Unions have been actively organizing graduate students, while wanting to avoid having the National Labor Relations Board involved. They are particularly concerned that President Trump’s appointees to the National Labor Relations Board, who are now a majority of the Board members, will revisit and reverse the Columbia University decision. That decision determined that graduate students were employees and could organize and bargain collectively.
Already, the University of Chicago and Loyola University Chicago have refused to bargain with their graduate students after they formed unions through the NLRB process. These universities are challenging the status of graduate students as employees and appear to be willing to have the new Labor Board review their cases and potentially go to the circuit courts before negotiating with the unions.
Continue Reading Graduate Students Organize Outside the National Labor Relations Board’s Jurisdiction
There have been two recent developments regarding union organizing efforts on University campuses. At Northwestern University, a mail ballot election among adjunct faculty took place in July 2016. The Service Employees International Union challenged 25 of those ballots but the challenged ballots were not finally resolved and opened until earlier this month. Those ballots, which represented approximately 5 percent of the total vote, were sufficient to determine the outcome of the vote. The Labor Board reviewed the eligibility of each of the persons whose vote the Union challenged and found that each was eligible to vote. The Labor Board then opened the ballots and as a result, the final count led to a University victory. The final vote was 242 to 231 against joining the Union. Although the University prevailed, getting eligible voters to participate in the election process continues to present a significant challenge. In this case, there were approximately 700 eligible voters, but only about 72 percent of them cast votes in the election. In any organizing drive, it is imperative to get eligible voters to vote, particularly those who are apathetic, as they tend to resist change and are not supportive of having to pay a union. Colleges and universities, therefore, must consider the best ways, through actions and words, to inspire voting. 
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In its 2004 Brown University decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) held that graduate student teaching assistants were not employees because they were “primarily
Is a non-union employee who speaks out about employment matters protected by the National Labor Relations Act? If so, under what circumstances? That question is critically important because if the employee is protected and is fired, the employer may have to reinstate him, pay back pay, and post a notice that the employer violated employee rights.
In 2004, the NLRB found that graduate student assistants at Brown University who performed services in connection with their studies were not employees and thus