Dear Father Leahy and Provost Quigley,

We, the Boston College Faculty, recognize our graduate student employees’ right to collective bargaining. We acknowledge their critical role in our university and call on the administration to drop their appeal to the NLRB.

On September 12 and 13, students from across the university voted in favor of unionizing in a fair and democratic election. It is the duty of the university to affirm and honor the results of this election. A failure to do so would call into question our commitment to democracy and acts directly against the self-declared interests of the BC graduate student employees. It would also erode the trust graduate student employees share with our administration.

We urge the university to withdraw its appeal to the NLRB and begin bargaining with our graduate workers. This appeal has the potential to dismantle students’ right to unionize across the nation, and is in direct opposition to Catholic social teaching, which dictates that workers should have the right to organize, join unions, and collectively bargain with their employers.

As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in Forming Consciences For Faithful Citizenship, “workers, owners, employers, and unions should work together to create decent jobs, build a more just economy, and advance the common good (no. 76).” This is precisely what our graduate workers hope to do. In this spirit, we call on the Boston College administration to drop its appeal and begin negotiations with the BCGEU-UAW