TORONTO -- They work for
God, but they say their workplace conditions are too often wretched, and
so a group of United Church clergy in Ontario and B.C. have taken the first
steps toward unionizing the 4,000 pastors in Canada's largest Protestant
denomination.
Citing psychological and physical abuse, bad working conditions,
sweatshop wages and a corporate church that responds to their problems inadequately,
a group of 30 clergy in Ontario and a similar number on the West Coast have
invited unions to step in and organize the church.
Physical abuse has become such a problem for clergy that in
England, the giant Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union, which represents
1,500 Anglican priests and a few rabbis, has made available tae kwon do martial
arts defence courses rather than insisting its members turn the other cheek.
"People are sometimes angry at God or religion or at life,
and the clergyperson represents that," said Rev. David Galston, pastor of
Eternal Spring United Church in Hamilton, Ont., and one of the leaders of
the unionization movement.
In Ontario, the clergy approached the Canadian Auto Workers
and were greeted with open arms. Mike Shields, the CAW's national director
of organizing, said: "I didn't have any hesitation when it was brought to
my attention. They're where we're at" on social justice issues.
At CAW headquarters, though, after the first frisson of excitement
at the prospect of organizing a church, the idea sunk in that the CAW and
the United Church's national administration are so close it could be awkward
at the negotiating table.
The issue does not appear to upset the church, which learned
for the first time yesterday details of the move to organize its clergy.
The United Church national general secretary, Rev. Jim Sinclair,
said after citing past joint endeavours by the church and CAW: "Our relationship
with the union movement is not something that's been a negative one, and I
don't see why it couldn't be a positive one, if in fact this moved further
along."
Or as another senior official at national headquarters put
it: "We're nice people."
The Ontario ministers, who began their unionization planning
three weeks ago, will meet tomorrow with a CAW legal team to determine first
of all if the union thinks they qualify as workers under the province's labour
law. It's a grey area that has never been legally defined: whether they are
employees or officers of the church.
Whatever they are, they have dark stories to tell.
Vision TV's flagship public affairs program 360 Vision,
which first got wind of the unionization effort, broadcast a documentary
last night in which the wife of one clergyman described how her husband was
driven from his United Church ministry in Southern Ontario when a parishioner
allegedly launched a smear campaign against him.
Hamilton's Rev. Galston, former principal of the United Church's
Iona College at University of Windsor, said the church's own statistics show
that at any given time 18 per cent of its clergy are on stress leave. In
fact, the church says that 60 per cent have reported some conflict with their
congregations.
Rev. Galston recalled coming into his office when he was pastor
at another church and finding a member of the congregation going through
his personal files. When he asked what the man was doing, he was told it
was none of his business.
He said it's common for members of the congregation just to
walk into the minister's residence -- the manse -- as if they owned the building.
He described one clergyman walking out of his shower to find someone there.
"There could be 20 keys to the door floating around," he said. "You don't
know who has them."
Rev. Galston said the annual income for a minister after 12
years' service is $38,000, plus housing. It should be $10,000 to $15,000
higher, he said.
The church's general secretary, Rev. Sinclair, said a national
commission has now completed the first year of a three-year compensation
study. Rev. Joe Ramsay, the national church's specialist on clergy stress
issues, said the church is well aware of the endemic nature of the problem
and is searching for remedies.
