Federation of Catholic Teachers Expands Union Coverage To Aides, Assistants: Dignity, Respect For These Essential Members Of Teaching Team

Interview with Teresa Clark, VP of the Federation of Catholic Teachers about extending union benefits to teachers aides and assistants at Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of New York

Since the 1970s, Catholic school teachers have shared in similar union benefits to their secular counterparts, who had been unionized since 1916.  This initial unionization was a struggle, as the archdiocese was not initially amenable to the idea. After several years and a difficult fight, the Federation of Catholic Teachers was formed to provide union benefits to Catholic School teachers.  

In the last year, the teacher’s aides and assistants had been petitioning the Federation of Catholic School Teachers to allow them to join the union to obtain better salaries among other benefits. The process this time only took one year, whereas the original organization was formed over the course of about a decade, after going through several different iterations. Since 1970, the FCT has been representing teachers only at over 160 Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York.

In this interview, we discussed the importance of unions for teachers and other members of the workforce.  Some of the most important that we touched on are better salaries, safer working conditions, dignity and respect, and health insurance coverage options for all.  

Not everyone understands the importance of unions, as for years the media has extolled their lack of virtue and usefulness, along with their tendency for corruption, which sometimes seems to be inevitable in any and every human endeavor. Think of monopolies, polluters, and nearly every form of government in existence today, and you will realize that everywhere humans are involved, corruption is likely.  So the media talking point that some unions have a reputation for corruption is not an argument against unions, but just shows the propensity of people to be corrupt.  

When you are dealing with a company and employees, there will always be an imbalance of power.  When a company has the power to terminate an employee for any reason,  including whistle blowing about poor working conditions or low wages, a union can help shift that balance so that workers are valued.  

With respect to the FCT, adding the teacher’s aides and assistants to their rolls will immediately and in the long term benefit these groups.  In the first place, many of them work for minimum wage while some are still volunteers.  One of the first negotiation pieces they are going to be working on is better wages and universal access to the health care cost sharing program.  Currently only teachers are offered health insurance at 10% shared cost.  The coverage of aides and assistants has been haphazard and spotty until now, but this will change to offer the option to all employees.  

As people familiar with union regulations know, the union must cover all employees, but workers have a choice to pay or not pay dues. This is due in part to laws passed by various administrations over the years who felt that workers should get a choice whether to pay these dues to support the union’s work, while at the same time requiring the unions to cover every employee, even those who have not paid dues.  Unions were lucky to survive these changes, and over time most workers continue to pay. Those who have needed unions to negotiate on their behalf have often become dues-paying members, as they’ve seen firsthand the true benefit of it.

Whereas in the past, the aides and assistants weren’t acknowledged as being essential, and often were unpaid, this change cements their necessity in the teaching environment.  Now the teacher’s aides and assistants will receive the protection they deserve, as well as dignity and respect for their important and critical positions within the school system run by the archdiocese of New York.

Staten Islander News Service Staff Writer

This byline indicates that this article was penned by a member/members of the Staten Islander News Organization office team. Our staff writers are the backbone of our newspaper, performing all sorts of important tasks like conducting interviews, investigating leads, besides writing the news stories you see.

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