Mahony Battles Union Criticism : Panel to Study Validity of Gravediggers’ Organizing Vote

A special three-member panel will meet in late April in Los Angeles to consider charges by the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese that could invalidate an election in which the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union won the right to represent the archdiocese’s gravediggers, the archdiocese announced Thursday.

The panel will be headed by Fred Alvarez, a San Francisco attorney who often represents management in labor relations matters. Both parties agreed to Alvarez’ selection to head the panel. The hearing is scheduled for April 24 to 26.

Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, meanwhile, issued his first formal statement on the issue, in response to criticism from numerous labor leaders, including William R. Robertson, executive secretary of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. The labor critics have accused Mahony of taking an anti-union stance.

“The issue is not the labor movement,” Mahony said in the statement. “Rather the dispute concerns the tactics and behavior of one very small unit involved in one specific recognition election.”

As to the archdiocese’s overall relations with organized labor, he said: “I hasten to point out that the relationship of the Los Angeles Archdiocese with the Southern California labor leadership has been--and continues to be--sound, positive and constructive.”

But he sharply attacked the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, known as the ACTWU. “I am dismayed at the hostile, strident and confrontational methods employed from the start by field representatives” of the union, Mahony said. “Their approach has reflected conflict, deception and their inability to follow agreed-upon procedures.”

Mahony expressed dismay about “personal attacks on my integrity.” He also accused the union of utilizing “anti-Catholic rhetoric” and spreading “misinformation,” although he provided no specifics. He said that immediately after the election, workers complained to him about “an atmosphere of threats and intimidation” during the election campaign, but offered no specifics on this point either.

Cristina Vasquez, the union’s chief organizer in the campaign, took exception to Mahony’s statement. She reiterated the union’s position that it did nothing wrong during the election campaign and that the union had bent over backward to reach an amicable settlement with Mahony.

‘Friendly Manner’

“We have treated this campaign different than with a regular employer because we were dealing with Archbishop Mahony, who was well known as a pro-labor archbishop,” Vasquez said. “The first thing I did when I started organizing was to try to resolve this in a friendly manner.” She said the union only decided to hold public demonstrations starting last July after Mahony “refused to meet with the workers.”

Vasquez, who is Catholic, as are virtually all of the Latino cemetery workers, said, “We have not at any moment made an anti-Catholic statement. We are not fighting against the church. The workers came here for help and we help them because that’s our job.”

Until this dispute erupted last summer, Mahony had had a long history of good relations with unions, dating from his days as a priest in the San Joaquin Valley, where he helped mediate farm labor disputes. He was one of the first members of the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board in 1975, and in recent years played a prominent role in supporting an increase in the state’s minimum wage and advocating organizational activities among low-paid domestic workers.

But Mahony has consistently told the 140 gravediggers at the archdiocese’s 10 cemeteries that he would prefer to deal with them individually rather than through a labor union. The workers started organizing last year, saying that they wanted higher pay, better medical benefits and an end to oppressive treatment from supervisors.

Since then, pay has been raised, medical benefits improved and a supervisor was fired, according to officials of the archdiocese. However, the organizing campaign continued and in February the workers voted 66 to 62 in favor of union representation.