It did not take long for the fallout from the NLRB’s Pacific Lutheran University decision to begin. That decision, issued on December 16, 2014, announced new standards for (1) exercise of NLRB jurisdiction over religiously-affiliated colleges and universities; and (2) determining the managerial status of faculty members under the Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in Yeshiva University.  See our client alert on Pacific Lutheran here. In the first decision among a number of cases remanded by the Board for consideration in light of Pacific Lutheran, the NLRB Regional Director in Seattle ruled on March 3 that the Board had jurisdiction over Seattle University and that full-time contingent faculty members were not managerial employees.  He ordered that the ballots in the case, which had been impounded pending the Board review, be opened and counted.

The Regional Director found, based on the record already made in the case, that the university held itself out to the public as a Jesuit Roman Catholic institution providing a religious educational environment, thus satisfying the first part of the new Pacific Lutheran test. As in Pacific Lutheran, however, the Regional Director held that the university did not hold out the petitioned-for faculty members as performing a religious function. A general statement in the faculty handbook that “each member of the faculty is expected to show respect for the religious dimension of human life” was found insufficient, where there was not evidence that faculty members were required to serve as religious advisors to students, propagate the tenets of the Society of Jesus, engage in religious training, or conform to the tenets of Catholicism in their job duties.

In determining that the full time contingent faculty members were not managerial employees, the Regional Director found that they lacked authority to actually control or effectively recommend decisions affecting university policy in the three primary or two secondary areas of authority identified by the Board in Pacific Lutheran. He found that that the Academic Assembly exercised authority in the primary area of academic programs, but had no say in enrollment management and only a minimal authority over finances—the other two primary areas. Most importantly, tenured faculty made up a majority of the Assembly, and no contingent faculty served on the Program Review Committee, which reviewed all proposals for curricular change, and there was no evidence that they had a significant role on other committees.

The result in Seattle University is not surprising, given the stringent test announced in Pacific Lutheran for excluding religiously-affiliated schools from Board jurisdiction, and the limited role that contingent faculty have in governance of most colleges and universities. Further guidance can be expected as Regional Directors decide a number of other cases remanded by the Board for consideration under the Pacific Lutheran standards, including at least one case involving the managerial status of tenured faculty.

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Photo of Paul Salvatore Paul Salvatore

Paul Salvatore provides strategic labor and employment law advice to companies, boards of directors/trustees, senior executives and general counsel in such areas as labor-management relations, litigation, alternative dispute resolution, international labor and employment issues, and corporate transactions.

Paul negotiates major collective bargaining agreements…

Paul Salvatore provides strategic labor and employment law advice to companies, boards of directors/trustees, senior executives and general counsel in such areas as labor-management relations, litigation, alternative dispute resolution, international labor and employment issues, and corporate transactions.

Paul negotiates major collective bargaining agreements in several industries, including real estate and construction. He represents the NYC real estate industry’s multi-employer organization, the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations (RAB), and its principal trade organization, the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY). In 2022, he helped the RAB reach a new collective bargaining agreement with SEIU Local 32BJ, covering more than 30,000 residential building employees. Paul also represented the Cement League, a multiemployer group of NYC area superstructure contractors, in halting an illegal strike by the Carpenters Union and negotiating a significant new, more competitive, collective bargaining agreement. He previously negotiated, on behalf of The Related Companies with 18 New York City construction unions, a landmark project labor agreement (PLA) for Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side, the largest private real estate development in U.S. history. In 2019, he assisted Related in resolving the very public labor disputes at Hudson Yards in time for its grand opening. He also represented REBNY in negotiating its 2019 landmark “Statement of Principles” with NYC’s construction unions. For his work in this sector, City & State magazine has named him one of the most powerful lawyers in New York.

Paul tries arbitrations and litigations, and argues appeals, arising from labor-management relationships. Paul argued and won before the U.S. Supreme Court 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett. In a 5-4 decision of importance to employers, the Court held a collective bargaining agreement that explicitly requires unionized employees to arbitrate employment discrimination claims is enforceable, modifying 35 years of labor law. In 2016, he argued and won NBC Universal Media, LLC v. NLRB, where the D.C. Circuit — rejecting the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) analysis — found “the reasoning supporting the [NLRB’s] judgment … incomprehensible.” In 2017, Paul argued and won T-Mobile v. NLRB where the Fifth Circuit refused to enforce the NLRB’s ban on certain common sense employee handbook policy provisions, finding the NLRB’s analysis to be unreasonable.

Paul represents universities and colleges in their labor and employment relations, including in the currently active areas of graduate student and adjunct faculty union organizing. He represented Yale, Duke, Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis and other universities in their response to graduate student unionization after the NLRB’s controversial 2016 decision finding graduate teaching/research assistants to be employees under the labor law. He has negotiated innovative non-NLRB election agreements at Cornell and Brown Universities.

An honors graduate of Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) and the Cornell Law School, Paul served eight years on Cornell’s Board of Trustees, including on its Executive Committee. Upon completion of his terms, he was elected Trustee Emeritus and Presidential Councilor. Paul presently serves as a Trustee Member of the Board of Fellows of Weill Cornell Medicine, as well as on the Law School and ILR Deans’ Advisory Councils. In 2002, ILR awarded him the Judge William B. Groat prize, the school’s highest honor.

At Proskauer, Paul was elected to its Executive Committee and served as co-chair of its global Labor & Employment Law Department, named by The American Lawyer and Chambers USA as one of the premier U.S. practices. He is widely recognized as a leading U.S. labor and employment lawyer in such publications as Chambers Global and USA (Band 1), and Legal 500 (“Hall of Fame”). The National Law Journal selected Paul as one of “The Decade’s Most Influential Lawyers” – one of only three in the labor and employment law field. His peers elected him to the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.

Paul counsels business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Litigation Center. An active speaker and writer on labor and employment law issues, his publications include “One Dozen Years of Pyett:  A Win for Unionized Workplace Dispute Resolution” in the American Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Journal, Volume 36, Number 2 at 257. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Cornell Law School.