Does your parish secretary have unemployment insurance protection?
Mo
st people don’t realize it, but in many states some or all nonprofit organizations can opt out of paying state unemployment insurance – and many do. Unemployment is an insurance fund against job loss, not a welfare program — so if no one is paying your premium, you’re out of luck. A Catholic schoolteacher in St Louis found this out the hard way when he turned up at the unemployment office after a layoff, and was turned away. Tony Messenger in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch describes what happened, and cites a survey that found nearly half the Dioceses had opted out in order to save money, leaving employees unprotected in the case of job loss. What’s the practice in your Diocese or Parish?
Everyone deserves fairness. Not one of us is greater than all of us. My preference would be that the folks form a union as has been done in some Parishes. But absent that, unemployment insurance should be available. Since when has it been a sin to show fairness to those folks who do the Lord’s work.