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Board Overturns TAs Union Membership
By LEIGH STROPE
Associated Press Writer
July 15, 2004, 3:57 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- Graduate teaching assistants at private universities do not have the right to form unions, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled, reversing its 2000 landmark decision that resulted in thousands of new union members.
The board, in a 3-2 decision along party lines, ruled that a unit of about 450 graduate teaching and research assistants at Brown University in Providence, R.I., could not be represented by the United Auto Workers because the members were school students, not employees.
"Because they are first and foremost students, and their status as a graduate student assistant is contingent on their continued enrollment as students, we find that they are primarily students," the decision said.
Brown University did not immediately have a comment. A UAW official in Washington was unaware the decision had been made, but said the union disagreed. "We strongly disagree with it and we think it reflects this administration's anti-labor orientation," said Alan Reuther, the union's legislative director.
Organized labor had sought and won the 2000 decision by the NLRB under the Clinton administration, allowing graduate teaching assistants at New York University to unionize. It was the first private school to do so.
The NLRB under the Bush administration said that decision was wrong because it reversed more than 25 years of board precedent.
"In our decision today, we return to the board's pre-NYU precedent that graduate student assistants are not statutory employees," the decision said, adding that this "longstanding approach changed abruptly" under the 2000 ruling.
The decision was sent to the involved parties on Tuesday.
Unions have been active on college campuses trying to recharge the labor movement. Union membership has been declining, and labor leaders view recruitment of younger, part-time workers as a way to reverse that trend. The UAW and the American Federation of Teachers are the leading unions courting graduate teaching assistants.
Some state-supported schools allow graduate teaching assistants to unionize and some don't depending on various state laws.
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
By LEIGH STROPE
Associated Press Writer
July 15, 2004, 3:57 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- Graduate teaching assistants at private universities do not have the right to form unions, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled, reversing its 2000 landmark decision that resulted in thousands of new union members.
The board, in a 3-2 decision along party lines, ruled that a unit of about 450 graduate teaching and research assistants at Brown University in Providence, R.I., could not be represented by the United Auto Workers because the members were school students, not employees.
"Because they are first and foremost students, and their status as a graduate student assistant is contingent on their continued enrollment as students, we find that they are primarily students," the decision said.
Brown University did not immediately have a comment. A UAW official in Washington was unaware the decision had been made, but said the union disagreed. "We strongly disagree with it and we think it reflects this administration's anti-labor orientation," said Alan Reuther, the union's legislative director.
Organized labor had sought and won the 2000 decision by the NLRB under the Clinton administration, allowing graduate teaching assistants at New York University to unionize. It was the first private school to do so.
The NLRB under the Bush administration said that decision was wrong because it reversed more than 25 years of board precedent.
"In our decision today, we return to the board's pre-NYU precedent that graduate student assistants are not statutory employees," the decision said, adding that this "longstanding approach changed abruptly" under the 2000 ruling.
The decision was sent to the involved parties on Tuesday.
Unions have been active on college campuses trying to recharge the labor movement. Union membership has been declining, and labor leaders view recruitment of younger, part-time workers as a way to reverse that trend. The UAW and the American Federation of Teachers are the leading unions courting graduate teaching assistants.
Some state-supported schools allow graduate teaching assistants to unionize and some don't depending on various state laws.
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
