Posts tagged graduate students
Some Penn State faculty want to unionize as the university considers campus closures
March 11, 2025 // Unrest has been growing among some faculty as the university makes cuts to close a deficit by this summer. An attempt to hold a vote of no confidence in Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi was tabled at a faculty senate meeting last week. Also at that meeting. Bendapudi laid out plans to close some of the Commonwealth campuses. Just how many campuses is uncertain, but none will close before the end of the 2026-27 year. Twelve of the 20 campuses ― Beaver, DuBois, Fayette, Greater Allegheny, Hazleton, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Schuylkill, Shenango, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and York ― are under consideration for closure. They will be evaluated by a team led by several top administrators appointed by Bendapudi; she expects to make a decision before commencement in May.
MD bill may give faculty the right to unionize
March 11, 2025 // The bill includes full-time or part-time faculty, and those who are either on tenure or non-tenure tracks. Foley added faculty at Maryland community colleges are already able to organize unions. Since 2012, the number of unionized faculty across the country has grown more than 7%, with more than a quarter of all faculty belonging to a union. More than 80% of unionized college faculty members are nontenured. Foley, a former vice president of the Communications Workers of America, said despite perceptions, unions are not just for blue collar workers.
United Auto Workers Union Praises Trump’s Tariffs on Canada, Mexico
March 5, 2025 // The UAW is blaming corporate America for the potential price hikes brought by Trump’s tariffs on a range of Mexican and Canadian goods including electronics, agricultural products, vehicles, and auto parts. Markets reacted negatively to the onset of Trump’s tariffs Tuesday as many economists expect prices to increase because of them. The labor union is hoping to work with the Trump administration on the auto tariffs Trump has promised for next month.
UVM and grad student union continue legal clash over union size
February 26, 2025 // The latest twist in the legal battle came Friday, when the Vermont Supreme Court reversed a ruling by the Vermont Labor Relations Board that affirmed the rights of predoctoral fellows and predoctoral trainees at UVM to join Graduate Students United. Predoctoral fellows and trainees are graduate students who often teach and perform research for the university, but receive outside financial support for their work, usually through grants and stipends. They represent almost one-tenth of the 600 member union.
Opinion: Why Trump’s anti-Semitism crackdown should worry UC union
February 23, 2025 // Following President Trump’s executive order to combat anti-Semitism came reports that his administration has opened investigations at five U.S. universities — including at UC Berkeley. There is, unfortunately, plenty to uncover from violent student groups to passive university administrators. But investigators would be wise to also examine the role unions have played. My own lawsuit against the United Auto Workers (UAW), which represents 48,000 employees across the UC system, should be enough to raise alarm bells. At UC Berkeley, where I am a postdoc, campus administrators were poised to break up a post-October 7, anti-Israel encampment, when the union came to its rescue. The encampment prominently displayed the inverted red triangle—the Hamas symbol used in violent propaganda videos to target Israelis—and banners reading “Glory to the martyrs” and “Student Intifada.” That didn’t deter UAW officials, who legitimized the protest by establishing a “union village” within it.
With federal student labor rights in limbo, Brown’s unions push for state-level protections
February 10, 2025 // Under President Trump, the National Labor Relations Board may overrule its landmark 2016 decision extending unionization rights to student workers.
‘Time is running out.’ University unions rush to organize before the Trump White House
December 17, 2024 // Between 2012 and 2023, the number of unionized graduate student and postdoctoral workers more than doubled, from roughly 64,000 to 150,000. Faculty unions also increased by 7%, from 374,000 to 402,000, in the same period, the report said. Today, more than a third of graduate-student and postdoctoral workers are unionized while a quarter of faculty are. “Among faculty, the drive for unionization has been strongest among non-tenure track faculty,”
Higher Ed Unionization Boomed Under Biden. Will That Change Under Trump?
December 8, 2024 // That National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions study noted that the ranks of union-represented grad workers especially grew in the past few years, increasing by 64,000 between 2021 and 2023. That was nearly triple the uptick over the previous eight years. And, according to National Labor Relations Board data released in October, the number of new undergraduate student unions representing housing and dining facility workers outpaced grad worker teaching and research assistant union formation since April 2023. But Donald Trump’s election and Republicans’ recapture of control of Congress could cast a pall over higher ed labor’s progress—or even undo it.
Labor’s Future After Wisconsin Anti-Union Law Struck Down
December 5, 2024 // For that reason, the law’s categories of general and public safety employees, and its public safety employee exemption, were unconstitutional, Frost wrote then. Frost reiterated that ruling Monday. “Act 10 as written by the Legislature specifically and narrowly defines ‘public safety employee,’” Frost wrote. “It is that definition which is unconstitutional.”
Vanderbilt University does not have to turn over graduate students’ private data to union, court rules
December 4, 2024 // “The National Labor Relations Board…often, as part of unionization elections, requires employers to hand over to union officials employees’ private information,” says NRTW Vice President Patrick Semmens. He adds that the NLRB recently “expanded the information to include personal email and cell phones with no way to assure the information isn’t misused or shared with other third parties.” “This happens even if individual workers object and say they do not want their personal information given to union officials, who in many instances have used such information in nefarious and even illegal ways,” Semmens says.