St. John’s University’s recent decision to cease recognizing faculty labor unions after 56 years has stirred a mix of criticism and support.
A Catholic Vincentian college with campuses in Queens and Manhattan, St. John’s University has about 19,000 students, including 3,000 graduate students, 39% of whom identify as Catholic, according to the university’s enrollment numbers. Tuition is reported to be about $51,000 per year.
University president Father Brian Shanley, OP, announced in a Feb. 19 email to faculty that the university would no longer recognize its two unions, the St. John’s University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (SJU-AAUP) and the Faculty Association — both formed in 1970.
An estimated 200 faculty and students gathered to protest the decision in February.
University spokesman Brian Browne said the decision was made to ensure the university is “sustainable” going forward.
“Withdrawing recognition from the faculty union was not something we did lightly, but it is necessary to be able to advance our organizational mission,” Browne said. “This will allow St. John’s the flexibility required to innovate while continuing to support our faculty and, most importantly, deliver on our promise to our students.”
“As the landscape of higher education undergoes a profound transformation, our commitment to providing an exceptional and sustainable educational experience consistent with our mission requires us to be agile and innovative,“ Browne said.
Sophia Bell, who has assumed the leadership role after Fred Cocozzelli stepped down as president of the St. John’s chapter of the AAUP, called the decision “a disastrous mistake.”
“[Father Brian Shanley] is violating New York state law and ignoring decades of St. John’s institutional practice and centuries of Catholic social teaching around respect for labor and workers,” Bell said of the university president.
“His shortsighted mistake is deeply destabilizing to our university and will harm St. John’s students, faculty, families, and community,” Bell continued. “He needs to return to the table now and repair the harm he has caused to our university and everyone whose lives it touches.”
As religious institutions, Catholic colleges are independent from the federal labor board, meaning that federal legal requirements requiring unions do not apply. In 2020, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) “held that it has no jurisdiction over the faculty at religious institutions of higher education.” The university declined to comment on the legal aspect but referred EWTN News to the 2020 decision.
Barbara Mistick, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), said she supports the university exercising its religious exemption.
“NAICU has for many years supported and advanced the rights of private, religious institutions to be exempt from rules governing the formation of faculty unions,” Mistick said in a statement shared with EWTN News.
“The rights of faith-based institutions like St. John’s University to exercise their religious exemption has been repeatedly affirmed by multiple NLRB and court decisions,” Mistick added. “NAICU will continue to support its religious members in exercising this exemption.”
The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU), of which St. John’s University is a member, voiced support for the religious exemption in a statement shared with EWTN News.
“While ACCU does not take a position on unionization, the association respects the university’s choice, as a private, Catholic institution, to invoke its religious exemption, knowing St. John’s has made significant efforts to resolve internal differences collaboratively and in good faith,” the statement read.
Catholic social teaching
In the Catholic Church’s most famous teaching on the dignity of the worker, Rerum Novarum — an encyclical by Pope Leo XIII from May 1891 — the pope advocated for the importance of “workingmen’s unions.”
“Such unions should be suited to the requirements of this our age — an age of wider education, of different habits, and of far more numerous requirements in daily life,” the encyclical reads.
Responding to claims that the university violated Catholic social teaching with this decision, St. John’s University spokesperson Browne said the decision was for “the common good.”
“Catholic social teaching calls us to advance the common good for our entire community, which requires balancing the needs of all,” Browne said. “As a Vincentian institution, our primary responsibility is to our students.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the common good “concerns the life of all” and “calls for prudence from each, and even more from those who exercise the office of authority” (CCC, 1906).
“Catholic teaching asks every group to align its focus with the common good,” Browne continued. “This decision allows for a more direct and collaborative partnership with our faculty, ensuring we can adapt and innovate together to secure the long-term health of the university and deliver the best possible outcomes for our students, which is the ultimate expression of our mission.”
Browne also added that the decision “is not about reducing faculty compensation or benefits or changing the faculty tenure process” and noted that the administration is “moving forward with the wage increases and health insurance premium relief outlined in our last, best, and final offer.”
“At St. John’s, we believe the best way to support our faculty is to ensure St. John’s is a thriving, sustainable, and innovative institution for the long term,” Browne said. “Our primary goal remains to protect and enhance the value of a St. John’s education and to build a sustainable, mission-driven university that remains faithful to its Catholic values.”
When asked about Catholic social teaching, Christopher Denny, president of the Faculty Association and a theology professor at St. John’s University, urged the administration to set an example.
“Presidents and provosts at Roman Catholic institutions should honor the teaching of the Church’s magisterium by supporting the rights of faculty and staff when they choose to unionize and to bargain collectively,” Denny told EWTN News.
“Students at Catholic universities learn about Catholic social teaching not only through classroom instruction; college students also learn about Catholic social teaching by watching the example set by university administrators,” Denny continued.
“In his encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI wrote: ‘The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past,’” Denny said.
“At an audience this past fall with labor leaders from Chicago, Pope Leo XIV told them to advocate for human dignity, and said to them, ‘By doing so, you are putting into practice the call of my beloved predecessor, Pope Francis, who urged every union to be reborn each day at the peripheries,’” he continued.
“At a time when higher education in the U.S. is dependent upon the labor of hundreds of thousands of underpaid adjunct faculty who have been pushed to the peripheries of their own schools, it is imperative that Catholic institutions model the ethical behavior they want to see present in our larger society,” Denny said.
He added: “Catholic universities must not simply talk about the Church’s social teaching. They must put it into practice every day in their educational communities.”
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