no longer recognize two unions on campus<\/a>, the St. John\u2019s University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors and the Faculty Association. Both had been formed in 1970. <\/p>\nA school spokesman said the decision would “allow [the school] the flexibility required to innovate while continuing to support our faculty and, most importantly, deliver on our promise to our students.\u201d<\/p>\n
The unions subsequently filed a complaint with the state Public Employment Relations Board, alleging that the school\u02bcs decision, along with changes to faculty employment terms, violated the New York State Employment Relations Act.<\/p>\n
In its June 1 filing, the school said the First Amendment and extensive court precedent prohibits the state board from what the university described as \u201cexcessive government entanglement with religion.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleges that the union\u02bcs request would require the school to share its decision-making authority with both union leaders and the state government, even on issues that are \u201cessential to its mission.\u201d <\/p>\n
Oversight from the state board would \u201c[prevent] St. John\u2019s from exercising its First Amendment right to freely govern itself in accordance with its Catholic and Vincentian mission and faith,\u201d the suit says. <\/p>\n
The state labor board did not immediately respond to a request for comment from EWTN News regarding the federal lawsuit. <\/p>\n
Earlier this year the school received criticism from some community members for its decision to withdraw from union bargaining. <\/p>\n
Sophia Bell, the president of the St. John\u2019s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, called the decision \u201ca disastrous mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c[School president Father Brian Shanley] is violating New York state law and ignoring decades of St. John\u2019s institutional practice and centuries of Catholic social teaching around respect for labor and workers,\u201d Bell told EWTN News. <\/p>\n
The school was founded in 1870 and is headquartered in Queens, New York. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A historic Catholic university in New York City has filed a federal lawsuit against state officials amid a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5555,3734,23338,3100,9,11,10,76069],"class_list":["post-254152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-archdiocese-of-new-york","tag-catholic-news","tag-labor-unions","tag-lawsuit","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-catholic-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254152","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=254152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}