The issue of whether teaching assistants and research assistants
are "employees" for purposes of federal labor law, and
thus eligible to form unions, has been a ping-pong match between
supporters and opponents of campus unionization for decades. In
2000, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a decision
supporting collective bargaining for graduate students, but it
reversed that decision only four years later. Then, in 2016, the
NLRB switched positions again, issuing a decision again in favor of
unionization.
In May 2019, the NLRB issued a notice stating that it would
engage in rulemaking to set standards to determine whether students
who perform "services" for private institutions are
"employees" within the meaning of the National Labor
Relations Act. Many view this as an effort to overturn the 2016
decision and return to an era where graduate students are not
permitted to organize.
