NLRB Returns to Grad Student Unions

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Inside Higher Ed

By Scott Jaschik

WASHINGTON -- The National Labor Relations Board -- voting 3 to 1 -- agreed Wednesday to reconsider whether graduate teaching assistants at private nonprofit universities are entitled to collective bargaining.

The board accepted a case involving a bid by the United Auto Workers at the New School to unionize. While the board only agreed to review the issue, the current majority of the board is generally viewed as sympathetic to unions. Having the board reverse its position on unionization at private universities has been a major goal of academic labor during the Obama administration.

But for much of the administration, legal and political disputes blocked President Obama's ability to appoint NLRB members. And while it looked for a while like a similar case involving New York University would be the one the NLRB would use to reconsider union rights, that case was settled before the NLRB could rule. So while NYU graduate students won their union, they didn't change the legal landscape.

The issue of whether graduate students have collective bargaining rights at private universities has gone back and forth, as the NLRB's sympathies have changed under Democratic and Republican administrations. So this could be the last shot for a reversal on the issue during the Obama administration.

FULL story at link.

Timeline on Graduate Student Unions at Private Universities
2000: NLRB -- in case involving NYU and UAW -- rules that graduate teaching assistants are eligible for collective bargaining and can be considered employees.
2002: NYU recognizes the UAW union for its graduate students, becoming the first private university to do so.
2004: NLRB -- in case involving Brown University and the UAW -- reverses the 2000 ruling, and says graduate students cannot be considered employees entitled to collective bargaining.
2005: NYU withdraws recognition of the UAW.
2005-6: Graduate teaching assistants go on strike at NYU, seeking to force the university to restore recognition, but strike fizzles out without such recognition.
2011: Regional NLRB official, in response to new petition from NYU graduate students to unionize with UAW, rules that the 2004 decision that grad students lack collective bargaining rights is still in place, but questions logic of that ruling, which is then appealed to full NLRB.
2012: NLRB announces it will use the appeal on behalf of NYU grad students to reconsider the 2004 ruling.
2013: NYU and UAW announce compromise under which the appeal to NLRB will be withdrawn.
2015: NLRB agrees to reconsider whether graduate students have collective bargaining rights.



Read more: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/23/nlrb-returns-issue-graduate-student-unions-private-institutions

[Igel]

1. Foolishness.

Ideologically driven.

I watched it. It benefited some but hurt the many. It distorted roles between students and faculty and hurt far more non-members students than it hurt. It hurt RAs more than TAs, but in some departments while this is a clear distinction the TA-faculty interaction was not employee-employer. Where I worked as a TA we worked fewer hours than required, because it was really a chance to give grad students a chance to teach an be mentored. In the dept. I was in as a grad student the TAs weren't employees but clearly mentees, with a gifted and talented mentor-faculty member who bent over backwards to help the TAs become good teachers and get jobs in their field. Post-union this died quickly, and the TAs had seniority. Suddenly you'd be a TA not for training and for career-building but as a job. A precious few graduated with 2, 3, 4 years' TA-ships. The rest of the students had CVs that said, in short, "no teaching experience--please don't hire me as a lecturer or junior faculty member."

We won't discuss the demands for benefits which, in times of fiscal restrictions, led to a reduction in the financial support available to non-UAW members. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer. And it was called "progressivism."

UAW, horrendous attitude and model.

ATF was better (at another school) but also problematic. It made us into employees, without seniority and with reasonable but not offensive benefits--we all had the same benefits as students, so it really was not a financial disaster for other students. In some departments it was appropriate, but in other depts. it was very problematic. Even in the dept. where I was--not entirely inappropriate, having a union in that dept.--it regimented interactions and in fact lowered our pay because it connected wages directly to hour worked. When our hours exceeded the contract, we were told to stop working those hours, however it helped our students (and future careers). When our hours came in less than the contractual maximum, our wages were adjusted. It also governed the kind of mentorship we got.

So I was an employee. I was put in a classroom. And that was that. I had 35 students and no training at all. It was not appropriate according to the contract, it was an intrusion. I'd have killed to be told how to be a decent language teacher, but, no. I was a professional. (Screw that. I stepped foot in the classroom as an employee with 24 hours' warning and no training in being a teacher. Classroom management? Materials preparation? Instructional techniques. Nope: That kind of intrusion was against union rules. As a high-school teacher it's not inappropriate. As a TA, it truly, honestly, deeply and profoundly sucked.