Lay Employees Must Get Pensions, Health Benefits, Convention Says
Episcopal News Service. July 25, 1991 [91160]
David Skidmore
Lay employees will no longer be second-class citizens in the Episcopal Church when it comes to employee benefits.
In one of its final actions, the General Convention passed a measure (D-165a) mandating retirement benefits for all lay employees who work 1,000 hours or more for dioceses, congregations, and other "ecclesiastical organizations or bodies." A related measure, (A-137s) requiring health and life insurance coverage for lay employees, also was approved.
The pension resolution sets a deadline of January 1, 1993, for congregations "and any societies, organizations, or bodies" of the church to initiate coverage for lay employees working a minimum of 1,000 hours. Employers have the option of providing the coverage through the Episcopal Church Lay Employees Retirement Plan, administered by the Church Pension Fund, or an equivalent plan. They also are given leeway for setting eligibility standards. Employers have the option of requiring employees to be 21 and to have worked continuously for one year before being enrolled in the pension program.
Depending on whether the plan is a "defined benefit" or a "defined contribution" plan, the employer's share can vary from 9 percent to 5 percent. Under the 5 percent defined contribution plan, employers must also agree to match up to 4 percent of employee contributions.
For several deputies, the decision amounted to an emancipation proclamation. "This is a matter of justice and equity," said the Rev. Kenneth Snyder of Olympia. "It's time we demonstrate our willingness to join the secular world in providing for the retirement of lay employees."
In the business world, according to Deputy Robert Gaines of Northern California, employers award benefits to some employees but not to others. The fact that the church is discriminating by ensuring coverage for its clergy but not its laity is "immoral."
John McLure, deputy from Western Louisiana, sounded a note of reality with a warning. "We'd better be serious about stewardship if we do this," he said. If comprehensive pension coverage depletes parish discretionary funds, then there will be fewer parish dollars fed to the dioceses, he pointed out. And that will produce a ripple effect all the way to offices of the Episcopal Church Center.
While agreeing the time was long overdue for equalization of benefits, Bishop C.I. Jones of Montana said compulsory participation would put smaller churches in a bind. Many of the congregations in his diocese rely on part-time staffing, Jones said. There's simply no room in their budgets to contribute to pension plans, he said.
One bishop suggested the threshold of 1,000 hours was too low, and proposed amending the resolution to set it at 2,000 hours. Bishop James Krotz of Nebraska, a member of the house's Committee on the Church Pension Fund, said during committee hearings there was testimony that the 1,000 hours was a figure set by the federal government "and that very likely we would be held to that standard."
Both houses passed the life and health insurance measure with little debate. A companion measure to the pension resolution, it directs church bodies to provide life and health insurance coverage -- comparable to that provided to clergy -- to lay employees working a minimum of 1,000 hours. The adopted measure is a substitute from the House of Deputies for a resolution submitted by the Council on Ministry Development which proposed medical, dental, and life insurance coverage for all church lay employees.