Faith, Family, and Fairness

Why the Church Must Do Better for Its Workers

My intention here is to write mostly about faith and media, but I will also write about other areas as they interest me. Only occasionally will I veer into controversial content.

A couple of weeks ago, The Boston Globe ran a story about the City of Boston's paid parental leave policy, (alt link) which some workers say isn't generous enough. While there is state law mandating paid family and medical leave, cities and towns are exempt from complying, however Boston does so, mainly through its collective bargaining agreements with unions. (Churches are also exempt under the law.)

The policy gives 12 weeks for moms and dads (oh sorry, "birthing and non-birthing parents", ugh), with the first month at 100 percent pay, the second month, at 75 percent pay, and the third month at 50 percent. Other cities in Massachusetts offer more generous leave and some give less.

Discussing the article with Melanie, we recalled how when each of our five kids was born while I was working at the Archdiocese of Boston, which as we all know is part of the largest pro-life, pro-family organization in the world, the Catholic Church, I got ... no paid leave. Or unpaid leave. When each child was born I had to use my vacation time and got to spend usually about 5 days with my post-surgical wife, taking care of her, the baby, and the other kids. Thank God my in-laws were able to come up from Texas (and for a time my sister-in-law was living with us) because after a C-section, Melanie was hardly able to move, never mind lift children and do anything really. It was really a scandal that the Church did so little for its own employees.

Ah, but that's all changed right? Earlier this year, the Archdiocese rolled out a new Catholic Family Medical Leave benefit. It must be really good since they put “Catholic” right in the title. According to the diocesan newspaper, employees get up to 10 weeks of paid leave for "serious medical conditions," which can include paternity and maternity leave.

That sounds generous--until you dig into the details because there are two tiers of paid leave. The baseline tier gives you 40 percent of your pay for those 10 weeks. In order to get the full benefit of 80 percent of pay, the employee must be contributing 0.57 percent of their wages for at least a year.

This is what passes for the Church being an example for society of how employers should treat their employees, how they should encourage having children and raising families. Lay employees are already giving the "Church discount" when working for the Church, meaning they almost always are making less than their counterparts in the public and private sectors. I don't understand how they expect any employee to be able to make ends meet during the stressful first weeks of a new baby or during chemotherapy or when a child has surgery or any of the other "serious medical conditions" that are cause for the leave at 40 percent pay or even 80 percent pay.

When the government of one of the most liberal, family-hostile, baby-hostile cities in the country is better at this than the Church, you know something is wrong.

A common objection is that the Church can't afford it, but what can't the Church afford? If I'm not at my desk, it's not like they have to shut down the production line and they can't sell enough widgets. There's no loss to the bottom line. In fact, if they paid out that leave at 100% it would have no effect on the bottom line, unless of course they have to put a temp in there. Let me tell, you most of the pastoral center and parish jobs would not qualify for a temp. Either the work would wait or it would be distributed to others. That's based on my own experience working in both the pastoral center and parishes.

That's not the only way in which the archdiocese's employment practices fall short. There was the time my brother was let go from his job as a parish business manager and was told to sign a severance package that included an agreement not to step foot on any property belonging to his former employer, the Archdiocese. He had to ask whether he was being excommunicated before they amended the document and gave the excuse that it was a boilerplate agreement that was meant for secular employers.

Or the coworker with a couple of boys who wanted to know if he could get a discount on parochial school tuition, a common practice for employees of other educational institutions. The reaction was baffled as if they couldn't understand why he would ever think he'd be owed such a thing. Imagine that! A Catholic employee being paid a below-market wage, wanting to get his kids a Catholic education that he could afford.

These are my experiences in the Archdiocese of Boston. I don't know if the situation is any better or worse in other dioceses. I hope it's better. My fear is that it isn't. I'd love to hear what others have to say.