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Xavier Becerra, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and California Attorney General, joined the chorus of voices opposing the administration and board of trustees’ invocation of an alleged religious exemption to bust our non-tenure track (NTT) faculty union and end bargaining with us.
At a campus forum on Monday, Oct. 13, hosted by StudyLA, Becerra urged LMU’s admin and board to reconsider its stance that the university has a religious exemption from labor law. LMU President Thomas Poon was in the audience as Becerra spoke.
Listen to Becerra’s comments here:
“My understanding is that [Jesuits and the Catholic Church have] been very supportive of collective bargaining by workers for the longest time,” said Becerra, who is also a candidate for California governor. “It certainly goes against everything I’m trying to do as governor. I will certainly say that if I’m governor and I hear that any university is trying to say it has a religious exemption from allowing its people to decide to collectively bargain…that’s not going to happen when I’m governor.”
If California is going to be a shining light, Becerra later said, it can’t do things that disrespect the right of people to collectively bargain.
The reason Becerra’s family had healthcare coverage when he was growing up, he told the audience, was because his father was a union member. “I myself was a member of the union,” Becerra said. “I was a laborer for a time trying to help cover my college expenses.”
Becerra added: “If you take a look at history, and you take a look at data, and you do the science, you’ll see that people who are organized and have a chance to collectively bargain typically do better than folks who are on their own,” Becerra said.
On Sept. 12, LMU administrators and board members announced that the university would stop recognizing our NTT faculty union and — for the first time — invoke its alleged “religious exemption” from the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which governs collective bargaining for private employers. The announcement came after nearly 10 months of bargaining for a union contract between the university and NTT faculty members — who approved joining SEIU Local 721 by a vote of nearly 90% in summer 2024 in an election certified by the NLRB.
Becerra joins our legion of student, faculty, staff, family, alumni, and community supporters! We thank him for his support!