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U.S. LABOR BOARD SCRAPS BARRIER TO UNIONIZATION OF GRAD STUDENTS
- By The Financial District
- Mar 24, 2021
- 2 min read
Campus organizers are hoping that unionization campaigns may be on the horizon following the recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision to withdraw a proposed Trump-era rule that would have barred graduate students from joining a union, Michael Arria reported for Truthout.
During his campaign, President Joe Biden had vowed to “empower the NLRB to fulfill its intended purpose of protecting workers.” In 2019, the Trump-appointed NLRB proposed a regulation that asserted graduate students shouldn’t be considered employees, regardless of whether or not the students assisted with teaching or research.
An Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report found that the proposed Trump rule would have stripped collective bargaining rights from 57,500 unionized graduate students and blocked 1.5 million graduate students from forming a union at their school.
“At a time when worker advocates are demanding that more workers have the right to a union and collective bargaining, the Trump board’s graduate teaching assistant proposal demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding that graduate teaching assistants are an integral part of the modern academic workforce,” the report stated.
The question of whether graduate students at private universities can l/egally unionize has been a saga at the NLRB for decades. In 2000, the agency ruled that they had the right to organize. In 2004, it reversed that decision. In 2016, a group of graduate students at Columbia University petitioned the board in their effort to unionize.
The NLRB board ruled that graduate students were employees under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and could join unions. The Trump-era move came in direct response to the Columbia case.
During his presidency, Trump stocked the NLRB with anti-labor appointees who had deep connections to union-busting. Despite that graduate students often teach classes, assist in research, attend conferences, lead field trips, and hold office hours, they can make as little as $20,000 a year. It’s tremendously difficult for students to fight for higher wages or expanded benefits because most aren’t even considered workers by their employers.
