The United Church’s would-be union group has forwarded a proposal to the upcoming General Council 45 to address a perceived lack of attention to the rights of clergy in the workplace, specifically during disputes.
The “Faith Workers’ Bill of Rights” includes 10 items on the rights of ordained and lay clergy to respect and a safe workplace. Unifaith, which created the document, is a community chapter of Unifor — Canada’s largest private-sector trade union. Its aim is to unionize United Church clergy and staff. The group developed the bill of rights as a response to clergy bullying and harassment concerns published in a 2024 Broadview article and also as a step toward union certification.
“Based on the experiences of many faith workers in The United Church of Canada, this Bill of Rights was created in order to ensure a positive, supportive working environment within Communities of Faith,” the document, prepared in collaboration with the Canadian Institute of Workplace Harassment and Violence, reads. “Let this Bill of Rights declare foundational principles necessary to protect those who lead in faith. These rights do not elevate faith workers above others — they affirm that no one is beneath protection, dignity or justice, including those who serve.”
Below: Read the full text of the Faith Workers’ Bill of Rights
Faith-Workers-Bill-of-RightsSince Unifaith started in 2014, one of its main initiatives has been supporting clergy who are navigating employment negotiations or complaints with their congregations or the national church, according to Rev. Alison Miculan, Unifaith’s president and a minister at two United churches in Hamilton. Over the past decade, she has identified gaps within the denomination’s internal procedures that she says marginalize clergy.
“All of the existing polity within The United Church of Canada is focused more on the responsibilities of clergy [….] You might pull out a sentence here or a fragment there, but there’s no real comprehensive place where you say these are the rights of faith workers,” Miculan said.
Many of the clauses in the bill of rights emphasize employees’ right to report misconduct and discrimination without fear of reprisal, the right to due process during complaint investigations, as well as the right to trauma-informed support, compensation and reintegration options when harmed. Miculan believes the Office of Vocation, the national body that handles the accreditation, oversight and discipline of ministers, has a “one-sided” approach to bullying and harassment complaints.
“When the Office of Vocation receives a complaint, the deck is pretty stacked against clergy,” Miculan said. “There isn’t a robust way of investigating parishioners. There’s no consequences essentially for congregations, whereas there are all kinds of consequences for clergy because you can lose your job.”
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Rev. Jennifer Janzen-Ball, executive minister of the General Council’s theology and ministry leadership unit, which oversees the Office of Vocation, described the Faith Workers Bill of Rights as “quite comprehensive” and noted that it frames the denomination’s relations with ordained and lay clergy as an employee-employer relationship, and the church as a workplace setting.
However, she says the bill’s content only reiterates the church’s existing policies, “primarily our Creating Safe and Respectful Environments policy, but it’s also covered under our Manual in terms of the notice that must be given to ministry personnel when terminating a pastoral relationship and our Ethical Standards and then within our […] employee and family assistance plan and benefits package.”
She added that the church is actively working on a number of initiatives, namely a series of training modules that will be rolled out to congregations in the fall, as well as the United Fresh Start program, which provides workshops for clergy and congregational lay leaders in the first years of a new pastoral relationship.
Janzen-Ball further explained that while she doesn’t discount anecdotal reports of clergy bullying, the denomination needs more empirical data to learn the extent of the problem.
“We would like to gather data on how many ministers feel that they’re bullied because we don’t know,” Janzen-Ball said. “I just want to reiterate again that the church really does take seriously the need to address situations of harassment, of bullying, of discrimination, of abuse of any kind, and that we continue to be committed to that.”
At the time of article’s writing, the bill still awaits French translation before being added to the 45th General Council’s proposal library online. Miculan is hopeful that the business committee, the determining body setting the meeting’s agenda, will select the bill of rights to be heard and debated publicly when the General Council convenes in August.
“My biggest worry is that they will [defer it] because that’s how all good things die. I want this to be heard by the full court,” Miculan said. “My mantra is ‘working conditions are worshiping conditions’ so I think that taking care of our faith workers just benefits everybody, and I think that most of the people sitting in our pews feel the same way.”
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Ghazal Azizi is a summer intern at Broadview.
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