Home // News // News Blogs

< previous | next >

Wednesday August 20, 2008 | 11:48 PM

Posted by Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com

As far as I'm concerned, Bishop Martino lost the high ground in his battle with the Scranton Diocese of Catholic Teachers when the union began citing more than 100 years of Catholic Church teachings on social justice, respecting worker dignity and labor's right to organize (unionize).

I'm not saying the union was right, or that Martino was wrong. I'm saying the response from Martino and his people never effectively countered the union claim. They tried, and they hit on talking points that probably had some validity, but every pronouncement and written response came across as dictatorial and dismissive. It always felt like they were putting most of the effort into rebuking and far too little into rebutting.

The union has suggested that the diocese is getting bad advice from some firm hired to help with anti-union public relations. I have no proof if that is true or false, but if true, might I suggest the Diocese dump their PR adviser and hire University of Scranton Theology Professor J. Brian Benestad.

I've interviewed Benestad in the past for religion stories, and the man came across as equal parts erudite and earth-based. When he offered testimony Monday about House Bill 2626 -- the bill that would give Catholic (and other private) school teachers protection under the state Labor Relations Act -- he repeated that impression.

As I read his written testimony (before he actually got a chance to speak ... typically most people at these things submit a typed copy of their comments before the hearing starts) I wasn't sure which side of the bill debate he was on until I got more than halfway through the thing. He gladly acknowledged many of the pro-union arguments (eloquently stated by the testimony and writings of a relatively new group called Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice, represented very well at the hearings by Chairman Joseph Fahey).

In the end, Benestad came down on Martino's side, but I felt he did a much better job making the case than Martino and his people have ever done, and the reason is simple. I've said it often, It's not what Martino is doing, it's how he has done it. This isn't merely my own opinion. It's a sentiment I've heard repeatedly (usually off the record, not surprisingly) from many different devout Catholics. I'm talking priests, sisters, ministers, teachers, and lay people committed to the Church in significant ways.

The Martino administration, if I may call it that, has come across to many as imperious and aloof, even as the man can (as I've said before) be affable, intelligent and well-intentioned. The problem (again, I've said this before) is that those Martino facets seem to have been put into a blind trust. No one who needs to see them gets to see them.

Enter Benestad, providing the qualities Martino has not, giving an articulate argument that acknowledges everything right about the union's position. Yet he veered dramatically from the Martino Administration's course when he refused, in any way, to attack the union or its supporters. Instead, he acknowledged the validity of their arguments, then countered those arguments with effective weight.

Martino would do well to heed the example Benestad provided.

Here are highlights of Benestad's written statement:

Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice have issued a fine statement titled "Catholic Social Doctrine and Worker Justice: a call to the common good." They are right to say that "there is an a priori presumption for labor unions in Catholic doctrine." They rightly back up this statement by quoting the wriitings of Popes Leo XII and John Paul II, and by appealing to the teaching of the Seocnd Vatican Council and the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of th Church.

Because of the Catholic teaching on unions many workers throughout the world enjoy better working conditions, wages and benefits. Rerum Novarum created a kind of earthquake by persuading employers to treat wage earners with dignity. Today many workers suffer because for-profit companies either can't or won't pay benefits. To give an example, as a university professor, I have noticed that part-time faculty could benefit from union affiliation. the "market" allows universities to avoid paying benefits to part-time faculty altogether, and to pay a wage way below what the quality and productivity of their work deserves. In my judgment, full time faculty members receive better salaries and raises because of the income generated by the productivity of part-timers. So we full-time faculty in unions have a moral obligation to be supportive of part-time faculty.

(Benestad quoted the 1891 Papal encyclical, Rerum Novarum, often cited by the union):

"Workers' associations ought to be so constituted and so governed as to furnish the most suitable and most convenient means to attain the object proposed, which consists in this, that the individual members of the association secure, so far as possible, an increase in the goods of the body, of soul, and prosperity .. It is clear, however, that moral and religious perfection ought to be regarded as their principal goal, and that their social organization as such ought above all to be directed completely by this goal."

(Benestad offers his own opinion:)

These goals, except for prosperity, are, of course, not on the radar screen of the modern union. Even unions made up of employees in Catholic institutions typically don't have as their goal the moral and religious perfection of their members. All unions today focus on wages, benefits and working conditions and do not attempt to provide religious and moral education.

(Benestad quotes from the 1981 encyclical, Laborem Exercens:)

"The experience of history teaches that unions are an indispensable element of social life" Unions are "a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice" and "a constructive factor of social order and solidarity. Just efforts to secure the rights of workers who are united by the same profession should always take into account the limitations imposed by the general economic situation of the country. Union demands cannot be turned into a kind of group or class 'egoism'."

(Benestad notes that Pope John Paul II then expressed hope that:)

"Thanks to the work of their unions, workers will not only have more, but above all be more. In other words, they will realize their humanity more fully in every respect."

(Benestad argues that modern American unions, even in Catholic institutions, "do not have as a goal that their members become better people." It's an argument the teacher union has countered, at least indirectly, and arguably directly, with past comments long before this hearing).

(Benestad quotes the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or CCC, saying that unions reduce conflict "By negotiation that respects the rights and duties of each social partner." Approaching his conclusion, he argues:)

"Catholic social doctrine would counsel the bishop of a diocese to have an a priori presumption for recognizing a teachers association as a union. He then must examine carefully the goals and modus operandi of the proposed union or unions in his schools, and then make a determination whether entering into collective bargaining with a particular union would contribute to the common good of Catholic schools and their employees. A bishop, without violating Catholic social doctrine, could reasonably decide that recognizing a particular union could be an obstacle to maintaining the Catholic identity, academic excellence or financial viability of the schools in his diocese. This, of course, means that the right to join a union is not an absolute right that must be honored regardless of the circumstances. As a matter of fact, just about every right is subject to various kinds of limitations for the sake of the common good. According to Catholic teaching rights may be properly curtailed when they are not exercised in the light of the natural law or the divine law."

There's more, but that's the crux. Most of the time, the Diocese of Scranton has emphasized the rejection of unionization and touted the alternative "employee relations program" without giving effective argument. Most diocesan statements have come across to people I've talked to (and to me) as fiats. The emphasis always sounds like "this decision is final and irrevocable," without giving any convincing reason why.

Without actually taking sides in this specific debate, Benestad gave the argument Martino and company never seemed to muster: Catholic teaching may seem to overwhelmingly support the right to unionize, but it does not make that support absolute.

I can't stress this enough: Benestad, as near as I could tell, never said either side was right. or wrong, yet he made a solid argument that the diocese could reject the union despite all the written support the Church has offered to unions in the last century-plus.

It's an argument the diocese has failed to effectively make for months.

Email this | Link to this

< previous | next >

TimesLeader.com

Categories

Archives

Reader Comments

COMMENT HERE