Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Graduate Workers Win to Unionize:
Today’s momentous decision by the NLRB marks a major victory for teaching and research assistants at Columbia University whose right to organize and form a union has been restored. This common sense decision will empower over 100,000 teaching and research assistants at other private institutions across the country, including Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and the New School whose teaching and research assistants are already organizing. These student workers often toil under unpredictable conditions while they teach undergraduates and provide the backbone work that sustains our world-class research laboratories.
Like all other working people, they deserve a say in determining their wages, benefits, and working conditions. The decision is also a win for working people everywhere who are challenging insecure working conditions in other industries. Working people are taking advantage of new and innovative ways to organize and engage in collective bargaining.
The labor movement will continue to stand by these student workers, and all working people, as together we ensure fairness in our economy.
Contact: Jasmine Nazarett (202) 637-5018