Catholic Employers Behaving Badly

In November, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is commemorating the 40th Anniversary of their landmark pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All. In it the Bishops taught, “All church institutions must fully recognize the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively with the institution through whatever association or organization they freely choose.” Unfortunately a growing number of Catholic universities and hospitals are instead acting like their union-busting, for-profit counterparts when it comes to labor relations.

In June nurses at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, part of the SSM health network, voted 511-63 in favor of joining SEIU. But hospital administrators are refusing to recognize and bargain with the workers’ chosen representatives. This is a common tactic used by for-profit corporations facing organized workers: they seek to delay a first contract in hopes that the workers will become discouraged and give up. The union has been forced to file an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.

The nurses have one advantage over their counterparts at the nation’s Catholic colleges and universities: National Labor Relations Board jurisdiction is well established by law, so they have a place to turn when the hospital administrators refuse to respect their rights. Not so those employed at Catholic higher education institutions. Here, cynical university administrations have invoked First Amendment freedom of religion protections to bust unions with legal impunity.

You may remember reading here how adjunct and non-tenure track faculty at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles also voted in 2024 to join the SEIU. The administration seemed ready to negotiate with the faculty union until receiving their bargaining proposals. At that point they seem to have decided that it was easier to bust the union than bargain with their employees. In September 2025 they announced that they were withdrawing recognition from the union, and if the Labor Board tried to tell them otherwise, they would cite their exemption from the law as a religious institution. That’s right – LMU was too Catholic to be subject to US Labor Law but not Catholic enough to follow Catholic social teaching out of respect for the Church.

A similar situation has emerged at St John’s college in New York City. For decades, St John’s served as an exemplar of Catholic Social Teaching, bargaining with two faculty unions. Then in February 2026 they abruptly announced that they intended to withdraw recognition from both unions. Because of an almost unique NY state law protecting their right to organize, the unions were able to file a ULP with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) in April, winning the support of the state’s Attorney General. However, the university is refusing to budge, and intends to invoke the First Amendment in the federal courts to escape their obligation to bargain.