NEWS STORY: Catholics draft guidelines for health care labor organizing

c. 1999 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ After nearly two years of quiet, intense and sometimes contentious talks, a unique group of Roman Catholic church officials, Catholic health-care executives, and labor union representatives has issued a working paper aimed at defusing future labor-management conflicts in the growing and volatile Catholic health-care industry.”The working paper is […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ After nearly two years of quiet, intense and sometimes contentious talks, a unique group of Roman Catholic church officials, Catholic health-care executives, and labor union representatives has issued a working paper aimed at defusing future labor-management conflicts in the growing and volatile Catholic health-care industry.”The working paper is a statement of principles from Catholic social teaching about the dignity of work and the rights of workers, not a response to a particular situation,”the 12-page document says.”It is an attempt to find common ground, not an opportunity to advance the agenda of either side,”it adds.

The paper was drafted by a group that included representatives and staff members of the U.S. Catholic Conference, the AFL-CIO and the Catholic Health Association. While it is not an official statement of the conference, it is expected that it will be circulated among church officials as well as labor and management groups for comment and possible implementation.


As a first principle, the statement,”A Fair and Just Workplace: Principles and Practices for Catholic Health Care,”cites the right of workers’ choice.”The core of Catholic teaching in this area is that it is up to workers _ not bishops, managers, union business agents or management consultants _ to exercise the right to decide through a fair and free process how they wish to be represented in the workplace.”Workers may decide to be represented by a union or not to be represented,”the paper says.”Catholic teaching respects this decision.” Catholic social teaching since the turn of the century, and repeatedly underscored by Pope John Paul II, has stressed the right of workers to form unions as one means of representing their interests, but the principle has often been resisted by local Catholic institutions, especially schools and hospitals.

Currently, one of the church’s largest health-care chains _ Catholic Healthcare West _ is involved in a bitter battle with the Service Employees International Union of the AFL-CIO over the union’s effort to organize workers at the third largest Catholic health system in the nation.

Efforts by Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles to mediate the dispute have been unsuccessful. On Monday (Aug. 30), Mahony, in a Labor Day statement, issued another appeal to management and the union to solve the organizing dispute.

While drafters of the working paper stressed they were not addressing any current conflict such as that between the SEIU and Catholic Healthcare West, Mahony’s statement invoked the spirit of the statement.”The rich traditions that these two entities represent demand that each side move beyond the obstacles that have prolonged this struggle,”he said. He called on them to”agree to a neutral third party that can facilitate discussion, mediate the issues of conflict, and keep talks focused and progressing forward until a resolution is reached.” Overall, the 569 Catholic institutions make up about 10 percent of the nation’s hospitals and have more than 700,00 full-time and part-time employees. Neither labor nor management officials could say how many of the employees are currently unionized.

Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., who chaired the group that met under the auspices of the USCC, called the working paper”a healthy alternative to the often contentious status quo. … It is not a response to the controversies of the moment. Instead, it may be a road map for avoiding future conflict.”There are many risks in dialogue,”he added.”The nay-sayers can always point to what can be lost. But the concern and controversy surrounding Catholic health care and labor have called into question Catholic values, health-care ministry, and our commitment to a fair and just workplace,”he added.”None of us … have been well-served by the status quo, with all its conflict and contention.” At the heart of the working paper is the recognition of the tension between”the mission and the market”_ that providing health care is part of the ministry of the church but that the ministry is being carried out in a volatile capitalist economic setting that stresses the bottom line and in which the health-care sector is one of the most unstable.”Health-care work is hard, frustrating, fulfilling and enormously important work,”said Gerald Shea, assistant to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.”The nurses, aides, techs and support staff on the frontlines of health care … are all too often `invisible’ providers of care. And many still toil at substandard wages and without health benefits while health-care executives are paid handsomely.”The working family values that the document affirms _ fair and just wages, healthful working conditions, family-supportive benefits and respect for workers’ freedom to choose a voice at work by organizing unions _ are set within the contemporary setting of vast changes in health-care delivery and financing,”he said.

The Rev. Michael Place, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, said the CHA especially welcomed the working paper’s”call for an end to tactics that undermine mutual objectives of labor and management and impugn the character of good people and organizations.” Place said there is”pain and frustration”among all people in the Catholic health-care sector as they seek to be faithful to the ideals spelled out in the document.”To be misunderstood or to experience alienation from others in the church is especially disheartening.” In addition to stressing the rights of workers to decide how they want to be represented, the paper also said both labor and management can be guided by Catholic social teaching, certain types of behavior are to be avoided, especially during organizing campaigns, and there needs to be new ways for labor and management to relate to each other.”The Catholic tradition should not be expressed in sound bites or footnotes to defend union or management tactics or positions in a particular setting,”the report said.”Our tradition is much richer than that.”DEA END ANDERSON

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!