More of this Feature • Part 2: Ethics,  Educational Reform, and Postdoctoral Employment

Related Resources • Unionization • Teaching • Graduate Educational Reform

From Other Guides • AMA Helps Medical Students Unionize • Teachers' Unions: Do We Need Them?

This year graduate students were at the center of some of the most noteworthy news headlines in higher education. Let's take a look at some of the major stories in 2000.

Graduate Student Unionization
Perhaps the most pervasive news story this year is that of teaching assistants and their efforts to unionize. In 2000, the graduate student unionization movement swept across the United States at several major institutions of higher education including New York University, Temple University, the University of California, and the University of Washington.

The Issue
The central question at the core of the graduate student unionization debate is: Are teaching and research assistants primarily students or are they employees? If they are employees, they should be allowed to bargain collectively for salary, benefits, health care plans, and grievance process to file complaints over academic disputes (e.g., if a teaching assistant wants to include readings that a professor refuses).

Institutional Arguments Against Graduate Student Unionization
Educational institutions used a variety of arguments to deny graduate student unionization, including the following:

• Teaching assistants are not paid for their work. They simply receive financial aid and are therefore not employees.
• The work of graduate students is primarily educational; therefore they are not employees.
• Giving collective-bargaining rights to teaching assistants would hamper academic freedom.

National Labor Relations Board Ruling
The National Labor Relations Board rejected all institutional arguments and granted teaching and research assistants collective bargaining rights. Now, this isn't new. Teaching assistants have had collective bargaining rights at several public universities, but this is the first time that federal labor board granted the right to bargain, if desired, to teaching assistants at private universities. This is certainly not the end of this story. Keep your eyes on this saga during 2001.

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