In the NLRB’s never ending expansion of its jurisdiction, it has agreed to reconsider whether graduate teaching assistants at private non-profit universities are entitled to collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act. As anyone who has been involved in education labor law for any period of time knows, the Board has gone back and forth on this issue and all in a relatively short timeline. Initially, back in 2000, the Board ruled that graduate teaching assistants were eligible for collective bargaining under the Act, and then in the 2004 Brown University decision the Board reversed its 2000 ruling. However the unions are taking notice of the Board’s desire to expand its jurisdiction and so they have been on the prowl to organize such students. The New School, the current case, is now before the Board and it is very likely that they will find that graduate students, once again, have the right to organize under the NLRA, at least with respect to private educational institutions. Hence, universities will be under attack again, not only with respect to the adjunct faculty issue, which has been a very hot topic recently, but also with respect to graduate assistants and unions attempts to organize them.
