Over 100 Santa Clara University faculty, students and community allies rallied outside of SCU’s fundraising gala on Saturday, Jan. 19 in support of a fair vote on unionization for non-tenure track faculty. The gala featured musician James Taylor, who performed to a sold-out crowd of the university’s most elite donors.
While community members marched with signs calling for a vote on unionization, faculty and students passed out hundreds of flyers, stickers and buttons to gala attendees, with the goal of raising awareness outside and promoting solidarity inside. Tickets to the gala were awarded to the university’s top donors with a minimum donation of $10,000.
“We’re really just asking for a fair vote, the same procedures that unions go through all the time,” said philosophy and political science lecturer Madeline Cronin. “This would actually ensure that we’re meeting our Jesuit values, that we’re protecting workers rights.”
The call for a vote came last Spring after Trump’s National Labor Relations Board upended the previous administration’s progress in expanding labor rights. Filing with the NLRB could overturn the 2014 Pacific Lutheran ruling and as result jeopardize existing unions at religious institutions and greatly impede future organizing. The faculty’s request for a vote has been repeatedly denied by SCU’s administration and its president, Father Michael Engh.
“The reason we’re looking to unionize is because we really care about undergraduate education and it’s become difficult to ensure that we can be there for students in the way we want, to contribute our talents in the way we want, without a say in our working conditions,” said Cronin.
Adjuncts and lecturers, who comprise the majority of faculty at SCU, have been organizing to form a union with SEIU Local 1021 since Fall 2017. Their struggles as faculty and goal of a union align with nationwide trends.
“A lot of us … we don’t know if we will be here next year or even next quarter,” said Cronin. “We’re hoping that once we have a say in our working conditions we’d be able to secure those goals more clearly: stability, fair wages, an efficacious voice in the future of Santa Clara.”
As the campaign gained momentum in Spring 2018 President Engh announced his retirement from SCU. The resulting uncertainty on campus coupled with lingering frustrations from previous decisions reinvigorated student support for their teachers.
“[Faculty’s] short-term contracts severely limit our ability to develop long-term relationships with our mentors, which seriously impedes our ability to succeed,” said sophomore sociology and math major Vasudha Kumar. “I haven’t even finished two years at Santa Clara and I’ve already had two professors that left before I got to know them really well. That severely limits where I want to be.”
Speakers at the Jan. 19th action included SCU lecturer Maggie Levantovskaya, SCU Student Body President Sam Perez, University of San Francisco Part-time Faculty Association President John Higgins, Silicon Valley Rising campaign director Maria Noel Fernandez, and local union members.
“Everyday, [my teachers] are working to push me and every other student here to be the best version of themselves,” said Perez in her speech. “These professors understand that learning at an academic institution is so much more than papers and grades and tests, and for this reason I can say that my experience in the classroom has contributed to my development and knowledge and character alike.”
Along with visibility and awareness among SCU’s most profitable donors, faculty are hoping to expand community support for their cause by asking allies to call President Engh and demand SCU let them vote. He can be reached at 408-554-4100 or at president@scu.edu.
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