Graduate Teaching Assistants Can Unionize
 
March 22, 2001
 

On November 15, 2000, New York University (NYU) announced that a majority of its graduate teaching assistants had voted to unionize, thereby winning a certified collective-bargaining unit and raising the possibility that NYU, for the first time, would be required to negotiate with a union when determining compensation, benefits and other working conditions for its graduate assistants.

This historic vote followed a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling two weeks earlier in New York University and International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of American, AFL-CIO. The NLRB ruled that NYU’s graduate assistants were “employees” within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.  Therefore, according to the NLRB, the NYU graduate assistants had the same statutory rights to bargain and organize as employees of any other private employer.

The NYU decision follows on the heels of the NLRB’s ruling last November in the Boston Medical Center case, in which the NLRB determined that medical interns, residents and fellows had collective bargaining rights.  Together, the NYU and Boston Medical Center rulings reverse 20-year-old NLRB precedents, which had rejected the “employee” characterization for students working in the area of their chosen academic discipline or craft.

The NLRB was unpersuaded by NYU’s argument that the relationship between the university and the graduate assistants was different from the traditional employer-employee relationship because the graduate assistants received financial aid rather than wages.  The graduate assistants taught a number of required undergraduate courses, prepared and graded exams, and held office hours to meet with students.  The graduate assistants performed these duties in exchange for stipends, tuition reimbursements and bookstore discounts.  The NLRB concluded that graduate assistants perform their duties for, and under the control of, the university’s departments or programs, are paid for their work, and are carried on the university payroll.  Therefore, in the NLRB’s view, the graduate assistants’ relationship with the university was “indistinguishable from a traditional master-servant relationship.”

The NLRB also rejected NYU’s claim that, because graduate assistants perform work that was primarily educational, allowing them to unionize could impair academic freedom.  The NLRB noted that the parties could “confront any issues of academic freedom as they would any other issue in collective bargaining” and found the graduate assistants’ working conditions, and working relationship with the university, to be indistinguishable in most circumstances from the faculty’s.

Educators should be alert to the many new issues raised by this NLRB ruling when responding to union campaigning, collective bargaining and organizing on campus.  Managers of labor relations at every level should know their rights and obligations when dealing with unions, union organizing campaigns, and bargaining demands by groups – as well as  individuals – which the institution might not have previously considered to be among its workforce.  Institutions should use the occasion of this new NLRB ruling to train or to reeducate its managers on the fundamentals of good labor relations, including representation rights, equal employment opportunity, and appropriate conduct when dealing with employees, and should consult with legal counsel for more specific guidance.