Teachers at a Catholic high school and a Catholic elementary school joined other schools unionized under the Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers. Teachers at a Catholic high school in the Camden diocese joined the Catholic Teachers Union. People with the same concerns often get together to talk and look for answers. That's exactly what a union is all about. American workers have been joining together in democratic unions since the end of the 18th century.
Collective bargaining remains a uniquely American success story.
The way that unions address the most direct needs of their membership is through labor-management negotiations, sitting at a bargaining table with the employer. Contracts are bargained by democratically elected union representatives who come to the table as equals of their management counterparts. Through the give and take of the bargaining process, they establish equitable wages, working conditions, job safety and job security, and a system for resolving disputes - a grievance procedure. Catholic leaders who fear that raising the salaries of teachers in Catholic schools might cause some schools to close must face the fact that a teacher shortage will force closings if salaries do not improve, the director of personnel services for the Archdiocese of Chicago said March 12. But it is more likely that school closings will come when there are no longer teachers willing to work for half the pay, she added.