NYU Teaching Assistants Move Closer to Union Recognition

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/06/20/nyu-teaching-assistants-move-closer-to-union-recognition/

by James Parks, Jun 20, 2011

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUpYcj8JotA&feature=player_embedded

Research and teaching assistants at New York University (NYU) last week moved one step closer to regaining their rights under federal law to form a union and bargain for improvements at work.

Graduate assistants won a major victory in 2010, when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered a new hearing on a ruling, which had prevented some 1,800 graduate assistants at NYU from voting for union representation. The board based its ruling on a 2004 NLRB decision that graduate teaching and research assistants were not employees and could not form a union.

Last week, in the NLRB-ordered hearing, acting NLRB Regional Director Elbert Tellem accepted the key claim presented by the assistants, members of Graduate Student Organizing Committee/UAW (GSOC/UAW Local 2110), that they are university employees.

“This decision clearly recognizes that we are employees, who work for and receive compensation from NYU,” said Jan Padios, a teaching assistant in NYU’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.

We’re glad we got a timely ruling. Now we’re going to take this case to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., and claim our rights as workers.

FULL story at link.