Loyola Marymount Is Trying to Bust our Union. We’re Fighting Back.
Faculty members at Loyola Marymount are fighting to keep their union, after the Catholic university invoked an alleged “religious exemption” from labor law. Students, staff, and community members have been backing them, saying the university's anti-union stance flies in the face of Jesuit teaching. Photo: SEIU Local 721
I was working from home when I got the email: The college I’ve taught at since 2003, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, was shutting down negotiations. They would no longer recognize the non-tenure track (NTT) faculty union my colleagues and I had fought tirelessly for.
We won our fight to join SEIU Local 721 in 2024 with 90 percent in favor. Our unit includes nearly 400 faculty members who teach in LMU’s Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, the College of Communication and Fine Arts, and the School of Film and Television.
In their September 12 email, LMU—a Catholic Jesuit institution—invoked an alleged “religious exemption” from labor law, flouting over 150 years of Catholic Church support for labor unions.
’HOW CAN THEY DO THIS?’
The 15 elected faculty members on our union’s bargaining team, including me, lit up our text group with messages. Can they do this? How can they do this? We’d been bargaining with the administration for nearly 10 months, and we’d won our election over a year ago. Why did they wait until now to cite a religious exemption that violates Catholic social teaching?
Our conversation quickly turned to what won us our union in the first place: organizing. How can we fight this?
Our bargaining team and contract action team sprang into action. We found an early opportunity to make some noise: On September 16, top LMU administrators, including campus president Thomas Poon, would be taking questions from students, staff, and faculty as part of a “Provost Community Conversation” event at the college auditorium.
We quickly organized a rally outside campus on the day of the event. More than 150 faculty members, students, and others joined the rally and marched to the auditorium, chanting “union-busting is disgusting!” and carrying signs saying “union busting is not a Jesuit value.”
In the meeting, we held our administrators’ feet to the fire, demanding answers and condemning them for union-busting. Students, staff, and faculty members cheered when I asked interim provost Kat Weaver: “If we are a Catholic university, can you please explain the university’s abdication and betrayal of over a century and a half of Catholic social teaching towards the unwavering commitment to the inviolability of labor unions? Has the Catholic church changed its stance on labor unions?”
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Since then, our union and our allies have made our voices heard. We’ve gained national attention, with articles on our struggle with LMU appearing in National Catholic Reporter, Inside Higher Ed, the LA Times, LAist, the Imperfect Paradise podcast, and more.
But this isn’t just a publicity fight. We’ve filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against LMU for refusing to bargain with our union. And in late September, members overwhelmingly voted in favor of a ULP strike, should it be needed to counter the administration and board of trustees’ attempt to shut down our union.
NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
Our struggle with LMU has national significance because it may set a precedent: The labor movement cannot allow the 600 unionized Catholic institutions across the U.S.—including hospitals, universities, nonprofits, and elementary, middle, and high schools—to embark on immoral union-busting. That would be a legal and moral disaster, and an insult to the church’s longstanding support for labor unions.
As the late Pope Francis said: “There is no union without workers, and there are no free workers without a union.” LMU must again recognize the union and return to bargaining immediately.
Our union’s fight for recognition and a strong contract is also part of the wider struggle by university faculty nationwide. For decades, LMU, like other universities, has moved toward hiring non-tenure track faculty over tenured faculty to save money and exert even more control over our working conditions and academic freedom. Instead of the living wages and job security of tenure, non-tenure track faculty face low pay, short-term contracts, and minimal opportunities to advance. We formed our union to gain better job security, fair wages, and the rights and protections that we deserve.
Winning those better wages and conditions is good for the whole community. Non-tenure track faculty who are kept in penury are less able to serve as moral guides for our students or be the teachers and public intellectuals we were meant to be, helping to stave off the creeping authoritarianism and bigotry sweeping our nation.
A fair union contract is the only way forward. If LMU doesn’t return to the table, then LMU’s non-tenure track faculty, and our legion of student, faculty, staff, family, alumni, and community supporters, are ready to act.
Arik Greenberg is a clinical associate professor in Loyola Marymount University’s Department of Theological Studies.
