When New York University’s teaching assistants gained the right to collective bargaining 16 years ago, they became the first graduate students at a private institution to do so. Soon, others followed suit. But the students unions were short-lived. Opposed to student labor organization, administrators from four schools including Brown appealed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The Bush-appointed board members ultimately ruled in their favor – that students aren’t actually workers, thus revoking their collective bargaining rights. Now, this decade-old ruling may very well be reversed. At the end of last year, the NLRB agreed to review the petitions to unionize by grad students at Columbia University and their downtown cohorts at The New School.

January 12, 2016 ・ From Christian Science Monitor