Specter Chairing Senate Hearing To Question Recent NLRB Decision Reversing Right to Union Representation for University Teaching and Research Assistants

Washington, D.C. — A Senate subcommittee on Thursday (Sept. 23) will turn its attention to the issue of unionization of graduate employees at private universities.

In July, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), voting on partisan lines, overturned a 2000 decision that declared teaching assistants and research assistants at private universities had the same rights as other workers.  Graduate employees at major universities such as the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Columbia and Tufts who had filed petitions with the NLRB for union representation elections saw their right to hold those elections eliminated.

"Graduate teaching and research assistants in the private sector, like the more than 40,000 graduate employees who participate in collective bargaining at public universities, are clearly employees providing valuable services.  Without our work, universities would need to hire other workers to do these jobs," said Tina Collins, a University of Pennsylvania employee who will be testifying.  The University of Pennsylvania, for example, uses graduate employees to teach 70 percent of undergraduate courses.  

WHAT: Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor Health and Human  Services and Education hearing on graduate employee unionization

WHO:  Members of the NLRB, representatives of the University of Pennsylvania and Tina Collins, graduate employee and union organizer with Graduate Employees Together - University of Pennsylvania (GET-UP) scheduled to testify

WHERE:  192 Dirksen Senate Office Building  

WHEN:  Thursday, Sept. 23, 2004, 9:30 a.m.

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