Episcopal Urban Caucus Criticizes Non-Union Church Contract
Jeff Walton
March 2, 2010
This is part of a series of three articles about the 2010 Episcopal Urban Caucus Assembly. For coverage of the events surrounding the anti-violence theme, click here. For coverage of the overall conference, click here.
A recent decision to hire a non-union housekeeping services contractor at the Episcopal Church Center in New York has led to charges of hypocrisy from an influential liberal caucus group within the denomination.
“I’m very disappointed in what has happened at our national headquarters,” said Tim Yeager, a union attorney on the ordination track in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago and a member of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF). “The reason for this change is to save money. We should not be creating more poverty in this world because we need to save a few bucks.”
The Episcopal Church Center came under heavy criticism early this year after it did not renew a housekeeping services contract with a unionized company. After a new, non-union contractor was chosen, the existing crew of nine personnel was effectively dismissed, including an employee who had cleaned the church’s headquarters for 42 years. According to Yeager, the minimum union contract was $21 an hour with healthcare coverage. The new contractor, Benjamin Enterprises, pays minimum wage and does not offer healthcare coverage to employees.
A church statement read aloud by Yeager referred to the contractor change as a normal business operation.
“When did the church of Christ become a normal business operation?” Yeager asked, declaring that “the people who have cleaned our building for 42 years are our brothers.”
“We [the denomination] look really bad as a labor movement right now,” Yeager said, noting that demonstrations had been held in front of the Church Center, with 100 protestors on February 4 alone.
Yeager, a union organizer, spoke at an EPF luncheon held during the Episcopal Urban Caucus’ recent annual assembly in Chicago. The caucus is small but influential within the denomination, forming part of an umbrella organization of liberal groups known as the Consultation. The Consultation has enthusiastically supported a series of resolutions at successive General Conventions that are favorable to unions.
Yeager cheered labor unions as “the best anti-poverty program going,” and devoted much of his hour-long address to the cleaning crew controversy.
“We have a history of supporting people’s right to organize,” Yeager said, noting the denomination’s support of “single-payer” (government directed) healthcare and the Employee Free Choice Act, which would permit unions to be recognized without a secret ballot.
“We marched with workers at Disney, didn’t we?” Yeager prompted the caucus members. Bishops and deputies at the 2009 Episcopal General Convention in Anaheim, California joined Disney hotel employees at a labor march.
“The charge of hypocrite sticks,” Yeager assessed.
Yeager noted that he looked at a conservative Episcopal blog attached to the Stand Firm web site in order to gauge reaction to the story, prompting murmurs of disapproval from the audience and a cry of “honey no, don’t go there!”
“They’re attacking us now because of this,” Yeager said of conservative Episcopalians. “They’re calling us hypocrites because we preach one thing and we do another.”
The assembled crowd was vocal in its anger about the Church Center’s decision.
“The last time I got this irate about something, it was the Archbishop of Canterbury unwilling to speak up for gay and lesbian people in Uganda but willing to have an opinion on my bishop suffragan election,” said the Rev. Susan Russell of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
While Yeager was clear about his disappointment with the Church Center’s decision, he praised the responsiveness of staff and was hopeful that the situation would be resolved. As a member of the Consultation steering committee, Yeager disclosed that the group was sending a letter to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Linda Watt, the Episcopal Church Chief Operating Officer, thanking them for the opportunity to meet and explaining that their intention was to discuss the matter.
“The people who have made these decisions have acted in a way that I think is wrong,” Yeager said. “They’re my brothers and sisters, too. They’re probably not going to be very happy when they hear this is what we are talking about today. But friends, we need to talk about this.”
Yeager’s comments came as part of his larger address about there being no separation between people as a church and as workers.
“We as Christians ought to know better than anybody else what it means to be in solidarity with working people,” Yeager said. “The person we call the son of God was a carpenter, a man who worked with his hands. The founders of the church were fishermen, they worked with their hands, when the incarnate word of God became flesh. What resulted was not a bank executive, or a prince, or a clergyman. It was a carpenter. When we look at the face of a worker, we ought to be able to see the face of Christ. When Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice for us, when he was executed by the Roman authorities, they killed him with the tools of his own trade. They executed the carpenter from Nazareth by nailing him to a cross of wood. May we not be separate from our brothers and sisters.”
Yeager indicated that even if the situation at the Church Center is successfully resolved, it may not be the end of controversy. In 2006 the Episcopal Church adopted a policy to hold future conventions in union-staffed hotels, when possible. Indianapolis, the 2012 General Convention site, does not have any major unionized hotels.
The union attorney noted that in these instances, the church must confirm that a living wage is being paid to employees.
A non-union Hyatt hotel has been selected for the General Convention.