“They’re basically claiming a First Amendment right for a Catholic university not to follow its own mission,” said Chris Gooding, an assistant professor of theology and member of the union’s steering committee. “It’s not so much a right to religious freedom as it is a right to hypocrisy.”

In October, more than 65 percent of full-time, non-tenured faculty in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences signed authorization cards expressing their desire to bargain collectively with the university through the United Campus Workers of Wisconsin union. On October 25, the university administration announced that it would not sign an agreement to recognize the union.

Religious colleges and universities are not required to accept elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), thanks to a decision during President Donald Trump’s first administration that expanded the definition of religious freedom. They can, however, voluntarily choose to recognize unions and negotiate with them.

Since this NLRB decision in 2020, Boston CollegeSeattle University and Saint-Léo University in Florida claimed religious exemption, while Saint Louis University instead chose to recognize a graduate student union. St. Louis, Fordham, Loyola University Chicago, Georgetown and Santa Clara universities also all bargain collectively with faculty unions, according to Marquette union organizers.

Father Matthew Kemp, an Episcopal priest who taught in Marquette’s theology department, said he noticed a “clear dissonance” between the values ​​and ideals he taught in his classes and the university’s institutional decision not to not recognize the union.

He left college after two years because he could not afford to support his family of five children. “To be honest, I’m on the low end of what most full-time jobs in the Episcopal clergy offer, but I still make more than I did at Marquette,” said Kemp, who is now vicar at St. John’s Episcopal Church and Redeemer Lutheran Church in Centralia, Illinois.

“It would be great if the university was so committed to these principles that faculty didn’t feel the need to unionize,” he said.

In 2019, after a previous unionization attempt, the university formed a Working group of participating teachers to address the concerns of non-tenured professors. Among his recommendations was proposing three-year contracts instead of one-year contracts, although implementation of this practice has been uneven, according to faculty members.

They also say the task force failed to adequately address pay equity issues.

According to Gooding, a comparison of salaries at other Jesuit colleges and universities where non-tenured faculty are unionized shows that compensation is about $15,000 a year lower at Marquette. At Loyola University Chicago, for example, an entry-level professor with a doctorate would start at $61,000, depending on the negotiated amount. collective agreement.

After 22 years at Marquette, Giordana Poggioli-Kaftan, associate professor of Italian, earns less than that. His salary of $53,000 is comparable to that of a beginning or high school teacher in Milwaukee Public Schools. won.

For Poggioli-Kaftan, unionization would be a recognition of the dignity of workers. “To restore dignity, we need a fair working environment that would guarantee us fair and just pay and secure jobs,” she said.

Earlier this year, Marquette announcement plans to cut $31 million from its budget by 2031, a decrease of 7%. Last week, the university’s Academic Senate announced its intention to vote on censure of the executive leadership team. Two days later, Acting President Kimo Ah Yun was appointed as the school’s 25th president.

In their decision not to recognize the union, administrative leaders cited financial concerns.

“We have a shared responsibility to make decisions that reflect the reality of the higher education environment nationwide,” they said. statement said. “This includes improving faculty and staff compensation while ensuring that a Marquette education remains affordable for students.”

At Marquette tuition will be $50,070 for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Union organizers say the pay disparity among faculty is not the result of the university’s financial woes, but rather a question of spending priorities.

In a 2021 independent financial analysis comparing Marquette to 18 other peer institutions, Marquette was found to spend less on instruction and more on upper-level administration than other schools. It was second to last in the percentage of total salaries spent on teaching and research, and first in the percentage of salaries spent on administration.

The report, titled “No Close to Any Type of Financial Problem,” was commissioned and funded by a group of 54 Marquette professors. A copy was provided to NCR.

“Whenever Marquette makes austerity cuts, the bucket they always cut into is education,” Gooding said. “We could easily meet what the union is asking for if we just adjusted things so that our senior administration sets the industry standard.”

As the number and proportion of non-tenured employees grows, both at Marquette and across the country, faculty who want to unionize say they will continue to try to convince the university to recognize their right to bargain collective.

Collette, the philosophy professor, said he was torn by the university’s decision. “One of the reasons I love Marquette is that it’s a real joy to be at an institution where its stated values ​​are so closely aligned with mine,” he said, adding that students are “fantastic” and the colleagues “great”. “

“It would be nice to not have to choose between having all these things and having a decent salary.”