In Urging Faculty Not to Unionize, Marquette Cites Catholic Identity

Marquette University’s administration is appealing to professors’ religious identity in trying to keep them from unionizing.

On Thursday morning, Kimo Ah Yun, acting provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, told campus members in an email that several representatives from the Local 1 chapter of the Service Employees International Union had been approaching non-tenure-track faculty members as they leave their classrooms to get signatures on authorization cards. (The union, which generally represents public service employees, health-care workers, and janitorial and service workers, according to its website, did not respond to an interview request on Friday.)

The goal of the union is to get signatures from 30 percent of non-tenure-track faculty members, Ah Yun wrote, so that the National Labor Relations Board will be required to conduct an election. And if more than half of non-tenure-track faculty members sign the cards, all non-tenure track faculty at Marquette will be unionized without an election, he said.

As a Jesuit and Roman Catholic institution, Marquette “affirms the Catholic belief, echoed by Pope Francis, that the dignity of each person includes the right to fulfilling and life-sustaining work,” he wrote. He then added, in boldface type:

“Our strong preference is to maintain a direct working relationship with our faculty — without a third party intermediary that may not understand our university, our mission, or our guiding values. This direct working relationship — one built on a long history of mutual respect and direct dialogue — is one of the many reasons Marquette is such a unique and rewarding place to work.”

Ah Yun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Invoking faith-based appeals against adjunct unionization isn’t new. Some Roman Catholic colleges, and the associations that represent them, have argued for years that because they’re good employers, and because of their unique religious missions, they should be allowed to decide for themselves whether to let their adjuncts unionize. They’re especially against involvement by the National Labor Relations Board, which, they say, could threaten the colleges’ religious freedom.

But some theologians, union supporters, and adjuncts have cried foul on that reasoning, saying it’s hypocritical and defies Catholic teachings.

Catholic social teaching is “quite clear” on this issue, said Meghan J. Clark, an associate professor of moral theology at St. John’s University. That workers have the right to unionize, if they want, is a “bedrock principle,” she said.

It was affirmed in 1891 when Pope Leo XIII wrote the Rerum novarum, which reflected on working conditions in the 19th century and also affirmed, without question, the right of workers to choose to come together, Clark said. Nearly a century later, in 1986, U.S. Catholic bishops wrote a letter that, in part, criticized union-busting tactics: “No one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself.”

“The union question was there for the very beginning,” Clark said. “And the answer was clear from the very beginning.”

‘Simply Shameful’

Unionization disputes at Catholic universities can drag on for years. Duquesne University recently announced that it will take its case to federal appeals court after the National Labor Relations Board ordered that the university recognize and bargain with an adjunct faculty union. The dispute started back in 2012, when faculty members in the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts voted to form an association affiliated with the United Steelworkers, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

“It’s simply shameful to see a university administration which carries the banner of the Catholic Church violate the teaching of the very faith they so loudly profess,” Leo W. Gerard, international president of the United Steelworkers, told the newspaper.

And the messaging is often similar from top brass at Catholic universities as to why they don’t support unionization efforts.

In 2016, the Rev. Stephen V. Sundborg, president of Seattle University, said that the National Labor Relations Board didn’t have jurisdiction to recognize a vote among its faculty to unionize. Ceding authority to the government entity “could lead to long-term consequences for our Jesuit education and Catholic identity. The potential for erosion of either is a real concern,” he said, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

In 2014, Joseph Hellige, the provost at Loyola Marymount, told his campus that throughout history, the Catholic church and members of the university community “have recognized and advocated for the rights of workers to organize in order to secure just working conditions.”

“However,” he said, “the securing of just working conditions does not necessarily have to come through labor unions.”

But not all Catholic colleges decide to fight against unionization. Georgetown University and Fordham University have accepted campaigns to organize adjuncts. At Fordham, wages for adjunct professors will increase by 67 percent to 90 percent over the next three years under the union-negotiated contract, signed in July.

Emma Pettit is a staff reporter at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.