Tag: Higher Education

Harvard Graduate Workers Announce Majority Support for Union

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – As the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) moves forward in a highly-anticipated case that could restore graduate workers’ rights as employees, a majority of graduate workers at Harvard University have signed cards saying that they want to a form a union. In an official affirmation of this choice, the American Arbitration Association (AAA) confirmed a majority of graduate workers are supporting the formation of a union. Today, as support for graduate workers’ rights reaches unprecedented levels nationwide, hundreds of Harvard graduate workers, community supporters and local elected officials are calling on the university administration to stop blocking ... Read more

Graduate Employees at Private Universities Closely Watching Pending NLRB Case on Unionization Rights

This semester, graduate students across the country will return to the same old routine of shuttling from the library to the lecture hall, hitting the archives in the afternoon and dozing off over a stack of half-graded papers by dusk. But they may be due for a reward worth a lot more than their tuition remission: validation of their work from the nation’s highest authority on labor rights. Late last year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finally agreed to review the cases of Columbia University and New School graduate studentswho have been campaigning for years to form an official union ... Read more

Landmark Neutrality and Election Agreement for Barnard College Contingent Faculty

NEW YORK, NY—Barnard College has signed an agreement with BCF-UAW Local 2110 allowing most non-tenure-track faculty to vote on whether to unionize in a mail ballot this September. “This is a positive step forward for faculty,” said Siobhan Burke, adjunct lecturer in the Dance Department and a Barnard alumna. “A union will give us a voice in our employment conditions. By lessening the precariousness of our economic situation as employees, it will allow us to stay focused on our role as educators.” The agreement came late last Thursday, the last day of hearings in front of the National Labor Relations ... Read more

Majority of 2,200 UConn Graduate Assistants Vote to Ratify Historic First Contract

STORRS, CT—Graduate Assistants (GAs) have voted overwhelmingly to ratify an historic agreement as their first union contract between the Graduate Employee Union-United Auto Workers Local 6950 (GEU-UAW) and the University of Connecticut (UConn). The union’s bargaining committee unanimously recommended ratification as an agreement that makes important improvements for GAs while advancing social justice at UConn. “We are thrilled by the overwhelming vote in favor of this agreement,” said Gayatri Phadke, a GEU-UAW bargaining committee member and GA in the Chemistry Department. “Our members, who come from all across the world to study and carry out quality teaching and research, worked ... Read more

UAW Statement on Brown NLRB decision

Today’s decision by the National Labor Relations Board is a tremendous victory for the UAW and our members, graduate student employees at Columbia University and at New School University. For more than a decade the UAW has fought relentlessly alongside graduate student employees in private universities to win the right to bargain collectively. Earlier this week, we reached a tentative agreement with NYU for a contract that accomplishes substantial gains in compensation and healthcare. Now, this NLRB decision – fundamentally this is a victory for all graduate student employees who deserve the same fairness and organizing rights at Columbia, The ... Read more