Marquette University Refuses Union Recognition on Religious Grounds

Marquette University. Photo by Ed Bierman. (CC BY 2.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Marquette University leaders are invoking a religious exemption in federal labor law to not recognize a unionization effort by non-tenured faculty.

Dozens of non-faculty employees from the university’s Klingler College of Arts and Sciences have spent most of the past year organizing a union with the United Campus Workers of Wisconsin (UCW-WI). Most of the non-faculty staff have signed cards authorizing UCW-WI to represent them, according to the union. The staff are organizing around “unfair wages, short-term contracts, and increasing workloads as some of the concerns that motivated them to unionize,” according to the union.

But the university is refusing to recognize the union and is invoking a religious exemption to sidestep a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union election. The NLRB has held that religious institutions are exempt from board oversight “under a broad interpretation of religious freedom,” according to Fisher Phillips, a national law firm that specializes in labor and management law.

“To protect the direct relationship with our faculty that is critical to our Catholic, Jesuit intellectual life at Marquette, the university is invoking its legal right for a religious exemption from National Labor Relations Board oversight,” wrote Acting president and provost Dr. Kimo Ah Yun and vice president and general counsel Ralph Weber in an open letter to students and staff.

Ah Yun and Weber said the university’s 143-year history as a “Catholic, Jesuit institution” entitled it to the exemption.

“Ultimately, the religious exemption is about the Constitution’s First Amendment protection of religious freedom from government regulation — widely regarded as one of America’s most important rights,” they wrote.

The union responded with an editorial in the student newspaper, pointing to Catholic institutions and leaders, like Pope Francis, who have expressed support for unions.

“We ask university leadership to open their hearts and minds to the ways unionization may strengthen the university’s Catholic, Jesuit identity and ministry, rather than remaining committed to the spurious idea that our Catholic, Jesuit identity and values preclude collective bargaining with faculty,” the union wrote.

University leaders say the institution and its students are “best served by working collaboratively with all our faculty,” and they characterized the union as an outside third party.

This framing of unions as a “third party” is common in unionization opposition, as is the importance placed on maintaining the status quo that workers are organizing against.

Ah Yun and Weber wrote that the university has taken action to improve employment conditions for non-tenure track faculty. The university has even implemented a number of changes the university has made in recent years relative to employment contracts, pay, promotion and professional development.

The union continues to push its legitimacy and has found support for its campaign among some students and staff. It recently delivered two petitions — one signed by students another by tenured-faculty — calling for recognition from the university.

Correction: The story originally said “the university’s 147- year history”, it has been corrected to reflect Marquette’s 143-year history.