Local Catholic School Teachers Vote To Organize

Dayton Daily News:

Frustration over the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s requirement for its Catholic school teachers to sign new contracts that spell out almost a dozen types of forbidden conduct has led to a local push to organize educators.
Teachers at Ascension School in Kettering and Holy Angels School in Dayton on Thursday sent notice to the pastors that they have voted in favor of organizing, officials confirmed.
More than half of educators at the schools voted to be represented in collective bargaining by the Southwest Ohio Catholic Educators Association.
Organizing efforts were sparked by the new contracts, which contain language that goes against what Catholic educators practice, teach and live by, said Jennifer Teleha, a former teacher at Ascension School who helped found the association. She said the contract language was intended to better shield the church against lawsuits.
“This contract grew because of lawsuits, because of money issues,” she said. “The dignity and the integrity of Catholic educators is not at the heart of the document.”
Dan Andriacco, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, confirmed that the pastors of Holy Angels and Ascension have been contacted about the formation of a teachers association.
He said the archdiocese has not yet seen the notices of the new bargaining groups, but he said the new contracts are not a significant departure from those of previous years.
Catholic teachers that are employed at schools owned by the archdiocese have always been required to sign contracts that contain a “morality clause.” About 93 Catholic schools are covered by the archdiocese’s “teacher-minister contract,” which includes elementary and secondary schools. About 2,800 Catholic teachers work in schools that are operated by the archdiocese or its agencies.
The archdiocese added new contractual language that lists specific forbidden activities after it last year settled two federal lawsuits that were filed by unmarried teachers who had been fired after becoming pregnant.
The contracts require teachers to act and speak in ways that “support the Catholic Church and its teachings.” Teachers can be disciplined or fired for publicly supporting or having a homosexual lifestyle, living together outside of marriage, engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage and supporting abortion and artificial insemination.

It's not like Catholic school teachers are generally paid much compared to their public school peers.  They are typically doing it because of their faith.  Now that the archdiocese has been sued a couple of times for firing a teacher who had a baby out of wedlock and a teacher who has a baby through in vitro fertilization, they decided to piss off many of their teachers by requiring them to sign a contract acknowledging they can't say or do what they want in their lives outside of the school.  Good luck with that.  The parochial school system was already beginning to unravel, and actions like the "morals clause" requirement accelerate the process.