By PHILIP ENGLISH
Christian church workers may establish their own union - although no one is saying there are any workplace issues causing division between them and employers.
The president of community union Unite!, Robert Reid, said the Employment Relations Act had sparked interest, with a group of church workers in Wellington
approaching the union for information.
"Sure, we are there to assist and protect people when employers are doing the wrong thing but with the new law, part of the focus is that if you want a collective contract you have to have a union," he said.
Geoff Clark, an employer representative and Auckland Anglican diocese secretary, said: "We like to think of ourselves as good employers ... If employees want to join a union then they go with everyone's blessing."
Mr Reid said that if the idea was adopted it would involve workers such as church officers at a parish level from Christian church institutions.
Christian rest-homes and social service workers have their own union.
So far, Mr Reid said, there had been only positive comments. No one had tried to make political capital out of the move - such as summing it up as industrial law gone mad by saying it would force the clergy into joining a union.
"If they want to run that line so be it," Mr Reid said.
Mr Clark said church workers were welcome to join a union but he put in a good word for the church as an employer.
"We compare ourselves with the marketplace all the time and we seem to exceed most requirements in terms of salaries and so on like that."
The only issue that seemed to be unresolved was whether the ordained clergy were classed as employees.
Mr Reid said that under the Employment Relations Act, clergy were definitely employees and had the right to negotiate a collective contract if they wished.
But Mr Clark said clergy such as parish priests were "called" rather than employed - they received a stipend rather than a wage or salary and had not been subject to the Employment Contracts Act.
"I'm not sure whether they could legally bind themselves into a union but I guess there are some lawyers who could make some money out of that," he said.
Unite! was formed in 1998 out of the Administrative and General Workers Union and represents marginalised workers, the unemployed and "the working poor."
