Marquette University should recognize our rights as workers. Stop union busting.
On April 29, some members of the Marquette University community will celebrate the inauguration of the Catholic, Jesuit university's newest president, Kimo Ah Yun. At the same time, others will protest the inauguration to ask the university to uphold its Catholic values and university leadership to stop union busting.
We are writing as members of this second group, representatives of the steering committee of the United Campus Workers of Wisconsin (UCW-WI), a local wall-to-wall union of students, faculty and staff workers who are organizing for fair wages and contracts on campus at our university. The steering committee also includes additional non-tenure-track faculty, university staff, and graduate student workers on campus.
The inauguration comes in the middle of a horrifying moment for American higher education as a whole. The federal government is canceling support for the humanities and sciences, and trying to destroy public and private initiatives to encourage inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility in our teaching and research. The Trump administration and its allies among some university donors are seeking to chill freedom of speech and the search for truth on our campuses. International students and teachers are victims of political persecution; some are political prisoners.
Leaders in higher education are trying to protect their institutions. Ah Yun is one of many college and university presidents who have signed a public statement calling for constructive engagement to protect the defining freedoms of higher education. We are fortunate to have a president who is willing and able to defend the university's mission and values in this moment.
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At the same time, we believe if our institutions and values are going to survive this moment, then our institutions are going to need to not only publicly defend these values, but actively live these values both off and on campus. We believe our institutions are both places of learning and places of work.
We are reminded of the words of Pope Francis that 'there are no free workers without a union.' Campus worker unionization is key to protecting the defining freedoms of higher education and the workers who embody these freedoms, teaching and supporting our students, and researching and creating new knowledge.
Last fall, more than 65% of full-time, non-tenure-track faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences at Marquette signed union authorization cards indicating their desire to stand together to collectively bargain their contracts with the university.
University leaders say they won't recognize the union 'to protect the direct relationship with our faculty that is critical to our Catholic, Jesuit intellectual life at Marquette.' However, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has said, 'The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions. This is a specific application of the more general right to associate;' and, 'Catholic social teaching supports the right of workers to choose whether to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively.'
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We are protesting to ask university leadership once again for our God-given right as workers to choose for ourselves whether to unionize and collectively bargain. We ask university leadership to correct its course and honor the compassionate core of the religious, intellectual tradition we represent as a university community. Especially in this moment when our traditions are under relentless attack, we ask university leadership to proudly live our shared values.
The university should follow in the footsteps of our Catholic, Jesuit university peers, including Saint Louis University, Fordham, Loyola Chicago, Georgetown and Santa Clara, who negotiate with similar faculty unions. We're asking the university to recognize the union and the desire of full-time, non-tenure-track faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences to collectively bargain their contracts. We continue to believe deeply in good-faith collaboration, and we look forward to collectively bargaining together with university leadership.
Daniel Collette, Christopher Gooding, Grant Gosizk, Matt Greife, and Giordana Poggioli-Kaftan are members of the Steering Committee of the United Campus Workers of Wisconsin (UCW-WI), a local campus union composed of non-tenure-track faculty, university staff, and student workers at Marquette University. This letter was collaboratively written with other members of the Steering Committee, including other non-tenure-track faculty, university staff, and graduate student workers.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette union busting goes against Pope, Catholic values | Opinion
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Within the bounds of law, we are also free to define our towns, cities and counties however we want. Accusing local governments of thought crimes desecrates and defames our Constitution. Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
