Miller, Kennedy Introduce Bill to Restore Collective Bargaining Rights to Thousands of Working Graduate Assistants
Legislation would overturn a National Labor Relations Board decision that reversed important labor protections for graduate assistants

Friday, April 18, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC -- Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, introduced legislation yesterday to guarantee graduate assistants the right to collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. 

The Teaching and Research Assistant Collective Bargaining Rights Act, H.R. 5838 and S. 2891, would overturn a 2004 National Labor Relations Board ruling that held that Brown University graduate assistants are not employees and therefore could not claim protections contained in the National Labor Relations Act, including the right to join a union. The decision stripped away the right of more than 51,000 teaching assistants, research assistants and proctors to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions at 1,561 private universities.

“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 once 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 across the country,” said Kennedy. “This bill restores the bargaining rights unfairly denied by the NLRB to these hard-working graduate students.”

The Teaching and Research Assistant Collective Bargaining Rights Act would clarify that the term “employee” includes any graduate student who is performing work for compensation at the direction of a higher education institution. As employees, these workers would have the right to organize and bargain collectively under the NLRA.  The legislation would only cover private sector workers, not public universities.

In the House, the bill was cosponsored by U.S. Reps. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions; John Tierney (D-MA); and Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ).

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