National Labor Board Will Look At Grad Student Unionization

Graduate students at Purdue want to form a labor union, and a similar movement is happening around the country at private universities. (photo credit: Kyle Stokes / StateImpact Indiana)

Last week, we wrote about a group of Purdue graduate students petitioning to be considered university employees so they could create a labor union. The students want to form a union so they can collectively bargain benefits, wages and grieve unfair labor practices.

Our story found that students at Purdue, and any state university in Indiana, might have a hard time organizing a union because of a state law that prohibit state employees from collective bargaining.

NPR’s Yuki Noguchi did a story this week looking at a movement from graduate students at private universities in New York City to form labor unions. Her reporting found the National Labor Relations Board will reconsider its previous decision that wouldn’t allow them to form such unions.

With respect to private universities, the National Labor Relations Board has flip-flopped in its policy. For decades, it held that students were not employees, then ruled in favor of students in a case in 2000. Under a new administration, the board reversed itself again four years later. Now, students at Columbia and The New School are petitioning for another change.

John Logan, a labor and employment professor at San Francisco State University, says the shifts are tied largely to the political makeup of the board.

“When we get a new administration and the composition of the board changes, then sometimes you get this process of policy oscillation where the pendulum swings from one side to the other,” Logan says.

Meanwhile, he says, grad students’ interest in unionization continues to grow.

Aaron Nisenson, counsel at the American Association of University Professors (which has an affiliated union), argues that unions in higher education are increasingly necessary, as universities — like private corporations — rely more on cheaper labor.

“Everybody starting in a professional career can get some experience at a new job, but that doesn’t make it not a job,” Nisenson says. “Universities more broadly have been pushing a lot of the work towards contingent faculty, towards graduate assistants and towards other non-tenure track faculty.”

The National Labor Board didn’t say when it would make its decision, but it is only determining whether students at private universities, not public, can form unions.