You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
A regional National Labor Relations Board office decided late last week that adjuncts at Duquesne University may form a union affiliated with the United Steelworkers. Adjuncts teaching at Duquesne’s McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts voted to form a union in 2012, but the Roman Catholic university argued that its religious identity put it outside NLRB jurisdiction. The university’s appeal was pending before the national NLRB for some time, but earlier this year that board sent back several similar adjunct union cases to their local NLRB offices for further consideration in light of the recent Pacific Lutheran University decision.
In that case, the national board determined that Pacific Lutheran adjuncts could form a union affiliated with Service Employees International Union, since their duties were not of a religious nature. The landmark decision also included new guidelines for evaluating such cases, and those guidelines were used to re-evaluate the Duquesne case. The local board office found there was “no evidence” that adjunct faculty are told they have religious duties, or that religion is a consideration in hiring, performance evaluation or course content.
In an open letter, Duquesne President Charles J. Dougherty said federal courts maintain that the NLRB “should not be determining whether we are religious enough by their own standards, and we intend to appeal the local NLRB’s decision” to the national board and federal courts, if necessary. In a news release, the United Steelworkers said the university’s interest in blocking the union appeared to be financially, not religiously, motivated.
