You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
The National Labor Relations Board on Friday remanded another case involving a would-be adjunct faculty union at a religious college -- Duquesne University -- back to a regional NLRB office in light of the NRLB’s recent ruling regarding Pacific Lutheran University. The NRLB earlier this month sent three similar union cases back to their respective regional offices for further action in light of the Pacific Lutheran ruling.
In that case -- which many called a major win for unions and a blow to long-standing legal precedents challenging the right of tenure-line faculty members at private institutions and faculty members generally at religious institutions to freely form unions -- the board said adjuncts at Pacific Lutheran could form a union affiliated with Service Employees International Union. The board based its decision on its opinion that adjuncts at Pacific Lutheran don't perform specific religious functions that might cause them to fall outside its jurisdiction, and on the opinion that the faculty members lacked the managerial duties that might prevent them from forming a union.
A majority of Duquesne adjuncts voted in 2012 to form a union affiliated with the United Steelworkers, but the university appealed their right to form a union, citing its Roman Catholic affiliation. The union has been on hold since. Experts say these remands are largely procedural, but some adjuncts at affected institutions say they're cautiously optimistic that their union bids are one step closer to becoming real.
Also on Friday, the NLRB remanded to a regional office an earlier decision granting Saint Xavier University a review of a regional director’s decision regarding its would-be adjunct union. That remand was made in light of the recent (2014) U.S. Supreme Court decision in NLRB vs. Noel Canning, which successfully challenged the constitutionality of some NLRB appointments made during a Congressional recess. Some have argued that the decisions made by implicated appointees -- including the Saint Xavier decision -- are not legal. The case already had been remanded back to the regional director in light of the Pacific Lutheran decision.
