Student assistants working at private colleges and universities are employees under the National Labor Relations Act, the National Labor Relations Board ruled this week in a case involving Columbia University.
The 3-1 decision, which came Tuesday, permits Graduate Workers of Columbia-GWC, UAW the opportunity to collectively bargain on behalf of graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants, as well as graduate research assistants, overruled a 2004 NLRB decision involving Brown University. The board in Brown found graduate student assistants were not within the meaning of the act's definition of an employee.
The board in Columbia, however, took a more expansive view of the NLRB's language in Section 2(3) and the core purpose of the act.