NEW YORK (AP) -- With only a week until the pope's visit, the Association of Catholic Schools has reached a contract agreement with one group of lay teachers -- but another union is still promising a potentially embarrassing walkout.
The Federation of Catholic Teachers must still ratify the four-year agreement, which was announced by Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York. The federation, which represents 3,000 teachers at 206 schools in the New York area, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
The Lay Faculty Association, which represents 450 teachers at 10 schools, has rejected any deal with the archdiocese and plans to strike at 10 Catholic high schools before Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to New York, said union spokesman Henry Kielkucki. The pope was scheduled to arrive on April 18.
Kielkucki said he was not surprised by the agreement with the Federation of Catholic Teachers. He said the walkout would likely happen Monday or Tuesday but could extend into the pope's visit.
``I knew that they were gonna take it,'' he said. ``We would have had a better deal if they didn't take it. We would have gotten more money and a better pension. We are going to strike.''
The contract was reached late Friday afternoon, said Zwilling, who added that the first three years of the agreement include all of the provisions contained in the three-year offer made by the association last November.
Under the contract, the teachers will contribute 10 percent to the cost of their health insurance premiums in the final year of the contract, Zwilling said.
In the fourth year of the contract, teachers will receive a 3 percent salary increase for the first six months and an additional 1 percent increase for the final six months, according to Zwilling.
Strife between the archdiocese and the two teachers' unions had grown in recent weeks. The teachers' contract expired Aug. 31, 2007, and the parties have argued over wages, health care and pensions. The unions serve about 100,000 students in the New York area.
Catholic school students were once taught largely by nuns and priests, who essentially worked for free. But the number of lay teachers has surged in the last two decades, and they now make up about 85 percent of the faculty at the New York archdiocese's 216 schools, according to Kielkucki.
The Catholic school teachers earn an average of $45,000 a year, about 30 percent less than their public-school colleagues.
The New York archdiocese includes schools in Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx and several counties north of the city. Facing budget constraints, the archdiocese has shuttered more than a dozen schools over the last four years. It plans to close six more this year.
E-Mail Story
Print Story
