The National Labor Relations Board ruled against Pacific Lutheran University’s claim that it’s exempt as a religious institution from NLRB jurisdiction. The decision allows contingent faculty (non-tenure track) to unionize at the school in Tacoma, Wash., reported the Chronicle of Higher Education in December.
A 1980 U.S. Supreme Court case, National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University essentially barred full-time faculty at private colleges from forming unions. But the board ruled it had jurisdiction because the university “does not hold its petitioned-for faculty members out as performing any religious function” and that it had failed to prove that full-time contingent faculty members exercised managerial authority.
