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.

He 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.

He negotiates major collective bargaining agreements in several industries, including real estate and construction. Paul 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 2023, he helped the RAB reach a new collective bargaining agreement with SEIU Local 32BJ, covering 20,000 commercial building employees, enabling the industry to adapt its labor practices to tenants’ post-COVID utilization of office space, including that caused by remote/hybrid work.

Paul has long represented construction employers and developers, such as the Related Companies, Cement League, Association of Master Painters and others. He negotiates Project Labor Agreements (PLA’s), such as for Related (enabling the construction of Hudson Yards), and presently for Gateway Development Corporation (GDC) in building the New York-New Jersey train tunnels, the largest infrastructure project in America. City & State magazine has named him one of the most powerful lawyers in New York for his work in this sector.

Paul also tries arbitrations and litigations, and argues appeals, arising from labor-management relationships. He 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 that a collective bargaining agreement explicitly requiring unionized employees to arbitrate employment discrimination claims is enforceable, modifying 35 years of labor law. Unions and employers now negotiate “Pyett clauses” in collective bargaining. He has argued and won federal circuit court cases reversing the National Labor Relations Board’s findings against employers, including in the D.C. and Fifth Circuits.

Paul represents universities and colleges in their labor and employment relations, including in the currently active areas of unionization and collective bargaining with graduate students, undergraduates, athletes and adjunct faculty. Among other schools he has worked with are Yale, Duke, Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis and Caltech. Paul pioneered innovative non-NLRB graduate student union election agreements at Cornell, Brown and Syracuse 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. He subsequently was elected Trustee Emeritus and Presidential Councilor. He 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 during his tenure 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.

An active speaker and writer on labor and employment law issues, Paul’s recent publications include “One Dozen Years of Pyett: A Win for Unionized Workplace Dispute Resolution” in the American Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Journal (“ABA Journal”), Volume 36, Number 2 at 257, and “The PLA Alternative in an Increasingly Open Shop New York City Construction Market: The REBNY-BCTC Statement of Principles,” Volume 37 ABA Journal, Number 3 at 415. He is an Adjunct Professor at Cornell Law School, teaching “Current Issues in Collective Bargaining.”