By Eleanor J. Bader<\/p>\n
This article was originally published by Truthout<\/a><\/p>\n Administrators at St. John\u2019s University abruptly canceled labor negotiations, pushing faculty to scale up organizing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Sixty-two years ago, St. John\u2019s University (SJU) in New York City became the site of the first major faculty strike in U.S. history \u2014 a year-long conflict that followed the firing of 33 teachers, including three priests, without due process. Now, the struggle over labor conditions has forced the faculty to once again mobilize, a move precipitated by the current college administration\u2019s abrupt announcement that it will no longer recognize two faculty unions or continue negotiations to hash out a new contract.<\/p>\n St. John\u2019s president, Rev. Brian J. Shanley<\/a>, and Provost and Senior Vice President Simon Geir M\u00f8ller<\/a>, told the National Catholic Reporter<\/a> (NCR) that the move was necessary to give the college \u201cthe flexibility required to innovate \u2026 and deliver on our promise to our students.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But faculty members, who had been demanding improved wages and greater transparency in how their share of health insurance premiums are calculated, call it union busting.<\/p>\n And while the university\u2019s administrators did not respond to Truthout\u2019s multiple requests for an interview, they told NCR that the decision rests on a 2020 decision promulgated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). That decision, Bethany College<\/a>, 369 NLRB No. 98<\/a>, removed NLRB jurisdiction over most of the 849 religiously affiliated colleges and universities<\/a> in the country and prompted at least eight predominantly Catholic schools \u2014 Bethany and Boston Colleges, and Duquesne, Edward Waters, Loyola Marymount, Marquette, St. Leo and Wilberforce universities \u2014 to end union recognition on campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n Critics see this as part of a general rightward trend in higher education.<\/p>\n \u201cThe anti-union arguments that have emerged coincide with the appointment of conservative board members and trustees who do not want to deal with unions,\u201d Joseph A. McCartin<\/a>, executive director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor<\/a> at Georgetown University, told Truthout. \u201cCollege and university board members at religiously affiliated institutions are heavily weighted to the financial sector, which does not work with unions and sees them as a nuisance. But the moral principles that guide the church have a clear message about workplace justice. These colleges need to be asked how they reconcile their actions with the church\u2019s stated values.\u201d<\/p>\n To wit, McCartin cites a pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All<\/a>, that was written by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1986. The 40-year-old document centers \u201csocial justice and the Biblical and ethical principles that support it\u201d and demands that Catholic colleges and universities be \u201cexemplary\u201d in providing \u201ca sufficient livelihood and social benefits\u201d to workers. The document further demands that Catholic institutions \u201cfully recognize the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively \u2026 through whatever association or organization they freely choose.\u201d<\/p>\n Theology professor Chris Denny is president of the St. John\u2019s Faculty Association<\/a>, which, along with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), has represented the full- and part-time faculty on St. John\u2019s Jamaica, New York, campus since 1970.<\/p>\n \u201cCatholicism is not a lapel pin you take out of a drawer and put on when you want to showcase your faith,\u201d Denny told Truthout. \u201cSimply put, the university\u2019s treatment of faculty and students does not embody Catholic social justice teachings. The Vincentian tradition at St. John\u2019s follows the model set by St. Vincent de Paul<\/a>.<\/a>\u201d SJU, he says, was founded on this tradition. \u201cIt does not comport with lavish spending on athletics and team sports while the rest of the campus is a shambles. Our students understand that our workplace conditions are their learning conditions so they understand what\u2019s at stake here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Denny argues that the Bethany decision may not have bearing on St. John\u2019s. \u201cWe are governed by the New York State Employment Relations Act<\/a>, which is overseen by the state Public Employees Relations Board (PERB),\u201d he says. \u201cPERB covers private entities like St. John\u2019s and we\u2019re now in a standoff with the administration over PERB\u2019s role in governance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But the matter of jurisdiction is currently subject to some legal contestation<\/a>. The question of whether the PERB or the NLRB has standing over employer-employee relations at St. John\u2019s will be at the heart of an Unfair Labor Practices claim that the Faculty Association and AAUP plan to file. They will ask PERB judges to adjudicate this issue if the administration continues to stonewall and does not return to the bargaining table.<\/p>\n But the unions are hoping it won\u2019t come to that.<\/p>\n Sophie Bell, acting president of the campus AAUP chapter, says that the union was surprised by the February suspension of bargaining and the decision to end union recognition. \u201cThis was my second time bargaining for a contract and in the earlier negotiation I felt like management was a real partner at the bargaining table,\u201d she told Truthout. \u201cThis time it felt different and I got the impression that Shanley does not want a union.\u201d<\/p>\n Nonetheless, she says that the bargaining team \u2014 12 union members and a slightly smaller number of managers and attorneys \u2014 had been meeting regularly since the spring of 2025 and was making slow progress. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working without a contract since July 1. We became concerned when management hired Proskauer Rose, an anti-union law firm, to represent them, but we were still talking,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n But now that the talking has stopped, Bell says that the AAUP has three demands for Shanley and the Board of Trustees: Resume contract negotiations; recognize the bargaining unit\u2019s right to a fair, equitable contract; and establish open lines of communication between faculty and Trustees.<\/p>\n As of late March, little headway has been made toward these goals. Nonetheless, the union has continued organizing \u2014 bringing hundreds of demonstrators to Madison Square Garden during an NCAA basketball championship game that featured St. John\u2019s, and garnering support from a raft of community and labor organizations, elected officials, and progressive religious leaders.<\/p>\n Anti-Union Fervor Had Been Building on Campus<\/p>\n That support has been encouraging, first-year writing instructor David G. Farley tells Truthout. At the same time, he says that faculty are on edge since no one anticipated that the union would be totally rebuffed by management. Still, Farley said rumors about administration proposals that would worsen labor conditions \u2014 including reduced research leave, increased teaching loads, and the development of a robust online course catalog that will be heavily reliant on artificial intelligence \u2014 have swirled for several years.<\/p>\n \u201cLast spring, [St. John\u2019s University administrators] announced the elimination of 18 majors across the colleges including languages, chemistry, physics, toxicology, and hospitality management,\u201d Farley says. \u201cAt about the same time they announced a new partnership with Customs and Border Protection <\/a>\u00a0(CBP) for courses in security studies.\u201d<\/p>\n At that time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been ramping up its raids in communities throughout the country and, Farley says, \u201cas concerned faculty, we quickly responded and got a petition going. We circulated it to current students, alumni, and staff, to say, \u2018Don\u2019t do this. It goes against the university\u2019s social justice mission.\u2019 In February, after less than a year, the [CBP] partnership was dissolved. This victorious campaign was galvanizing for faculty and we created connections to one another in a way that we had not done before.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeanette C. Perron, a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical science, agrees that the CBP campaign was significant. Nonetheless, she says that it took attending an open bargaining session to kickstart her union activism. \u201cIt was clear that we were spinning our wheels,\u201d she told Truthout. \u201cI could see that the people on the other side of the table did not respect the union. I thought our bargaining team had come up with some really good ideas about ways to save money, but everything they suggested was dismissed. That was eye-opening to see.\u201d<\/p>\n Moreover, management contempt for both the Faculty Association and the AAUP, Perron and Farley say, has been the glue uniting faculty, many of whom see what is happening on their campus as emblematic of the attacks on higher education more generally.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Shanley administration has taken a profit-driven, corporatist approach to education,\u201d Lara Vapnek, a history professor who has been at St. John\u2019s for 20 years, tells Truthout. \u201cUntil Shanley came in 2020, the mission of the school was to serve the poor and promote social justice. Shanley has taken the school in a different direction and it is crushing.\u201d She calls the summer 2025 hiring of EAB<\/a>, a consulting firm hired to help the Board of Trustees \u201crestructure\u201d the school, and the hiring of anti-union lawyers from Proskauer Rose, turning points. \u201cIt seems as if the administration wants to turn St. John\u2019s into an athletic franchise with an online university,\u201d she quips.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, like others on campus, Vapnek is heartened by the faculty activism in response to what\u2019s happened on campus, from the amount of community support they\u2019ve received to the organizing that is taking place on and beyond the St. John\u2019s campus. \u201cThe kind of top-town, \u2018Let\u2019s just wreck it and act like everything is okay\u2019 mentality is very DOGE-like,\u201d she says. \u201cIt fits with the attacks on women, people of color, and the queer community, attacks on the teaching of history, and attacks on the National Institutes of Health.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBasically, I see what\u2019s taking place as a rejection of knowledge,\u201d Vapnek concludes. \u201cThe faculty at St. John\u2019s are great but we are all being treated as expendable. We think we\u2019re providing value to students and to the university but the administration is treating us as if we\u2019re standing in the way of progress.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, Vapnek and her colleagues concede that union busting at St. John\u2019s and other colleges and universities may be the point. They refer to a 2025 audit commissioned by the AAUP and conducted by Howard Bunsis<\/a>, a professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan State University.<\/p>\n The survey found St. John\u2019s to be in \u201csolid financial condition\u201d but noted that the school has the highest management salaries in the country, and perhaps predictably, Bunsis reported that faculty salaries have not kept pace with inflation.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Bunsis reported that basketball coach Rick Pitino\u2019s six-year contract<\/a> provides an annual salary of $3.3 million, with athletic spending far outpacing instructional spending. The average annual faculty salary is $80,757.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> was originally published by Truthout<\/a> and is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)<\/a>. Please maintain all links and credits in accordance with our republishing guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Eleanor J. Bader This article was originally published by Truthout Administrators at St. John\u2019s University abruptly canceled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-182723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}