The duty of fair representation is incumbent upon U.S. labor unions that are the exclusive bargaining representative of workers in a particular group. It is the obligation to represent all employees fairly, in good faith, and without discrimination. Originally recognized by the United States Supreme Court in a series of cases in the mid-1940s involving racial discrimination by railway workers' unions covered by the Railway Labor Act, the duty of fair representation also applies to workers covered by the National Labor Relations Act and, depending on the terms of the statute, to public sector workers covered by state and local laws regulating labor relations.
Local 33–UNITE HERE is a certified union of graduate student teachers at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. If recognized, Local 33–UNITE HERE would become the second graduate employee union at a private American university, following the Graduate Student Organizing Committee at New York University.
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States.
Graduate student employee unionization, or academic student employee unionization, refers to labor unions that represent students who are employed by their college or university to teach classes, conduct research and perform clerical duties. As of 2014, there are at least 33 US graduate employee unions, 18 unrecognized unions in the United States, and 23 graduate employee unions in Canada. By 2019, it is estimated that there were 83,050 unionized student employees in certified bargaining units in the United States. Almost all US graduate employee unions are located in public universities, most of which formed during the 1990s. In 2014, New York University's Graduate Student Organizing Committee, affiliated with the United Automobile Workers (UAW), became the first graduate employee union recognized by a private university in the US. In September 2018, Brandeis University became the second private university to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement for graduate student employees, followed by Tufts University in October 2018 and Harvard in July 2020. American University and New School were in the process of negotiating an agreement as of September 2018. Many of these unions refer to their workers as Academic Student Employees (ASEs) to reflect the fact that their membership may also include undergraduate students working in represented job classifications. In 2019, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposed a new rule that said graduate students are not employees, which could affect unionization efforts at private universities, although the final rule has yet to be published.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 3902 is a Canadian labour union local representing sessional lecturers, postdoctoral researchers and teaching assistants (TAs) at the University of Toronto, Victoria University in the University of Toronto, the University of St. Michael's College and New College in the University of Toronto.
George W. Taylor was a notable professor of industrial relations at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and is credited with founding the academic field of study known as industrial relations. He served in several capacities in the federal government, most notably as a mediator and arbitrator. During his career, Taylor settled more than 2,000 strikes.
Communications Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that, in a union security agreement, unions are authorized by statute to collect from non-members only those fees and dues necessary to perform its duties as a collective bargaining representative. The rights identified by the Court in Communications Workers of America v. Beck have since come to be known as "Beck rights," and defining what Beck rights are and how a union must fulfill its duties regarding them is an active area of modern United States labor law.
The Memorial Union Labor Organization(MULO) was a labor union of student workers and limited-term employees (LTEs) at the Memorial Union and Union South on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
The Graduate Employees' Organization at UIUC (GEO) is a labor union created to defend and extend the bargaining and employment rights of Graduate Employees at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
Robert Thompson King is an American lawyer and labor union activist and leader. He was elected President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on June 15, 2010. His term of office ended in June 2014, and King announced his retirement, being succeeded by Dennis Williams as head of the UAW.
Graduate Employees Together – University of Pennsylvania (GET-UP) is a group of graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania that is trying to become recognized as a union. The group, first formed in the spring of 2001, and affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). In 2004, according to exit polling by The Daily Pennsylvanian, the limited set of University of Pennsylvania graduate student employees included in the bargaining unit voted for unionization; however, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), before the votes were counted, decided that graduate students in private universities are not employees, while graduate students in public universities may be employees. The group began to re-form in 2016, and re-affiliated with AFT in October 2016. On March 2, 2017 the group once again decided to go public with their unionization campaign. The group has not been recognized by the University as a union for the purposes of collective bargaining.
John Cushman Truesdale Jr. was an American lawyer and civil servant who served two terms as executive secretary of the National Labor Relations Board, four terms as a board member, and one term as board chair.
The Teaching Assistants Association (TAA) is a graduate student employee union formed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1966. It is credited as the first graduate student labor union. Following voluntary recognition by the university as the teaching assistants' bargaining agent in 1969, negotiations resulted in a 1970 strike, which secured "bread-and-butter" gains such as job security alongside grievance procedures. Their major unmet demand from their strike—the inclusion of teaching assistants and students in the course planning process—went unfulfilled. The TAA struck again in 1980 and lost its union recognition until 1986. The union's protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol building began the 2011 Wisconsin protests.
Alan Michael Garber is an American physician, health economist, and academic administrator. He is the Provost of Harvard University.
The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF) is a graduate student union at the University of Oregon (UO) established in 1976 to represent graduate student workers, and it is one of the oldest graduate student unions in the United States. Developed out of the earlier Graduate Student Employees Association, the UO administration objected to the establishment of the union, citing that graduate workers were "not public employees", but were rather "primarily students receiving a form of financial aid similar to stipends or scholarships." The Oregon Employment Relations Board (ERB) ruled in favor of the graduate students and supported their right to organize. The GTFF began organizing its first contract in April 1977 with the University of Oregon administration. The negotiations reached an impasse in 1978, and it was not until after two strike votes that an agreement was reached. In 1989, the GTFF secured subsidies for health insurance, which was expanded in 1993 to be fully employer-paid, one of the first such programs offered to graduate teachers in the United States.
The Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU), officially known as Harvard Graduate Students Union United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW), is a labor union representing graduate students, teaching assistants, and other student employees at Harvard University. The bargaining unit comprises about 5,000 student employees, including graduate students working as research assistants and teaching fellows as well as several hundred undergraduate students holding teaching positions. Contract negotiations with the university are scheduled to begin in Fall 2018. HGSU is affiliated with the United Auto Workers labor union, whose 400,000 members include 45,000 graduate students and 30,000 academic workers.
The 2020 Santa Cruz graduate students' strike is a wildcat strike launched against the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC).
The 2021–2022 Columbia University strike was a labor strike involving graduate student workers at Columbia University in New York City. The strike began on March 15, 2021, and ended on May 13, 2021. However, additional strike action commenced on November 3 and lasted until January 7, 2022, when a tentative agreement with the university was reached. The strike was organized by the Graduate Workers of Columbia–United Auto Workers Local 2110 (SWC–UAW), a labor union representing student workers at the university. The goals of the strike were an increase in wages, increased healthcare and childcare coverage, and third-party arbitration in cases of discrimination and sexual harassment.
The 1979 Boston University strike was a labor strike involving employees at Boston University, a private university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The strike, involving faculty members, clerical workers, and librarians, began on April 5 and was fully ended by April 23.
Graduate Employees' Organization 3550 is a labor union representing the over 2,000 Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) and Graduate Student Staff Assistants (GSSAs) on the three campuses that make up the University of Michigan (U-M).
