Former City Comptroller Brad Lander joined St. John’s University faculty and students outside Madison Square Garden Wednesday morning as part of a protest against the university’s decision to end recognition of the long-standing faculty union.
Lander, a candidate in New York’s 10th Congressional District, joined City Council candidate Lindsey Boylan and State Senate candidate Yiu-Line Niou and dozens of St. John’s faculty and students to rally against the university’s decision to end union recognition on Feb. 19.
Representatives from other faculty unions and labor organizations also joined the protest, which took place outside Madison Square Garden while St. John’s University President Rev. Brian Shanley was attending the Big East awards ceremony at the venue. St. John’s will also take part in March Madness at the iconic arena on Thursday.
Protesters said they held the rally outside MSG ahead of March Madness to emphasize the importance that St. John’s places on its basketball teams. They also accused the university’s Board of Trustees of attempting to use the basketball team to distract from its decision to end union recognition.
The rally comes two weeks after hundreds of St. John’s faculty and students staged a protest at the university’s Queens campus to raise concerns about the decision to end union recognition, with participants stating that the move represents a threat to working conditions and academic decisions.
Shanley informed faculty via email on Feb. 19 that the university would no longer represent two unions formed in 1970 – the St. John’s University chapter of the American Association of University Professors (SJU-AAUP) and its partner union, the Faculty Association (FA).
Protesters added that faculty had been working without a contract for almost eight months prior to the decision after St. John’s stalled contract negotiations.
At Wednesday’s rally, protesters led chants of “hear us now, we’ll chant it slowly, union busting is unholy” and “shut it down.”
Lander, meanwhile, said he is “extremely angry” at Shanley and the St. John’s Board of Trustees for formally ending union recognition, accusing the board of “walking away from the whole purpose of the institution.”
“This is a violation of the bargaining rights of workers to have the opportunity to make enough money to survive in this expensive city and to have good working conditions,” Lander said. “But it is way more shameful and worse than that, it is an appalling betrayal of the mission of this university.”
Lander further described the decision to end union recognition as a “canary in the coal mine,” accusing the university of using the Trump Administration as cover to “bust the rights of faculty.”
“This is using a moment of authoritarian pressure to undermine the values of your own institution for small-minded, narrow purposes that will not serve your institution,” Lander said.
Union advocates say the university’s refusal to recognize the two unions would lead to program elimination and “academic contraction,” adding that the move will prevent faculty from having a voice in academic decisions at St. John’s. Protesters on Wednesday also called on St. John’s to meet demands for a 3.8% pay increase, modest healthcare benefits and a pay increase for part-time faculty to match the pay of part-time staff at CUNY.
A spokesperson for St. John’s, on the other hand, said the university did not take the decision to end union recognition lightly, but said the decision was necessary to advance St. John’s “organizational mission.”
“This will allow St. John’s the flexibility required to innovate while continuing to support our faculty and, most importantly, deliver on our promise to our students,” a university spokesperson said in a statement on Feb. 25.
The decision would allow St. John’s to remain “steadfastly” dedicated to its Catholic and Vincentian mission, the spokesperson added.
“The negotiation process with the faculty union has ended. St. John’s University is now working directly with our faculty, adopting the direct-engagement model that is the standard for the overwhelming majority of universities nationwide,” a spokesperson said in an updated statement on March 11.
A spokesperson for the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU) said St. John’s reserves the right to invoke a religious exemption to union recognition.
“While ACCU does not take a position on unionization, the association respects the university’s choice, as a private, Catholic institution, to invoke its religious exemption, knowing St. John’s has made significant efforts to resolve internal differences collaboratively and in good faith,” the ACCU said in a statement.
A spokesperson for St. John’s added that the university has voluntarily implemented faculty pay increases, including retroactive wage increases totalling $2 million.
However, Sophie Bell, acting president of SJU-AAUP, criticized the university board for dangling a set of “vague promises” in front of faculty if they “go along with the new plan.”
“They’re trying to act like it’s business as usual and ignore the fact that they took away our legal right to bargain,” Bell said.
Bell also criticized the board for denying faculty entrance to the St. John’s Bent Hall business school during the recent protest in Queens on Feb. 25. Protesters had marched to the business school to deliver a petition with over 2,000 signatures, but said they were denied access to the building.
“They had their IDs. They work at St John’s, and they weren’t allowed in the building,” Bell said.
Several protesters on Wednesday claimed that the move would represent a threat to the academic direction of the university by undermining shared governance, whereby faculty is consulted on large-scale decisions.
James Davis, a faculty member at CUNY’s Brooklyn College and president of CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress, said faculty input is crucial for large-scale decisions.
“Shared governance doesn’t mean that faculty determine everything,” Davis said. “It means that when the administration has large-scale decisions to make, like programs or how to direct finances, they’re in formal consultation with the faculty.
“That is to prevent the administration from making bad decisions.”
Arturo Enamorado, a double St. John’s alumnus who now teaches at CUNY’s Kingsborough Community College, similarly believes that a lack of union recognition represents a threat to academic programming at St. John’s.
“Faculty are not just experts, they are also involved in students’ lives,” Enamorado said. “To say that only the administration should be in charge is a falsehood. The faculty have a massive say in the culture of St. John’s.”
Jeremy Cruz, an associate professor of theology and religious studies at St. John’s, noted that the unions were born out of strikes during the 1960s when “labor allies stood together.” He added that future labor organizers will remember the efforts of the current St. John’s faculty during union movements in the future.
“We will remember this decades from now, and stand with workers decades from now who are in similar struggles,” Cruz said. “This fight will not be won today or tomorrow, but we will win.”
He also asserted that Catholic social teaching affirms that unions are a “central part of the common good.”
Boylan, on the other hand, described the decision to end union recognition as a “shameful” mark on St. John’s 155-year history of economic and social justice.
