The largest network of labor and employment lawyers issued a legal brief Monday in opposition of a federal case on graduate students forming their own unions.
The Employment Law Alliance (ELA) — a powerful force in labor policy with attorneys across the nation and 135 countries — issued a legal brief contesting an attempt by the United Auto Workers (UAW) to allow the formation of graduate student unions. The union is trying to reverse a 2004 case involving Brown University that has prevented students from forming unions with collective bargaining rights.
“More than 1,800 private colleges and universities in the U.S. stand to have the educational and mentoring foundations of the graduate student experience compromised,” Attorney Natasha Baker said in a statement. “When it comes to graduate students, we are talking about a fundamentally academic experience. Overturning 30 years of precedent, including Brown.”
The UAW argues graduate students should be allowed to form unions with collective barraging rights. Those opposed, warn it could undermine the sacred relations students have with their professors because it would create associations more akin to that of employer and worker.
Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell and a handful of other Ivy League universities banned together last week to issue a legal brief in opposition of the union challenge. These schools also claim it will undermine the scared bond students have with their professors. The National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) is currently reviewing the case.
Graduate students often perform a multitude of paid activities that could be considered work, like student teaching. They often get paid for these activities despite current law not technically considering it employment. Students classified as workers for the purposes of unionizing has been a highly debated topic in federal labor law.
Students can join a union, but since they’re not employees, they are not afforded the right to collectively bargain. Brown University has been the main case preventing students from forming unions with collective bargaining rights. Student athletes have also been a point of debate, but the NLRB has also been hesitant to let them form unions.
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