many local Catholic school teachers had been members of the association before a restructuring that eliminated the smaller local boards the union had negotiated with.

The union responded with a rapid succession of informational pickets, rallies, one-day teacher sick-outs at selected schools, public meetings and an appeal to the Vatican to overturn Bishop Joseph Martino’s decision. Martino insisted the move was final and that a newly implemented Employee Relations Program will represent all school employees fairly.

The two sides traded accusations. Association President Michael Milz insists he was fired from his job as a teacher at Holy Redeemer High School as a result of his union activity and that the diocese tried to mask its motives by unnecessarily firing other teachers at the same time.

The diocese counters that Milz was laid off with other teachers because of reduced enrollment and according to seniority. The union has accused the diocese of violating Church teaching on unionization; the diocese contends the union misrepresents those teachings.

Union activity died down in the summer after state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-Wilkes-Barre, introduced a bill into the House Labor Relations Committee that would amend the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act so it explicitly covered Catholic school teachers.

The state Supreme Court has ruled the law as written does not cover the teachers. The U.S. Supreme Court made a similar ruling on the National Labor Relations Act.

Two committee hearings – one in Wilkes-Barre – were held on the proposal, dubbed House Bill 2626, but the 2008 legislative session ended before the committee held a vote to move it to the full House.

Milz said the bill will be reintroduced shortly in the new session, probably renumbered House Bill 26. The House is set to reconvene Jan. 26.

Milz said the Jan. 24 rally is tentatively set for noon.

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