wfn.org | NCC Workers Protest Layoffs, Subcontracting Work

[PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org]

30-August-1996 
 
 
96305    NCC Workers Protest Layoffs, Subcontracting Work 
 
                     by Religion News Service 
 
NEW YORK CITY--Concerned about staff layoffs and the subcontracting of work 
to outside firms, the employees' union at the National Council of Churches 
(NCC), the ecumenical agency of 33 Protestant and Orthodox denominations, 
has asked for outside arbitration. 
 
     On Aug. 8, the NCC, headquartered here, announced it was eliminating 
11 jobs in its administrative and financial services department, the first 
in a set of reductions it said would save more than $500,000 a year in 
administrative costs. 
 
     "The money saved will be used by the Council's program units for their 
mission budgets," said the Rev. Clifford Droke, the NCC's chief financial 
officer.  "The result is better stewardship of the resources entrusted to 
us by our donors." 
 
     Eight of the positions slated to be eliminated are "appointed," or 
hourly, jobs covered by the union, and three are "elected," or nonunion, 
jobs.  The NCC bargaining unit is the Association of Ecumenical Employees, 
a local of the United Auto Workers union. 
 
     Before the announced layoffs, the NCC had a staff of 69 nonunion and 
278 union employees. 
 
     In its protest, the union said the NCC's actions violate agreements 
between the union and NCC management. 
 
     "The NCC has laid off union employees and has hired vendors to come on 
site to do their jobs without having reached an agreement with the union 
over subcontracting," said Jane Lowicki, president of the union. 
 
     Lowicki charged the NCC with shabby treatment of the terminated 
employees. 
 
     The employees, she said, with more than 200 collective years of 
service to the NCC, "were told to collect their things, turn in their 
badges, to leave the premises and not to return. 
 
     "This might be how some big profit-seeking corporation treats people, 
but no one would expect it from a Christian organization, especially not 
one that sets addressing racism and related economic justice issues as its 
priorities," Lowicki said. 

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