October 8, 2004

Pay or Financial Aid? Senators Hear Debate Over Unions for Teaching Assistants

By SCOTT SMALLWOOD

Friends and foes of graduate-student unionization testified at a Senate hearing late last month, continuing their longstanding battle over whether teaching assistants are employees or students.

Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on labor and education, held the hearing to discuss a recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board. In 2000 the board had overturned decades of precedent to allow a

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