Posts tagged Rhode Island AFL-CIO Local 6516
Brown declines to voluntarily recognize graduate fellow unionization
April 16, 2026 // In an email sent to GLO on Monday and obtained by The Herald, Brown’s Director of Employee and Labor Relations Benjamin Trachman claimed that the National Labor Relations Act, which governs private employers, preempts Rhode Island legislation passed in August codifying graduate student employees’ right to unionize. As such, Trachman wrote, the provisions of the Rhode Island legislation GLO has cited “do not govern the determination of employee status or collective bargaining obligations for fellows at Brown.
RHODE ISLAND: BCSC student worker labor union dissolves, citing ‘systemically poor turnout’
November 20, 2025 // Third World Labor Organization leaders wrote that some recent meetings failed to garner attendance from at least 10 members. In early November, organizers told union members that at least 10 members needed to attend the next two union meetings, but this request similarly went unmet, union leaders noted in their email. The lack of attendance “makes this union not member-led and thus not sustainable,” organizers wrote. “The union only runs if we make it run.”
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.