NYU Graduate Students Form First TA Union

Graduate students at New York University (NYU) have formed the first teaching assistants' union at a private institution after a precedent-breaking decision recognizing them as employees.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last month upheld a ruling originally made in March, allowing TAs at NYU to enter collective bargaining agreements.

For the past 24 years, the NLRB has viewed TAs at private universities as students only. They were not able to achieve employee status, preventing them from claiming unionizing and bargaining rights.

However, TAs at public universities have long been considered state employees and have been able to unionize since 1969, when the University of Wisconsin-Madison first formed a union.

Despite the recent reversal, the Harvard University Graduate Student Council (GSC) has no plans to unionize.

According to GSC Secretary Michael J. Westover, the strong working relationship between the graduate students and Harvard's administration removes the need for a union.

"It seems the graduate students here are reasonably content," Westover said. "And the administration responds to our needs, so there is no pressure to unionize."

At Yale, the issue is more controversial. The Yale Graduate Employees and Student Organization (GESO), which has been embroiled in heated debates with the Yale administration to gain the right to unionize, said the impact of the TA union at NYU will be very favorable for student unions at private institutions.

"We can expect a wave of TA unions cropping up at private universities across the nation," said GESO chair Rebecca B. Ruquist.

According to Ruquist, the NLRB decision has strengthened student resolve to more forcefully support unionization at Yale.

"The recent news that we are employees and are protected by labor laws has lent a lot of confidence to students," Ruquist said.

Ruquist said she applauds the NLRB decision because it shows the board is recognizing the changes that have taken place in job descriptions for TAs.

"The work I do as a TA is no different from what professors did before TAs existed," Ruquist said. "The fact that the NLRB finally caught up with the changes shows that the Yale administration is more out of touch than they may have thought."