Graduate students efforts at being involved in paid jobs within universities does not mean getting full employee rights.
Most graduate students assist universities in a paid teaching, and research works in favor of the school. It is supposed that being in paid service gives the graduate students rights to unionize, but this isn’t the reality.
The new plan set by the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) does not recognize graduate students in paid jobs as employees with rights to unionize. This new plan by NLRB is contrary to the 2016 decision of the same body, which allows graduate students to form unions.
For the new plan by NLRB to be accepted, the body has been mandated to be informed by public opinion on the matter. Consequently, NLRB has engaged the public for 60 days to be well-informed before making a decision.
Graduate students unions
Graduate students since 2000 have been tossed around with the need of being called an employee with rights to unionize. In the same year, graduate students had the right to form unions, meant to negotiate pay and regularize payscale. In the following year 2004, graduate students at Brown University were denied full benefits of employees of the university.
Additionally, in 2016, graduate students had full employee benefits; however, the new bill by NLRB announced on the 20th of September will reverse the 2016 law. To gain acceptance of the new proposal, NLRB has highlighted three reasons for the proposed changes.
Graduate students work in faculties is performed out of benefits to their education.
Graduate student work appears more as financial aid because they get paid notwithstanding if the job is done or not.
Graduate students collaborate with their respective faculty adviser at individual levels, which doesn’t pass for collective bargaining.
Graduate students are not employees
An employment law attorney at Fisher Phillips, Todd Lyon supported the new bill proposed by NLRB. In his words,
No longer would student-workers have the right to form unions and collectively bargain with their schools.
Also, the new bill was supported by the provost of the University of Chicago, Daniel Diermeier. He sees graduate students as students and not employees, thus not liable to unionize in universities. According to Daniel
A collective bargaining agreement would likely create an environment of standardization without room for differentiation, changing the nature and scope of the relationships of graduate students to their advisors, other faculty, and degree programs.
With this recent development with the bill by NLRB, some graduate student organizations are already voicing out their disagreements that their paid jobs are beneficial to the administration of their departments. Even the American Federation of Teachers, which is affiliated with several university graduate student organizations, states have chosen to walk with the new bill.
