NLRB Orders New Hearing on NYU Grad Students Union Vote
One of the most egregious decisions of the Bush-era National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was the 2004 ruling in the Brown University case that graduate teaching and research assistants were not employees and could not form a union. This week, the Obama NLRB began to set things right by reversing a ruling, which prevented some 1,800 graduate assistants at New York University from voting for union representation.
The board reversed a regional director’s dismissal of an election petition by the Graduate Student Organizing Committee/UAW (GSOC/UAW Local 2110). Even though the board stopped short of overturning the Brown University ruling, it did say there are “compelling reasons” to reconsider the 2004 board precedent. The board remanded the case to the regional director for a hearing and development of a “full evidentiary record” on the election petition. The student employees held a mass rally in April where a large majority of the students signed the petition to the NLRB (see video above). Read the rest of this entry »
Thousands of Graduate Assistants Join AFT
Strong-arm tactics by the Central Michigan University (CMU) administration—including a last-minute letter filled with anti-union rhetoric and innuendo—couldn’t sway graduate assistants from exercising their freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life.
On Monday and Tuesday, the CMU graduate assistants voted overwhelmingly to join the Graduate Student Union/AFT. The 450 teaching and administrative assistants teach, grade, tutor and perform administrative duties on the university’s Mt. Pleasant campus.
Also last week, graduate assistants at Florida State University (FSU) voted to join FSU Graduate Assistants United (FSU-GAU), a Florida Education Association/NEA/AFT affiliate. The new union will represent 2,800 graduate employees.
