Inside Higher Ed: New Tactic on TA Unions
Two key Congressional Democrats on Thursday proposed legislation that would allow teaching assistants at private universities to unionize. While many public universities recognize TA unions (which are regulated in the public sector by state laws), private universities’ labor disputes are judged by the National Labor Relations Board, which in 2004 ruled that graduate students are primarily students, and not employees, so TA’s are not entitled to unionize. The legislation announced by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Rep. George Miller, the respective chairs of the Senate and House education committees, would reverse the 2004 ruling by the NLRB. In a statement, Senator Kennedy said: “Teaching and research assistants are in classrooms every day, educating students in colleges and universities across the country. This bill restores the bargaining rights unfairly denied by the NLRB to these hard-working graduate students.” It is unclear what will happen to the bill; President Bush’s appointees to the NLRB have been skeptical of TA unions, as have leaders of private universities. If a law did overturn the 2004 ruling, the impact could be significant. Prior to that ruling, New York University teaching assistants unionized, although after the ruling, the university declined to continue union recognition when its contract expired, and a union strike over the issue fizzled without winning another contract. Several organizing drives of TA’s at private universities that were active prior to the 2004 ruling have been muted since the combination of the decision and the defeat of the NYU strike.
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