Volume 25, Number 2    September 2003

 

Unionized parish workers win big in court

CTAer Ann Cass of Holy Spirit Parish in McAllen, Tex., will be bringing her usual delegation to the CTA conference in November. But this time she'll be more of a celebrity. She and three other women parish staff, fired by a new pastor in June, won a stunning victory in court Aug. 18. After days of court-sponsored mediation, the diocese of Brownsville agreed:

• to fully reinstate the four women in the jobs they have held under a 2002 United Farm Workers/AFL-CIO contract with the parish;
  
• to negotiate with the union a diocese-wide grievance procedure so that parish workers cannot be fired at will;
  
• to assure that no newly assigned pastor will fire a parish worker during his first 90 days except in cases of "egregious conduct."

Still unresolved is whether the diocese and Bishop Raymundo Peña will recognize the validity of union contracts these women and 40 to 50 other employees have with five parishes. Peña is consulting the Vatican nuncio in Washington. But Cass was exultant about what their team of seven lawyers had achieved. "This issue was larger than the four of us," she said. "We wanted policies for all employees, and we got them." Lawyers from the union, Texas Rural Legal Aid, and the Texas Civil Rights Project were part of the team. They see the case as a landmark for church workers, and are prepared to pursue it in higher courts.

Ann Williams Cass, pastoral associate and a 22-year veteran on the staff, is a member of the newly formed Rio Grande Valley CTA. The other reinstated workers are religious educator Martha Sanchez, secretary Edna Cantu, and sacristan Rosario Vaello. Cass is a regional anchor for the Women in Church Leadership (WICL) project of FutureChurch and CTA. WICL coordinator, Sr. Chris Schenk, called the victory "a beacon for other pastoral ministers who have had to work for too long under oppressive conditions."