Suit Against Rutgers Unions Dismissed

St. John’s University is suing the New York Public Employment Relations Board, asking the court to block the agency from processing an unfair labor practice charge that the university’s faculty unions filed in April.

The university filed the complaint in early June, about three months after President Brian Shanley announced it would no longer recognize its two long-standing faculty unions and two months after the unions filed their charge. St. John’s argues that its First Amendment rights as a religious institution prevent the state board from asserting jurisdiction over the university, and asks the court for a preliminary or permanent injunction barring the agency from processing the April charge or any other against the university.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed

“At St. John’s, ministry and mission are inseparable—and faculty are entrusted with the sacred responsibility of guiding students in the Catholic and Vincentian educational and intellectual traditions,” the complaint states. “Under St. John’s expired collective bargaining agreement with the faculty union, faculty committees controlled significant aspects of hiring, tenure, promotion, discipline, and curricular decisions—the very decisions that define how St. John’s carries out its mission.”

The bargaining rights of faculty at religious colleges have fluctuated in recent years. The Trump-appointed National Labor Relations Board decided in 2020 that religious institutions are exempt from its jurisdiction, reversing an Obama-era precedent that determined employees who do not perform religious work at religious institutions, like faculty members, can unionize. However, religious institutions have always been able to voluntarily recognize and bargain with faculty unions, as St. John’s did in 1970 when both its American Association of University Professors chapter and Faculty Association union were formed.

Union leaders slammed the lawsuit, calling the move an abandonment of the “Vincentian values St. John’s is founded on.”

“This is another out-of-touch, misguided attempt by the St. John’s University administration to attack our faculty and bust our union that has existed for over 56 years,” Sophie Bell, acting president of the St. John’s University AAUP, said in the statement. “It is clear that our union’s power and the strength of our legal case has scared Father Shanley’s administration. This lawsuit—attacking the very labor board investigating its unlawful actions—shows the lengths SJU will go to silence faculty, usurp our rights and continue this assault on our decades-old, state-certified union. We know that our mission, our ministry and New York State labor law are on our side.”

St. John’s legal battle isn’t the only union–institution dispute that extended into the summer months. Read on in this month’s edition of Labor Watch for an update on a 2023 lawsuit against Rutgers unions, a Portland State University faculty rally against forthcoming layoffs, the New School AAUP’s protest against faculty firings and several institutions that notched contract wins.

LEGAL WIN FOR RUTGERS UNIONS: On Wednesday, Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Ana C. Viscomi dismissed a 2024 lawsuit against Rutgers University unions in which former student Jeremy Li alleged the unions deprived students of a week of education during their triple-union strike in 2023. Viscomi dismissed the case with prejudice, noting that Li still received full course credit for the spring despite the one-week strike.

“Our students’ learning conditions can only be as good as the working conditions of the faculty and staff who support their education,” Heather Pierce, president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, said in a news release. “Our fight is not only for ourselves, but for our students too. This is not only a win for labor rights—it is a win for the future of public higher education.”

PORTLAND STATE UNION KEEPS PUSHING: Portland State University faculty, students and community members rallied June 3 against the university’s decision to lay off 52 unionized faculty members—including a dozen tenured professors—as part of a broader plan to address a $35 million budget deficit.

“It’s been increasingly difficult to have any sense of pride,” PSU graduate student Isabelle Amezcua told KPTV on the day of the rally. “It kind of feels like as they’re being pushed out, the students are being pushed out also.”

PSU President Ann Cudd announced the proposed layoffs in May. At the time of the rally, a PSU spokesperson told KPTV that the reductions were “a proposal, not a final plan,” and that the plan wouldn’t be finalized until after the comment period ended on June 13. On June 16, the PSU Board of Trustees approved a preliminary budget that supports, but does not finalize, the layoffs.

“While the approval of the preliminary budget establishes a baseline operational framework, this is an initial phase of the university’s fiscal planning and does not reflect the impact of any faculty layoffs that may occur as a result of the ongoing retrenchment process,” a university spokesperson said in a statement to KGW8.

CONTRACT WINS: Community College of Baltimore County faculty approved their first contract this month after more than a year of negotiations, netting a 12.6 percent salary increase over the next three years and protections for job security and academic freedom, WBAL reported. Also in June, Clatsop Community College’s Full-Time Faculty Association ratified its three-year collective bargaining agreement, which secured a 3 percent cost-of-living increase for faculty members, established incentives for summer instruction and clarified faculty workloads.

NEW SCHOOL FACULTY FIGHT BACK: Unionized faculty at the New School are fighting against the institution’s decision to dismiss 19 faculty and 68 staff members to help solve an ongoing budget deficit at the New York university. The New School’s AAUP chapter is demanding that fired faculty be reinstated or eligible for a phased retirement process. They are also calling on university leaders to publicly share the “criteria for termination, institutional need, and financial impact,” according to a news release.

Todd Wolfson, president of the national AAUP, spoke out against the firings in the release, calling them “a profound betrayal of the institution’s founding legacy as a sanctuary for critical social thought for scholars fleeing fascism.”