We’re writing in response to Provost Poon’s “NTT Faculty Unionization Campaign Update” email from November 20, 2023.
Although we are grateful for the provost’s candor and recognition that Non-Tenure Track Faculty (NTT Faculty) have a right to form a union, we are disappointed to learn that the administration does not support our campaign. We remind the provost that Catholic social teachings support unions as a means to ensure the dignity of work. Therefore, we call on the administration to pledge neutrality and non-interference in our campaign. Neutrality is also expressly called for in the American Association of University Professors’ Statement on Collective Bargaining. We should decide for ourselves whether we want to form a union, not the administration.
In light of this, we’d like to address some of the provost’s statements.
Provost Statement:
I understand that SEIU Local 721 is exploring whether NTT faculty members wish to be represented by the union.
Our response:
In fact, NTT Faculty are exploring whether NTT Faculty wish to be represented by a union. We reached out to SEIU after a decade of slow, minor progress since our last unionization effort.
SEIU 721 is here to help us with our campaign; the effort is faculty led.
Provost Statement:
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) represents workers, primarily in healthcare, law enforcement, sanitation, and public services.
Our response:
We are partnering with SEIU because it has a history of representing workers in higher education. For instance, over the last decade SEIU’s Faculty Forward campaign has supported faculty-led organizing efforts in academia. NTT Faculty at Jesuit universities like Georgetown, Fordham, and Santa Clara, and Southern California colleges like Occidental, Otis College of Art and Design, and Laguna College of Art and Design, have all partnered with SEIU to organize unions. After negotiating a first contract, these faculty won better pay and raises, more job security, and a meaningful voice on the job (see the “Union Difference” piece on our website). The California Faculty Association, which represents faculty in the California State University system, is also an SEIU affiliate.
Provost Statement:
We remain committed to our NTT faculty, and the university prefers no union because we believe that direct and candid dialogue is the best way to address needs and concerns. Recent outcomes prove this point because we have made significant progress by working together. NTT faculty are an essential voice in LMU’s shared governance, and I hope that this mode of working together directly continues.
Our response:
We remain committed to LMU, its students, and its administration, and we prefer a union because we believe it to be the best method for NTT Faculty to have direct and candid dialogue with the administration about our needs, concerns, and working conditions.
The significant progress the provost refers to was a direct result of our unsuccessful 2013 unionization campaign. Since then, our wages have not kept pace with the cost of living, we still have little to no job security, and we have little to no access to professional development funding. What is more, there is little meaningful communication between NTT Faculty and LMU administration. Our power on the Faculty Senate is limited and the administration has largely disregarded the Senate’s suggestions for improving NTT Faculty working conditions and pay.
After we form our union, we’ll have the power to make gains on an ongoing basis, and be on more equal footing with the administration, with a truer voice in our working conditions. For instance, we can design a union contract that requires the administration to regularly meet with NTT Faculty about working conditions, potential violations of our union agreement, and more — just as other unionized NTT Faculty have across the country. In short: a union means MORE regular and meaningful communication with the administration, not less.
Provost Statement:
The university will continue conducting labor relations in compliance with the law and in the spirit of our Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount values and mission.
Our Response:
The Catholic Church has long supported the rights of working people to organize collectively. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII stated, “The most important of all [workplace associations and organizations] are workingmen’s unions.” In 1981, Pope John Paul II said that unions “are indeed a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the just rights of working people in accordance with their individual professions.” And in 2022, Pope Francis observed, “There is no union without workers, and there are no free workers without a union” and called for a “wise alliance” among the union, its members, and employers to make sure people “care about the lives of employees.”
Our campaign presents an opportunity for LMU to show the community that its commitment to social justice is more than a corporate branding exercise. There is no social justice without economic justice, and there is no institution with a better track record of delivering economic justice than a union.
The problems faced by NTT Faculty (and universities’ excessive reliance upon us) are not confined to LMU; they are nationwide issues that have been growing for decades. LMU administrators are constrained by a system that is broken. We ask them to let NTT Faculty, using our collective voice, lead the way to a more just and equitable system. That starts with forming a union.
********
Our campaign is growing stronger by the week. While the provost’s letter stated that “the university prefers no union,” since our campaign went public, we have received tremendous support from the student body, tenure track faculty, conscientious administrators, and most importantly, other NTT Faculty members. Furthermore, the LMU Faculty Senate recently passed a motion that “unambiguously affirms the right of non-tenure track faculty and staff to deliberate and organize as they see fit, including the possibility of unionization, without overt or implied intimidation or threat of reprisal in any form on the part of the university’s administration or tenure-track faculty. The LMU Faculty Senate supports its non-tenure track faculty and staff in seeking a collective voice and a non-adversarial and non-confrontational relationship with the LMU administration.” Your support and that of our allies fuels our campaign.
If you have not yet signed a union authorization card and wish to, please click here to do so, and be sure to visit our website. If you have questions or would like to help us organize, please email us atlmunifiedfaculty@gmail.com.
Finally, while our goal is to develop a collective voice through a union, we’d be remiss if we didn’t say: We love LMU and its mission, we love our students, and we respect the administrators who keep the university running. Our NTT Faculty union does not plan to be an adversarial entity. We look forward to good-faith cooperation between our union and the provost, the president, and other administrators.
Sincerely,
LMU NTT Faculty Organizing Committee to join SEIU 721