Posts tagged RIFT-AFT Local 6516
Brown’s graduate union wants to make history. Labor experts say the journey may be strenuous.
April 23, 2026 // The union has not yet brought the case to the state labor board. But in an interview with The Herald, Michael Ziegler GS, the president of GLO’s parent group RIFT-AFT Local 6516, said the union was prepared to do so if they feel it is needed. Fellows must be considered employees by law in order to unionize, Herbert explained. “The fundamental question is whether or not the employer pays specifically for work being performed and has control over that work.”
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.
Graduate fellows seek to unionize in unprecedented move
March 31, 2026 // The move appears to be the first of its kind at a private U.S. institution of higher education, something union organizers argue is made possible by a novel Rhode Island law passed in August that explicitly codifies the right of graduate student employees — including fellows not working as teaching or research assistants — to unionize. Graduate fellows are students who receive stipend funding unrelated to whether or not they officially work as research or teaching assistants. The University’s current contract with GLO includes only graduate student employees recognized by the National Labor Relations Board, many of whom are teaching or research assistants
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.”