St. John's files federal anti-union lawsuit against state labor board

Argues union rights conflict with religious mission

Months after unilaterally ending recognition of its faculty union after 56 years of representation, the administration of St. John’s University is suing the state labor board with hopes of ending its decade-long legal commitment to collective bargaining.

University management filed a federal suit against the New York Public Employment Relations Board June 1 arguing that the state’s “regime of mandatory collective bargaining” violates the university’s constitutional first and 14th amendment rights as a religious, Catholic institution and “impermissibly entangles the government (and the faculty Union) in its internal governance of religion- and Mission-related matters.”