Dear Colleague,

In a victory for student employees and unions who represent them, the National Labor Relations Board found today in the case Columbia University that student assistants working at private colleges and universities are statutory employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act. The 3–1 decision overrules a 2004 decision in Brown University, which had found that graduate assistants were not employees and therefore did not have statutory rights to unionize.

The case was brought by the Graduate Workers of Columbia-GWC, which in 2014 had filed an election petition seeking to represent both graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants, along with graduate and departmental research assistants at the university.

The AAUP filed an amicus brief with the National Labor Relations Board arguing that graduate assistants at private sector institutions should be considered employees with collective bargaining rights, and that collective bargaining promotes academic freedom. The brief further argued that rather than harming faculty-student mentoring relationships, graduate employee unionization can bring clarity to the employer-employee relationship.

In reversing Brown, the majority said that the earlier decision “deprived an entire category of workers of the protections of the Act without a convincing justification.” The board also agreed that granting collective bargaining rights to student employees would not infringe on First Amendment academic freedom, nor would it harm the student faculty relationship.

The National Labor Relations Board exercises jurisdiction over private sector employers, including private, nonprofit universities such as Columbia, and federal courts have made clear that the authority to define the term “employee” rests primarily with the board absent an exception enumerated within the National Labor Relations Act. Since the act does not specifically exclude student assistants from its coverage, the majority found no compelling reason to exclude student assistants from the protections of the Act.

The AAUP has long been committed to organizing graduate employees and currently represents graduate employees at a number of public sector institutions, where the graduate employees represented by the AAUP have seen significant gains as a result of bargaining.  This decision will allow student employees in the private sector to organize and seek similar improvements.

–Aaron Nisenson
AAUP Senior Counsel