Loyola University, a Catholic university in Chicago, is opposing a union drive among its contingent academic workers. On the grounds that it would violate the university’s First Amendment religious liberty.

What is at stake here, is Loyola’s guaranteed First Amendment rights of religious freedom and autonomy—essentially our right to define our own mission and to govern our institution in accordance with our values and beliefs, free from government entanglement. The United States Supreme Court long ago ruled that the First Amendment provides an exemption from NLRB jurisdiction in order to protect an institution’s religious liberty and identity. We are not alone in raising this issue, as religious institutions across the country have opposed NLRB jurisdiction in similar union-organizing situations on the same grounds that we have raised. Our position before the NLRB is not driven by anti-worker sentiment or hostility to organized labor. By raising the jurisdictional issue at the hearing, we are simply seeking to maintain our right to religious freedom, to protect the heart and soul of our institution and its mission.

Here’s what Pope Leo XIII had to say on the topic of labor unions and Catholic teaching in Rerum Novarum (1891):

The most important of all [workers’ associations] are workingmen’s unions, for these virtually include all the rest. History attests what excellent results were brought about by the artificers’ guilds of olden times. They were the means of affording not only many advantages to the workmen, but in no small degree of promoting the advancement of art, as numerous monuments remain to bear witness. Such unions should be suited to the requirements of this our age – an age of wider education, of different habits, and of far more numerous requirements in daily life. It is gratifying to know that there are actually in existence not a few associations of this nature, consisting either of workmen alone, or of workmen and employers together, but it were greatly to be desired that they should become more numerous and more efficient. We have spoken of them more than once, yet it will be well to explain here how notably they are needed, to show that they exist of their own right, and what should be their organization and their mode of action.

Ninety years later, Pope John Paul II reiterated that position in Laborem Exercens (1981):

All these rights [of workers], together with the need for the workers themselves to secure them, give rise to yet another right: the right of association, that is to form associations for the purpose of defending the vital interests of those employed in the various professions. These associations are called labour or trade unions….Their task is to defend the existential interests of workers in all sectors in which their rights are concerned. The experience of history teaches that organizations of this type are an indispensableelement of social life, especially in modern industrialized societies.

As did the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in their 1986 pastoral letter Economic Justice for All:

The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions. This is a specific application of the more general right to associate. In the words of Pope John Paul II, “The experience of history teaches that organizations of this type are an indispensable element of social life, especially in modern industrialized societies.”(58) Unions may also legitimately resort to strikes where this is the only available means to the justice owed to workers.(59) No one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself. Therefore, we firmly oppose organized efforts, such as those regrettably now seen in this country, to break existing unions and prevent workers from organizing.

And just a few months ago, the Archbishop of Chicago had this to say on the topic:

Similarly, the Church has consistently taught that workers have a right to have a voice in the workplace, to form and join unions, to bargain collectively and protect their rights. And the Church has never made a distinction between private and public sectors of the work. It was not 4 Msgr. Higgins who called unions “indispensable,” but Pope, now Saint, John Paul II in his powerful and still timely encyclical “On Human Work’” Work and unions are important not simply for what a worker “gets,” but how they enable a worker to provide for a family and participate in the workplace and society. Unions are important not simply for helping workers get more, but helping workers be more, to have a voice, a place to make a contribution to the good of the whole enterprise, to fellow workers and the whole of society….Across the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, ten Popes have affirmed and expanded this very vision.

…

For example in view of present day attempts to enact so-called right-to-work laws the Church is duty bound to challenge such efforts by raising questions based on longstanding principles. We have to ask, “Do these measures undermine the capacity of unions to organize, to represent workers and to negotiate contracts? Do such laws protect the weak and vulnerable? Do they promote the dignity of work and the rights of workers? Do they promote a more just society and a more fair economy? Do they advance the common good?” Lawmakers and others may see it differently, but history has shown that a society with a healthy, effective and responsible labor movement is a better place than one where other powerful economic interests have their way and the voices and rights of workers are diminished.

…Ad [sic] I have to admit not every claim of religious freedom is valid and the law has to protect the basic rights of all.

…

The Archdiocese of Chicago employs 15,000 full and part-time employees in its agencies, seminaries, schools and parishes. We strive to be a just employer. I have asked our Archdiocesan staff to review all of our human resource policies to ensure we are practicing what we preach about the dignity of work and the rights of workers. We will work earnestly to address any gaps. After all, like everyone we also need to be accountable. Because the Archdiocese is an employer, some employees and some unions may want to organize in our workplaces. Some Archdiocesan employees are already organized and we work with their union to advance our mission and our mutual obligations to workers. Others are not. And that is because some “jobs” in the Church are really ministerial positions, and must answer to a higher law than those passed by legislatures, we may have differences in this area. But if we stay firm in our commitment to principled dialogue, we can resolve differences and move forward together.

The position of the Catholic Church on the right of workers to form trade unions, even within Catholic institutions (that exception that the Archbishop of Chicago carves out at the end of his address is pretty limited and certainly does not apply to adjunct instructors at a university that does not impose denominational or sectarian obligations on its faculty or students), is clear.

In the name of the First Amendment, in the name of a religious freedom to be Catholic and to follow Catholic teachings, Loyola claims the right not to be Catholic and to suspend Catholic teachings.