Human Resources, Divine Imperatives?

The remarkable fact that some Catholic officials are criticizing attempts to unionize exploited adjunct/contingent higher education faculty, on “religious” grounds, invites ridicule, or worse. One recent Catholic poster even called it “sleazy.”

Why? Because the anti-unionization push is coming from a church that, in its own Catholic social teachings, has been on record for decades as being on the side of the worker and in favor of workers’ rights to organize.

And so, today, I want to look at some recent posts on Human Resources and Mission: Discussion Blog for Catholic Colleges and Universities, in order to see how the “Catholic Social Teaching” deck might get shuffled and dealt in the real world.

But please don’t miss my “heart”-felt gratitude to St. Anselm College, for their celebration of the importance of faculty—I’m not just looking to criticize religiously affiliated schools. I mean, credit where credit is due.

Now, I’ve chosen three posts, two obviously connected to adjunct/contingent faculty problems, and one not. I am thinking about “religious exemptions,” and when or whether or not they are claimed. And also about  church-approved-and-administered policies, and whether or not these seem to be in line with established teaching.

From a most interesting site, this picture. It'll tell you all about various "Doctors of the Church."

I’ll consider one post each day—today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. Here’s the first. It’s from 2010, but it concerns both adcons and healthcare, and many of us have been thinking about the connection, so it seems pretty fresh baked.

I. Opportunities for Part-time Staff and Adjunct Faculty Created by Healthcare Reform

That’s the title of the post, authored by Gary L. Miller, of the Office of Human Resources at DePaul University, who is one of the two people who administer the hr-forum-ccu.blogspot site.

Mr. Miller begins with a quote from Sister Carol Keehan, President and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, who wrote in Summer of 2009—wow, really thinking ahead!—that:

Catholic employers in particular should support a reformed [healthcare] system not only because of the economic consequences but because of the social justice implications.

And also:

[But, does the new act] fully resolve the health insurance access issues for part-time staff and adjunct faculty or must more be done? More must be done.

Time out for some history: Sister Carol is one powerful sister, and she’s not always just totally thinking like some of her brothers over at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. On health care specifically, there’s some good and fairly recent reporting in the National Catholic Register.

Back to Miller’s post—read it all for the details, but, essentially, one reads about several proposals to cover part-timers, and the burdens thereof, on employees and institutions, and one particular solution is found such that “the university would have a plan for those part-timers who need it.”

And why should the university do so? Again, have a look at the whole post to see the details, but basically the idea—Miller’s— is that the university has a moral obligation to do so:

…. the new healthcare law envisions the federal government, state governments, insurers and large employers (those with more than 50 employees) all working together to achieve the important goal of near-universal medical coverage, a goal that serves the common good of the entire country. Because we know the government isn’t going to be helping these part-timers who fall in this gap, their access to health insurance becomes the responsibility of employers.

So, there you have it: 1) no reference to a religious exemption, 2) a clear connection made to a moral imperative flowing from a specific body of religious teachings, and 3) a plan to achieve goals in line with #2.

There also seems to be an equivalence between a secular drive for “the common good” and a religious drive for the same thing, so that there is no secular/religious clash at all.

Wouldn’t this be a simpler world if we saw that sort of thing more often? But don’t get all excited. At least one of the commenters saw what I saw, and didn’t like it much:

Catholic Social Teaching would take a more nuanced view of the common good….The subsequent debate in Congress after the passage of the 2010 health care provisions would suggest that the goal of universal coverage does not comport with all parties understanding of the common good. How will Catholic institutions respond?

But that’s not really the question. The real question, in many of these areas, certainly including the current and apparently accelerating campaign by adjuncts to improve their working conditions at Catholic schools, is this;

How will the various factions of politically and socially active Catholics respond, and which bunch will prevail?

Tomorrow? “Organization Justice” in Catholic colleges and universities. How does that work, or does it?

The Tip of the Iceberg

I just read the opinion of a very nice man, Associate Professor Matthew Schneirov of the Duquesne University Sociology Department, who believes that "the adjunct issue may be the tip of the iceberg."

I think there are more than 7000 tips of icebergs to be found just today! This one if from folks who think a lot about lucid dreaming.                                 When they're awake, of course. 

But then I thought: No! That can't be right! 

I mean, shouldn't the adcon issue be the bigger part of the iceberg, since there's so many of us?

So now I am all confused, and my herbalist recommends that I take a couple days off, which is ok, but the rest of you should have a look here to figure out more about this iceberg problem. 

Duquesne President "Unaware of Discontent"

Update: today, as many of you know, this matter appears in the New York Times, which is always nice, and you don't want to miss, either, Duquesne's President Dougherty explaining that until recently they had been "unaware of any general discontent among part-time faculty."  And, be sure to look as well in thePittsburgh Post-Gazette, for histrionic reaction by Patrick J. Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society, and for some wonderful comments as well.

Duquesne, St. Xavier, Manhattan College—Anybody Else?—and the NLRB

The recent success of adjunct organizers at Duquesne University was a welcome sign, not only because it showed that there is new energy in the movement to improve working conditions for the nation’s majority higher education faculty, but also because, initially, Duquesne indicated that it would not object to this on religious grounds.

(photo from this very thoughtful site)

According to Inside Higher Education, spokeswoman Bridget Fare noted that Duquesne works with other unions, “intends do the same” with the proposed adjunct union, and that “we’ll be letting the NLRB process take its course and proceed accordingly.”

Had Dusquesne stuck to this original intention, it would have been, if not a blow, at least no comfort, to legal teams working on behalf of St. Xavier College and Manhattan College, two Catholic colleges which have also recently been approved by NLRB for adjunct collective bargaining.

Instead, and very quickly, Duquesne made a formal objection to the National Labor Relations Board, which Ms. Fare then explained as something that the university, “founded and owned by the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, has concluded … was necessary."

Now, of course, NLRB has rejected Duquesne’s request—that the election be halted—and this means (assuming that the adjuncts do vote for a new union, which seems assured) that Duquesne will soon, like Manhattan and St. Xavier, be appealing the NLRB decision.

They will be strongly supported by the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, the Lasallian Association of College and University Presidents, and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

Clearly, adjunct and contingent faculty will be watching carefully as this unfolds, and I am sure that in coming months we will all of us become familiar, if we aren’t already, with such cases as NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago (1979), which concerned K-12 parochial schools, but which gets harkened back to regularly, and also Universidad Central de Bayamon v. NLRB (1986).

It was during the course of this latter that a “three part test” of the religious character of a school, which will allow it to avoid NLRB jurisdiction, was formulated by now-Justice Steven Breyer, then of the 1^st Circuit Court of Appeals.

How do you know the place is “religious” in a substantial way?

First, it “holds itself out to students, faculty and community’ as providing a

religious educational environment.”

Second, it “is organized as a nonprofit.”

Third, it is “affiliated with, or owned, operated, or controlled, directly or indirectly, by a recognized religious organization, or with an entity, membership of which is determined, at least in part, with reference to religion.”

Now, Duquesne is organized as a non-profit, and the rest of it—judge for yourself—seems tightly fitted to their probable arguments, at least judging by their mission statement:

Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit is a Catholic University, founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, the Spiritans, and sustained through a partnership of laity and religious. Duquesne serves God by serving students - through commitment to excellence in liberal and professional education, through profound concern for moral and spiritual values, through the maintenance of an ecumenical atmosphere open to diversity, and through service to the Church, the community, the nation, and the world.

Ok, so that’s that, except for a couple of things. One, obviously, is that the 3-part test seems ripe for a serious challenge. Isn’t it a bit broad?

Of course, the argument for Duquesne, and Manhattan, and St. Xavier, is likely to be that it is a crucial defense against what the founder and president of The Cardinal Newman Society, Patrick J. Reilly, calls “The NLRB’s Assault on Religious Liberty.”

Oh dear.

Really, can anything that the institution itself claims as religiously based be used to avoid NLRB? Are people who are associated with “recognized” religious institutions or “entities” always, no matter what in the world they are doing, acting in their protected religious capacity?

Those sorts of questions seem promising to me.

Also, at least in Duquesne’s case, the secular and the religious seem like part of a rather flexible wardrobe, with the one being slipped off and the other on whenever it seems like a good idea.

Indeed, in 1982, when Duquesne fought against a union for full-time faculty, the university discarded any type of religious argument and relied, successfully, on the 1980 NLRB v. Yeshiva University finding. That argument, we all know, involved a place with religious connections, for heaven’s sake, but didn’t rely on these for its entirely secular conclusion that full-timers were “managerial” and should be barred from collective bargaining.

It'd be fun if they did a similar switch now, wouldn't it? And argue that the adjuncts are managerial"? Well, they're not running the place, of course, but they are keeping it running—maybe "semi-managerial"?

Oh, it’s just the beginning, isn’t it? I hope in fact, that movements from within the church itself will begin to push things in a new direction, and it’s certainly easy to locate some support there, in Catholic social teaching generally, in Catholic doctrine connected to labor specifically, and in the ethical language that is so prominently featured in the chartering documents and mission statements of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

That’s something I will post on shortly.