"National Day of Action in Defense of Public Education", by Fibonacci Blue, CC BY 2.0
Graduate student workers have organized in record numbers over the past decade. At universities from coast to coast, these workers have won union recognition and successfully negotiated collective bargaining agreements that have secured better pay, benefits, and workplace protections. But a case filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) could put much of that progress in jeopardy.
In July, Russell Burgett, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge against Cornell’s graduate student union, Cornell Graduate Students United/UE Local 300 (“CGSU”), arguing that graduate students should not be classified as employees under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or “the Act”). Backed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW) – a right-wing, anti-union legal advocacy group – Burgett’s charge aims to overturn the precedent set in the 2016 Columbia University decision. The NLRB recognized graduate student workers at private colleges and universities as “employees” under the NLRA entitled to the law’s protections for organizing and collective bargaining. Overturning that ruling could open the door to decertifying unions representing tens of thousands of graduate workers at private colleges and universities nationwide.
A Long and Winding Legal Road
The question of whether graduate student workers at private colleges and universities are employees under the Act has been a legal ping-pong match for the past four decades. The NLRB’s New York University decision first recognized the right of graduate assistants at private institutions to unionize in 2000. The Board reversed itself in 2004’s Brown University decision. That ruling stood for 12 years until Columbia University restored private graduate workers’ status as employees in 2016, which opened the door to union representation for graduate students at private institutions across the nation.
Higher education has become one of the fastest growing sectors for new bargaining units in the years since, with graduate student workers at Duke, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and many others winning union recognition. At private institutions, “over 55,000 graduate student employees are now currently represented in collective bargaining units around the country,” says William A. Herbert, Executive Director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College.
Cornell’s graduate students voted overwhelmingly to recognize CGSU as their bargaining representative in 2023 with 96% of the ballots cast in favor of the union. CGSU represents over 3,000 graduate students who perform research and teaching services for the university. The workers reached their first collective bargaining agreement with the university earlier this year. The agreement provides annual pay increases and medical benefits, and establishes disciplinary and grievance procedures, among other provisions.
"Grad worker rally March 2023", by Jess Ness, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
Ewa Nizalowska, CGSU’s president, sees the question of whether graduate student workers are employees as a settled matter: “We already know that the answer is ‘absolutely,’ and we do some of the most central work to keep these campuses running.”
Fortunately, the scheme to strip these workers of their union rights will face a long and winding legal road. Burgett’s unfair labor practice will be reviewed first by the Director of the NLRB’s Regional Office 3 in Buffalo, NY. Under the supervision of the general counsel, the Regional Office will investigate whether the charge states a valid claim under current law. Herbert says that, because Columbia University remains the governing precedent, the Regional Office would ordinarily dismiss the charge on the grounds that graduate assistants are statutory employees. However, should the Board’s general counsel choose to use the case as a vehicle to challenge Columbia University, the general counsel could order an investigation and issue a formal complaint, which would be heard by an administrative law judge (ALJ). Bound by existing precedent, the ALJ would likely dismiss the complaint, but the general counsel could appeal the case to the full Board. The Board, with only two confirmed members, currently lacks the three-member quorum required to issue new rulings on unfair labor practice charges. President Trump nominated two candidates for Board membership in July 2025, but they have not yet been confirmed. Once the Board has a quorum, a majority ruling could overturn Columbia University, reshaping the legal status of graduate student workers nationwide.
While it’s unclear whether acting general counsel William B. Cowen would choose to order an investigation, it is certainly a possibility given the current administration’s hostility to both labor and higher education. Pursuing the case “would really be potentially hitting two hot topics for the Trump administration with one rock,” says Herbert. “It would be a challenge, not just to the graduate student employees and their rights, but also it would be an attack on the autonomy of higher education institutions to engage in collective bargaining with their graduate students.” During Trump’s first term, the NLRB attempted to revoke student workers’ union rights through a proposed rule that would have exempted graduate and undergraduate student workers from its jurisdiction. The Board later withdrew the proposal. Since retaking the White House, Trump has attacked universities’ academic freedom and autonomy, withdrawing billions of dollars of federal funding from schools that have refused to make changes to their diversity programs or curricula demanded by the White House. Nizalowska describes the ULP charge as part of a “larger far-right attack” on both workers’ rights and on higher education.
Even if Columbia University were overturned, Herbert stresses that graduate student unions’ current collective bargaining agreements would stand until their expiration dates. Graduate student workers could still win recognition for their unions through agreements with universities without going through the NLRB’s legal process, as students at Brown and New York University have done in the past. Changing graduate students’ employment status also would not impact the rights of graduate students at public universities whose collective bargaining rights are governed by state laws rather than the NLRA. Still, overturning Columbia University would remove the federal legal protection that has enabled the recent wave of campus organizing.
Why Graduate Workers Are Organizing
While the Columbia University decision opened the legal door to union representation, graduate students’ union campaigns have been driven by far more than just legal precedent. Across campuses, they’ve been motivated by financial necessity, structural changes in the academic labor market, and the need for an organized voice to defend their rights and dignity at work.
"Residential Staff joins GEO on Strike", by Neweditor90, CC BY-SA 4.0
Improved Pay and Benefits
Due to meager stipends and low hourly pay that lags behind the cost of living, many graduate students are unable to afford the cost of living in the towns and cities where their universities are located. “Nationwide, many graduate students are paid at (or only slightly above) poverty level and on average make only $35,000 per year—barely meeting the $15 per hour rate that represents a minimum wage in most parts of the country. At this salary level, most graduate students are rent-burdened, paying significantly more than one-third of their monthly income on housing, a situation that can lead to housing instability and possible houselessness,” Prism reported in 2021.
Graduate student union campaigns often push for cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) to allow wages to rise with inflation. They also focus on securing better healthcare coverage, including for dependents, and expanding paid leave. At Temple University, for example, the graduate workers union won a pay increase, increased bereavement leave, and an option for dependent healthcare coverage in its 2023 contract with the university.
Navigating the Corporatization of Higher Education
The surge in graduate worker organizing is also part of how academic workers are navigating the increasing corporatization of higher education. “Across the United States, almost three-quarters of those teaching in colleges and universities today are employed as contingent faculty,” write Eric Fure-Slocum and Claire Goldstene. “This is a reversal from the period before the economic turmoil of the 1970s, when three-quarters of the faculty held tenured or tenure-track positions.” In their quest to cut labor costs, university administrators have created a two-tier system where professors in contingent positions and graduate workers perform the lion’s share of universities’ academic labor, while administrators deny these workers the pay, benefits and job security enjoyed by those in a shrinking number of tenure positions.
“Graduate students are one of the main labor sources that the university has, especially when it comes to teaching labor,” says Aspen Ellis, a PhD candidate in the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “The same is true when it comes to research. I think that that is a newer and more complicated conversation, but nevertheless, a significant proportion of the research that does come out of universities is graduate student time and graduate student effort, and that is benefiting the institution.”
Graduate students are organizing to ensure that the value their labor creates is recognized and fairly compensated, and that they have a say in the conditions under which they work. For many graduate students and contingent faculty, unionizing is not only about immediate improvements to pay and benefits, but also about challenging an institutional model that treats their labor as expendable even as it becomes more essential to the university’s teaching and research missions.
Empowering Students to Advocate for Their Rights
Graduate student unions also play a key role in helping students to navigate the power imbalances between themselves, faculty advisors, and university administration.
Graduate researchers often work under the supervision of a faculty advisor whose support can make or break their academic careers. This dynamic can make it risky to speak up about harassment, overwork, or unsafe conditions. “It can be very, very difficult to speak up and advocate for yourself in that context, where you’re hugely reliant on that one individual’s support,” says Ellis. Unions support students in those disputes by providing representation in mediation meetings or helping students to find alternate supervisors, among other possible solutions.
"Momodou Taal speaking at a peaceful protest demanding a ceasefire in Gaza", by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America
Graduate worker unions have also advocated for students who have faced retaliation for participating in campus demonstrations. Under the Trump administration, international students across the country have been detained and deported for participating in protests critical of US support for the war in Gaza. Unions are pushing back against the administration’s actions. Earlier this year, the American Association of University Professors and the union representing faculty and graduate student workers at Rutgers University filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from carrying out such arrests and deportations. Graduate student unions at Cornell and NYU have organized petitions and demonstrations opposing the suspension of international students who have spoken out in support of Palestinian rights.
María Bulla, CGSU’s communications secretary, says that protecting international students from this sort of retaliation has become a core part of the union’s mission. “If a university suspends a student for participating in a protest, that immediately puts their visa in jeopardy,” Bulla explains.
“The recent protests on campus against the genocide in Palestine have also alerted us to the importance of academic freedom and protection against discipline and discharge, which are some of the focal points of our contract fight and our fight for contract enforcement,” says CGSU’s president Ewa Nizalowska.
A Fight That Is Far From Over
The coming months will determine whether Burgett’s case fizzles out under existing precedent or becomes the opening salvo in a renewed attack on graduate worker union rights. For now, Columbia University stands, but the political composition of the NLRB – and the priorities of its general counsel – remain up in the air, albeit floating in a troubling direction.
While it’s too soon to say how the case will proceed, Nizalowska says the union is prepared for the fight. “We're ready to use our union power to counter the attacks that are leveled at us by far right organizations,” Nizalowska says. “We are more than ready to meet them with union power. Because our contract – our union – is not going anywhere.”
