Citing bullying and isolation, a group of United Church ministers has teamed up with Canada’s largest private-­sector union to create Unifaith, the nation’s first union for clergy.

“Support is pretty widely based across the entire country,” said Rev. Robin Wardlaw, the newly-elected union chapter president, on Wednesday.

Short of the support needed to be certified as the bargaining agent for ministers in Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, Unifaith was formed as a “community chapter” within Unifor.

Membership is open to all workers and retirees in the church, student ministers and immediate family members.

The objective is to build enough support to hold a certification vote and negotiate collective agreements with the church, Wardlaw said.

Clergy reaction has varied, he said.

“Someone who has been lucky so far and has not had a stressful situation is apt to be a little less supportive than someone who has been through difficulties,” he said.

On its website, unifaith.ca, the union says United Church ministers will not strike.

The bylaw adopted for Unifaith says the union will work to give members a collective voice and advocate for job security and in the face of disciplinary procedures, and push for the right to negotiate a collective agreement.

Professional development is another key objective, Wardlaw said.

“Our hope is this will be a professional organization like many other professional organizations dedicated to improving the standards of our vocation,” he said.

The formation of a union comes amid unprecedented upheaval in the United Church, with the closing, on average, of one church a week. That pressure has been tough on ministers and congregations, leading to problems such as bullying, said Rev. Jim Evans of New Vision Community Church in St. Thomas.

“Somebody once said to me: ‘You can’t kick God, but you can certainly turn to God’s representative and kick her,’ ” said Evans, who served as interim president of the union chapter.

Evans said the wider church is aware of issues of workplace violence and harassment and has made efforts to address them. But ministers, often working in isolation, need more support than the church has provided.

“It reaches a point where we need somebody who is going to walk with us when things get really tough,” he said.

Nora Sanders, general secretary of the United Church of Canada, said Wednesday the church has little information about the new union chapter.

“We are interested in hearing the concerns of ministers and figuring out how best to deal with them,” Sanders said.

As for problems of ministers isolated and bullied, she said the church has made efforts to support both the people locally trying to manage things and the minister, she said.

“Is it perfect? Probably not. We are talking about human situations,” she said.

Unionizing the church could be complicated.

For one, it is not clear who employs ministers, the congregation or the national church.

Wardlaw said the act of Parliament that created the United Church in 1925 doesn’t answer the question, but legal advice union organizers received points to the national church.

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COMMUNITY CHAPTERS