Canadian clergy in drive to join auto union

Edit [Moderator]: Moved from Human Interest Stories to Spirituality & Religion.

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041106/80/f632m.html


TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's biggest blue collar union says it will bring the clerical collar into its fold, announcing plans to unionize some 4,000 ministers from the United Church, the country's largest Protestant denomination.


"The group is unique ... but the problems are similar to those in many workplaces," said Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union. "And so we came to the conclusion that there was a legitimate need for (the clergy) to have representation."


The union was responding to a request for unionization by 30 disgruntled ministers from the United Church, who said their church does not adequately respond to clergy complaints.


Although some rabbis and Anglican priests in England have been unionized for 10 years, a unionized United Church would be a first for clergy in North America.


"You need to speak up when there's a problem and you need to name it ... and that problem is clergy abuse," said Rev. David Galston of Hamilton, Ontario, at Friday's press conference.


Galston said the abuse includes bullying, slander, stalking, harassment, and entering the minister's residence without permission.


After he and another minister signed union membership cards, Galston said: "This has relieved me of any repercussions I might face from the United Church by speaking out."


"It's the church's dirty little secret," said Karen Paton-Evans, who spearheaded the union drive with her husband, and said the church did nothing when he was driven from his job after a parishioner started a smear campaign.


"We really believe that by going union, that will make the United Church accountable to its own values," she said.


Rev. Joe Ramsay, a senior spokesman for the United Church, said occasional confrontations with parishioners are part of a minister's job.


"You can't legislate the congregation to feel kindly towards you," he said.


CAW organizer Mike Shields disagreed. "Just because someone does something that's a calling of a religious nature, that shouldn't be a license to abuse them," he said.