Union Battle at Marquette Gets Religious

Father Marquette Statue on the campus of Marquette University. Photo by Dave Reid.

On Tuesday, March 11, a union slowdown was announced at Marquette University in support of non-tenure-track faculty. The action — or inaction — is being taken to protest the university ’s decision to not recognize the United Campus Workers of Wisconsin (UCW-WI) to collectively bargain for full-time non-tenure-track NTT faculty in the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences at Marquette University. Also participating in the slowdown are the tenure-track faculty in the Klingler College.

Such disputes typically involve labor law, but at Catholic Jesuit Marquette, the issue isn’t that simple. While the university clings to legal rulings by the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB), the union is calling on God and Catholic social teaching to defend its position.

Last fall, more than 65 percent of full-time, non-tenure track faculty in the Klingler College signed union authorization cards expressing their desire to collectively bargain their contracts with the university, a press release by UCW-WI noted. Union card signers identified unfair wages, short-term contracts, and increasing workloads as the primary concerns. Also, more than 800 students signed an online petition supporting the local campus union’s right to collectively bargain.

But Marquette’s administration chose to not accept an invitation from UCW-WI to negotiate a union agreement. The administration contends that it does not have to recognize any labor union based upon a ruling by NLRB that religious institutions are exempt from such federal mandates. While the NLRB first ruled in 2014 that religious institutions were exempt from unionization only in areas of religious activity, the first Trump administration won a broader exemption in 2020, confirmed last year in ruling involving the Catholic institution St. Leo’s University.

Marquette also argues it is doing everything it can to be fair to its non-tenure-track employees without recognizing the union. Stated Marquette president Dr. Kimo Ah Yun in October 2024: “Marquette continues to believe that our community, and especially our students, are best served by working collaboratively with all our faculty — who have a distinct role in delivering our Catholic, Jesuit mission — without needing to engage the union as an outside third party.”

The UCW-WI hardly considers itself a “third party,” but the legitimate representative of Marquette faculty members. Their struggles have gone national in a recent National Catholic Reporter outlining how a Marquette professor moonlights as an Uber driver just to make ends meet.

But the UCW-WI doesn’t stop there in defending the rights of its workers to form a union. It argues that its position is imbedded in Catholic social teaching. Pope Francis has stated that “There are no free workers without a union,” and the Catholic Bishops of the United States have taken a similar position, stating that “Catholic social teaching supports the right of workers to choose whether to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively, and to exercise these rights without reprisal.”

“Other Catholic, Jesuit universities have made the alternative choice to negotiate with unions and stipulate to NLRB elections to recognize unions,” a statement by UCW-WI noted. “Last fall, Saint Louis University stipulated to an NLRB election to recognize a union of graduate student workers. Saint Louis University, Fordham University, Loyola University Chicago, Georgetown University, and Santa Clara University all collectively bargain with faculty unions.”

But some Catholic institutions have not recognized unions. The UCW-WI, however, has called on Marquette to join those Catholic institutions that have and to live up to “the university’s shared values.”