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Author
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Topic: US grad students have no right to unionize
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robbie_dee
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 195
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posted 16 July 2004 12:50 PM
National Labour Relations Board Says Graduate Students at Private Universities Have No Right to Unionize (New York Times)(if you don't have a login for the NY Times and don't want to sign up for one, you can visit www.bugmenot.com to get an anonymous one) quote:
The fast-growing movement to unionize graduate students at the nation's private universities suffered a crushing setback yesterday when the National Labor Relations Board reversed itself and ruled that students who worked as research and teaching assistants did not have the right to unionize.In a case involving Brown University, the labor board ruled 3 to 2 that graduate teaching and research assistants were essentially students, not workers, and thus should not have the right to unionize to negotiate over wages, benefits and other conditions of employment. The Republican-controlled board reversed a four-year-old decision involving New York University, a private institution, in which the board, then controlled by Democrats, concluded that graduate teaching and research assistants should be able to unionize because their increased responsibilities had essentially turned them into workers. As a result of the 2000 N.Y.U. ruling, students there formed the first graduate employees' union at a private university in the nation. (Graduate student workers at public universities are governed by state labor laws rather than federal law, and many states have given them the right to unionize.)
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Edward J. McElroy, the secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers, who is set to be elected the union's president today, called the decision "outrageous." "These people obviously are workers," Mr. McElroy said. "If members of the N.L.R.B. can't recognize a worker when they see one, they shouldn't be on a national labor board."
This is outrageous. I've worked as a graduate TA. Its a job. We perform valuable work for the university. We get paid for that work. If we don't do the work, we don't get paid. Yes, we may also happen to go to school there. But that doesn't mean that our teaching responsibilities aren't a job.What's even worse is that this is just the opening salvo of what is to come from Bush's Labour Board if he gets reelected. Fortunately, the NLRB has no jurisdiction over state schools (the student teachers are considered state employees and governed by state law, which may or may not give them the right to unionize.) But the private schools are a huge portion of the postsecondary system here, and the Board is progressively making them a union-free zone. University professors lost the right to unionize a number of years ago, because they were considered "managers." Interesting to ask who they're "managing," since the grad students working under them aren't "workers." 
From: Iron City | Registered: Apr 2001
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Klingon
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4625
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posted 25 July 2004 04:31 PM
P'Tachk! Yet another example of the falsity of the so-called "land of the free and home of the brave."As has already been said here, grade students, Alma Matters and TAs in Canada are now largely unionized and legally recognized as such. But I would urge the US grads not to give up just because of a pork chop bureaucratic ruling by anti-worker corporate dupes. The truth is unions, in one form or another, exist just about everywhere and have done so since people began working for a living. No matter how illegal governments and ruling elites have made them, they still exist and still manage to have some influence. In fact, the first ever-documented strike, of sorts, was during the building of the great pyramids. The issues around it are still unclear. But apparently the skilled trades and engineers of that time were organized into to some sort of labour union. Although these were absolutely forbidden by the totalitarian Pharos regimes, they still were quite active and managed to make some changes in the workplaces of that day. In fact, history throughout the world is chalk full of labour activism and unionization of one form or another--illegal or not--from the Greco-Roman era, where at least three general strikes took place, throughout the middle ages with the clandestine, but still fairly effective, trade guilds, to the countless peasant and slave revolts to the more sophisticated activities of today. If the NLRB won't recognize the grads, then so be it. They can continue to meet and help one another with the issues they face. For, example, they can meet and democratically set a general set of standards, with everyone agreeing to do whatever they can to try to stick to them on the job and pressure the employers to agree to--if not collectively, at least one-on-one, like the guilds did throughout the feudal and middle ages, and despite being illegal, were quite successful. Of course the can also try to appeal the decision, or take it to the supreme court (if they can afford it).
From: Kronos, but in BC Observing Political Tretchery | Registered: Nov 2003
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