Grad Students at Private Research Foundations Attached to Public U.’s Allowed to Unionize

Graduate students employed at private, nonprofit research foundations attached to public universities have the right to unionize, according to two recent decisions by the National Labor Relations Board, an article in The Chronicle reports:

The decisions represent a rare expansion of bargaining rights for graduate students under the current labor board, appointed by President Bush, but the expansion is limited: The rulings’ authors took pains to distinguish the research assistants in these cases from graduate teaching assistants at private universities.

The rulings in these cases — which involve the Research Foundation of SUNY and the Research Foundation of CUNY — state that research assistants employed by those private research foundations are entitled to bargaining rights because they “have a primarily economic and not a primarily educational relationship with their employer,” the reporter John Gravois writes.