NLRB Allows CUNY Grad Center Union;

Employees to Vote
NLRB Allows CUNY Grad Center Union


After two years of waiting, workers at the Research Foundation at the City University of New York Graduate Center will finally find out if they will get a union.

STEVE LONDON: 'Thrilled by ruling.' The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that, contrary to the Research Foundation's claims, the fact that some of its employees were also graduate students did not take away their right to organize. The ruling has implications for the approximately 5,000 other RF employees around the city whom the Professional Staff Congress hopes to unionize.

'Absurd Argument'

"We're thrilled," said PSC Vice President Steve London. "This was an argument so absurd that even the Bush board couldn't accept it."

The PSC filed for an election in 2003, and after a series of protests by the RF, a vote was held in March 2005. But the RF filed an objection and the votes were impounded. The Foundation claimed that 113 of the 200 Research Assistants who were also graduate students did not have the right to organize, based on a 2004 NLRB ruling that said that graduate students were not truly employees and therefore not covered by unionization laws.

In the case of the RF, however, the board ruled that their status as graduate students was not relevant to their status as employees. Unlike the case in the 2004 Brown University decision, the board said the graduate students' primary relationship to their employer was economic and not educational.

'Fostering Research'

An RF spokeswoman said the organization was reviewing the decision. "We remain committed to ensuring that the law in this matter is properly carried out and we look forward to ensuring that all staff, including CUNY doctoral students who are employed by the Research Foundation of CUNY, are treated with fairness and equity," Odalia Ortiz stated in an e-mail. "At the same time, we remain committed to creating conditions that will foster research, which is a cornerstone of any great university."

There are RF affiliates located on 23 CUNY campuses around the city, and Chancellor Matthew Goldstein is also the chair of the RF board of directors, but it is technically classified as a separate entity and is privately incorporated as a non-profit. The RF's purpose is to help CUNY faculty and staff locate and win research grants. The staff also administers the funding programs. Because it is technically private, it falls under the NLRB. Graduate students who attend and work at CUNY have the right to organize under the state's Taylor Law, which applies to public employees.

Case for 'Choice Act'

The NLRB handed down a similar ruling last month that applied to Research Project Assistants who are graduate students at the Research Foundation of the State University of New York.

The PSC currently has a contract with the RF central office and has won union elections at the New York City College of Technology and LaGuardia Community College. Each site must be organized separately.

The 2004 NLRB decision that took away graduate students' right to unionize overturned a previous decision in the 1990s that granted them the right to organize, and set off a wave of campaigns on campuses across the country.

The delays in the RF case are not unusual. NLRB decisions take an average of 18 months to reach a final determination. Mr. London said this case demonstrated the need to pass a Federal bill, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers to bypass the formal NLRB election process and unionize if a majority signed cards in favor.

"What it shows is that the RF, like many employers, will use whatever tactics they can to delay the democratic process and the right of people to organize," he said. "This case is a microcosm of what has happened in a very hostile environment for workers, with employers who know they can just delay, delay, delay."

The ballots will be counted on July 18.