KENNEDY, MILLER TRY TO BRING PRIVATE
COLLEGE TAS BACK UNDER LABOR LAW

Congress’ top two Democrats on labor issues want to bring 51,000 college teaching assistants and research assistants at 1,561 private universities and colleges back under the protection of labor law.

In legislation introduced April 17, Senate Labor Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) would amend the National Labor Relations Act to define such TAs and RAs as “employees.” That would let the TAs and RAs organize and bargain collectively.

“The term `employee' includes a student enrolled at an institution of higher education, other than an institution of a state or political subdivision, who is performing work for remuneration at the direction of the institution, whether or not the work relates to the student's course of study,” their bill (S 2891, HR 5838) says.

If it passes, and that’s unlikely this year, the legislation would overturn a decision by the Bush-named GOP majority of the National Labor Relations Board. In a 3-2 party-line vote--one of a series of GOP majority rulings stripping labor law protections from groups of workers--the GOPers said the students get “stipends” and college credit, and are not “employees” and thus can’t unionize. That reversed an NLRB ruling during the Clinton administration.

The Bush board majority’s ruling leaves the TAs and RAs, many of whom earn less than $15,000 yearly with no tenure, no health benefits and no protections, without the right to organize. Thousands of TAs and RAs at private universities and colleges--including those at Brown University, which brought the NLRB case--are affected. The Bush board’s 2004 ruling halted organizing drives at private colleges by several unions, including the Teachers and the United Auto Workers.

“As many colleges and universities cut costs, they have relied on graduate students to take on more responsibility. They teach classes, develop course curriculum, grade student papers, and provide counseling,” said Miller. “The Bush NLRB has again forced Congress to step up in order to protect American workers’ basic rights.”

“Teaching and research assistants are in classrooms every day, educating students in colleges and universities,” said Kennedy, whose hometown of Boston has one of the nation’s highest concentrations of institutions. “This restores the bargaining rights unfairly denied by the NLRB to these hard-working graduate students.”