wfn.org | [ENS] Lay employees: Council seeks employment equity

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Monday, October 10, 2005

Lay employees: Council seeks employment equity

By Mary Frances Schjonberg

ENS 101005-2

[ENS, Las Vegas] The Executive Council will ask the 75th General
Convention
to authorize a survey to get a detailed portrait of the church's lay
employees, how they are compensated, and who exercises authority within
church workplaces.

A second survey would explore the feasibility of making it compulsory
for
church organizations to provide pension coverage for its lay employees
with
a single administrator.

The Very Rev. George Werner, House of Deputies president, raised what he
called a "little red flag" about that issue. He said that similar work
in
1991 showed that "the words compulsory and Episcopal are not
compatible."

Executive Council member Diane Pollard, also a part of that 1991 work,
said
that the church has made progress in providing pension benefits to lay
employees. She said it was now appropriate to make those benefits
compulsory
for employees who work 1,000 hours a year.

"It's now time to say we are going to treat people equally," she said.

The council's Task Force on Employment Policies and Practices in the
Episcopal Church members estimate that there are 15,500 full-time and
19,500
part-time lay employees in congregations and dioceses, plus another
42,000
full-time lay employees in organizations affiliated with the Episcopal
Church. A study of lay employees is needed, in part, the report says,
because the church does not know how many lay people it employs.

General Convention 2003 called for a group to study employment policies
and
practices in the dioceses and parishes of the church and consider policy
recommendations to the 75th General Convention that address issues of
"equity and justice for church employees working in circumstances of
both
affluence and poverty..."

There are 20 years' worth of General Convention resolutions that deal
with
the issues of justice and accountability in the church workplace, but
they
have been "sparsely taken up by the wider church," said the Rev. Dr. Bud
Holland, coordinator of the Office of Ministry Development and the
convener
of the task force. For instance, the task force's report notes that,
despite
repeated General Convention resolutions recommending universal pension
coverage for lay employees, just 66 percent of parishes offer such
coverage.

The task force's work so far has shown that there is a wide variety of
employment practices and policies. Some dioceses have outstanding
employment
manuals, some have none and "some are yearning to have something
better,"
said Holland.

The task force included representatives from the Church Pension Group,
the
Church Center and the Colloquium of Episcopal Professional and
Vocational
Associations (CEPVA). "We had the appropriate expertise in the room,"
said
the Rev. Canon Ed Rodman, a member of the Executive Council and a
professor
at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The 14 members, along with two council members, brought to the table a
sense
of history and the ability to explain the legal issues and their
implications in a way that all could understand, he said. Holland agreed
that the group developed energy and synergy that helped them articulate
their concerns in a way that everyone could hear.

The task force's report says that the church needs to see itself as an
institution that employs thousands of people and has a "duty to treat
its
personnel fairly and equitably."

"We're all the beneficiaries when that happens," Holland said.

Such treatment ought to be grounded in what the report says was an
as-yet-unarticulated theology of work which would create the foundation
for
fair employment practices. That theology should be grounded in the
Baptismal
Covenant, which the report says ought to be incorporated in every
employment
manual of the church at every level. The task force wants to look at how
the
church as an employer incarnates the values of the Episcopal Church,
Holland
said.

Holland said the group hopes that the proposed survey can discern
whether
people enjoy the work they do in the church, and whether their
workplaces
are fair and safe.

In connection with that concern, the task force developed a draft
statement
entitled "Workplace Values in The Episcopal Church." It says that the
church's commitment to centering work in the Baptismal Covenant and
promoting workplaces that offer chances for development and advancement
can
be summed up in the "golden rule" of Matthew 7:12a: "In everything,
therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you..."

The statement lists what employees can expect from the organization and
what
the organization expects from employees. It also gives ways of resolving
employment issues.

Holland said the task force understands that its work comes "in the
context
of struggling [economic] situations" for dioceses and parishes, and in
very
different work contexts around the church.

Another part of that context is a varying amount of knowledge about how
the
church as an employer must comply with employment laws of the states and
municipalities, Holland said.

"Most lay employees in the church are at-will employees and in many
states
they have zero rights," Rodman said.

Holland said the task force isn't challenging those laws but asking "how
can
the Episcopal Church do more than what is required by law."

The report suggests that "'At Will' employment can be counterbalanced
with
grace-filled, Christ-like conduct..."

Full texts of the pertinent resolutions (CIM 041 and CIM 042) can be
found
online at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_68485_ENG_HTM.htm.

-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the
Episcopal News Service.

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