The New York Regional Office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has dismissed a petition filed by the Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC/UAW Local 2110) seeking union recognition for NYU graduate student teaching and research assistants. According to a press release, (pdf) the dismissal was based on the Board’s 2004 finding in Brown University (pdf) that graduate student assistants are not statutory employees subject to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The regional office’s decision now leaves the door open for the union to seek Board review of the Brown decision “on the basis that it was wrongly decided both as a matter of law and policy.” Given the new composition of the NLRB following President Obama’s recess appointments in March, a reversal of the earlier decision is entirely possible.

In addition to potential Board action, legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate this term that would reverse the Board’s decision in Brown. The Teaching and Research Assistant Collective Bargaining Rights Act (H.R. 1461, S. 813) would effectively allow private university students who serve as teaching and research assistants to form or join a union.