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NLRB says graduate students, some undergrads can unionize

Very interesting decision but not really too surprising given the makeup of NLRB and the way it operates.
 
I guess it's a win. I can't speak to anything outside of science graduate programs but I don't know what else you could ask for as the trend there has been moving in the right direction for awhile now.
 
Key distinction here is private schools.

I'm a research assistant at a public university and not eligible for unionization, but my pay rate is determined by the graduate assistant union.
 
TA at Wake this year. The stipend is absurdly low - apparently hasn't changed since the 90s. Interesting.
 
Buttermaker said:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/graduat...ate-colleges-u-s-labor-panel-rules-1471972147

Thoughts? Duke grad students among those already moving toward union representation. PhD, were you not a grad student at Duke some years ago?
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This is a really important decision! Graduate student employees do a lot of meaningful work (teaching and grading) and are typically paid sub-minimum wage (when you factor in how many hours students actually work) for their efforts. The pay gap between public and private graduate student workers is pretty crazy. (RA/GSR and fellowship funding allocations are a different conversation.)
 
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I got a kick out of this quote from Columbia.

“Columbia—along with many of our peer institutions—disagrees with this outcome because we believe the academic relationship students have with faculty members and departments as part of their studies is not the same as between employer and employee,” the university said in a statement.


That's not relevant because grad student unions are more about the relationship between grad assistants and the institution. Faculty have little say over much of what grad students want to unionize over.
 
PhDeac said:
I got a kick out of this quote from Columbia.

“Columbia—along with many of our peer institutions—disagrees with this outcome because we believe the academic relationship students have with faculty members and departments as part of their studies is not the same as between employer and employee,” the university said in a statement.


That's not relevant because grad student unions are more about the relationship between grad assistants and the institution. Faculty have little say over much of what grad students want to unionize over.
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UofC's letter was very similar. A bunch of nonsense.
 
TenaciousKory said:
TA at Wake this year. The stipend is absurdly low - apparently hasn't changed since the 90s. Interesting.
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All the money flowing through colleges nowadays, and they pinch pennies on the one's doing the actual work?

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Yep.
 
TenaciousKory said:
TA at Wake this year. The stipend is absurdly low - apparently hasn't changed since the 90s. Interesting.
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How do you manage to charge over $60,000 a year to students, while short-changing TAs and not paying revenue sports athletes? Nathan? Are you there?

Why do you prefer administrative bloat to simple fairness and decency? This is Pro Bureaucracy and Pro Aedificia, not Pro Humanitate.
 
I'd recommend protest, but I've heard it's akin to an old man yelling at a cloud.
 
Can somebody who is versed in labor law tell me why the NLRB is the final decision maker in such matters? Just seems weird to have such a body making a decision that has a nationwide impact.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Can somebody who is versed in labor law tell me why the NLRB is the final decision maker in such matters? Just seems weird to have such a body making a decision that has a nationwide impact.
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Because the National Labor Relations Act established the NLRB to be the primary enforcer of the provisions of the statute.
 
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