AAUP Supports Pennsylvania Teaching Assistants
In May, the AAUP filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in support of the right of graduate assistants at the University of Pennsylvania to organize for collective bargaining. A regional director of the NLRB ruled in November 2002 that Penn graduate assistants were employees, but the university administration appealed that ruling.
The Penn case is one of several private-university cases pending before the NLRB, which administers the National Labor Relations Act, the federal law governing relations between unions and employees in the private sector. The Association also filed briefs in two cases involving graduate assistants at Brown and Columbia Universities. The cases hinge on whether graduate assistants are employees under the act.
In a similar case, the board ruled in 2000 that some graduate assistants at New York University were employees and therefore could form a union if they so chose. Echoing claims made by the NYU administration, the Penn administration claims that the unionization of graduate assistants would damage academic freedom by inhibiting the university's ability to control what courses are taught and who teaches them. The university administration also claims that graduate assistants cannot have employee status because they are required to teach as part of their academic program.
In its brief, the AAUP argues that the Penn administration repeats arguments made by the NYU administration, which have already been rejected by the NLRB, and therefore the board should not revisit the issue. In the NYU case, the NLRB found that obtaining educational benefits in employment is not in-consistent with employee status; accordingly, graduate assistants should not be precluded from being deemed employees merely because their employment confers an educational benefit.
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