NACST Newsletter

Volume XXVII No. 2 - January 2006

Commentator George Will, interviewing the General Motors CEO on a recent ABC This Week, continually referred to the carmaker's employee pension and insurance programs as a "welfare state."

The characterization was distinctly negative.

The characterization was also distinctly wrong.

As corporate America continues to move toward employee contributions for health insurance and pension benefits, we can easily lose sight of the nature of benefits.

Employer provided insurance and pension programs used to be called "fringe benefits."

As attorney Ben Eisner pointed out at the NACST Convention, such programs are no longer on the fringe, they are part of the compensation earned by employees.

During the most recent rounds of NACST local negotiations, employee contributions to benefits have increasingly become sticking points in the collective bargaining process.

Not surprising to many who have been negotiating with diocesan and Catholic school officials, the employer Church has fallen in line with the corporate American attitude promoted by George Will.

While the Church likes to portray itself as counter-cultural in America, its adoption of American corporate attitudes toward employee benefits is just another example of the employer Church's delusions.

Catholic school teachers do not expect one hundred percent parity with public school salaries.

Catholic school teachers should not be expected to give up an integral part of their non-salary compensation.

We cannot fall into the trap of viewing our health and pension benefits as "add-ons" to our salary.

Employer contributions for our pensions and insurance are an integral part of the compensation we receive for the labor we perform.

NACST will continue to fight against the erosion of that compensation.