Michigan Senate Approves Bill to Block Unions by Graduate Research Assistants

by E Wayne Ross on February 22, 2012

The Chronicle: Michigan Senate Approves Bill to Block Unions by Graduate Research Assistants

A Republican-sponsored bill that would bar graduate research assistants at Michigan’s public universities from unionizing has been approved by the State Senate. Consideration of the bill coincides with debates over whether research assistants at the University of Michigan should be classified as students, not as employees entitled to collective-bargaining rights. The bill, which now heads to the House, threatens to upend a case pending before an administrative-law judge, who is scheduled to deliver her recommendation to the Michigan Employment Relations Commission on March 13.