Catholic Schoolteachers and Unions in 2026
Since Pope Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum in 1891, the Church has endorsed the right of workers to form trade unions and bargain collectively. In their 1986 Pastoral letter on the economy, Economic Justice for All, the US Bishops were explicit in stating that those employed by Catholic institutions, including Catholic schools, enjoy the right to form unions. So in theory, it should be easy for the 150,000 teachers and professional staff at our nation’s nearly 6,000 Catholic schools to form unions.
In practice, this is not the case. While millions of their public school counterparts belong to either the National Education Association (NEA) or the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), only a few thousand Catholic schoolteachers enjoy the protection of a union contract.
In the beginning, it wasn’t this way…
In the 1960s and 70s, teachers across the United States organized in unions to protect their rights on the job, and Catholic school teachers were no exception. Across the Northeast and Midwest in particular, Catholic school teachers flocked to unions until they hit a brick wall in 1979 called NLRB v Catholic Bishop of Chicago.
When the union organizing wave came to Chicago, Cardinal Cody was having none of it, regardless of what Catholic doctrine said about workers’ rights. And he argued that the National Labor Relations Board couldn’t make him respect the teachers’ right to organize, because his religious freedom under the First Amendment exempted him from its jurisdiction. The Supreme Court agreed that the NLRA did not cover parochial school teachers, who lost their protections under US labor law. The teachers could organize only at the sufferance of the local Bishop, and very few Bishops were enthusiastic enough about Catholic Social Teaching to tolerate a schoolteacher union. NEA and AFT walked away from organizing the Catholic schools as a hopeless cause.
In a few cases – most notably, New York – states attempted to step up and protect the schoolteachers’ union rights. And in several locations where unions had become established before 1979, Bishops were sufficiently respectful of Catholic Social Teaching to refrain from busting the young unions, leaving the nation with a string of isolated teachers’ unions, mostly based in Diocesan schools.
The biggest single concentration is found in the Archdiocese of New York, where the Federation of Catholic Teachers represents teachers at some 87 Elementary and High School Teachers throughout the Archdiocese that bargain as the Association of Catholic Schools. The FCT is affiliated with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) and is currently working without a contract as the two sides try to reach agreement at the bargaining table.
Most of the remaining union teachers came together in an independent union, the National Association of Catholic School Teachers (NACST). Why an independent union? The NEA and AFT have endorsed abortion rights and oppose school vouchers; as an independent union they can chart a more appropriate course for a Catholic teachers’ union on these issues. The largest affiliate is Association of Catholic Teachers Local 1776 in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Other major affiliates are located in Hartford, Connecticut; St. Louis, Missouri; Camden, New Jersey; and Cleveland, Ohio.
If you are a Catholic school teacher who is interested in organizing a union or association in your place of work, you have your work cut out for you! But you are doing the right thing, even if your principal or Bishop doesn’t appreciate this at first. We invite you to contact the Catholic Labor Network, where we will put you in touch with NACST or the FCT for a consultation.