Yale Graduate Students Seek Right to Bargain Collectively as Teachers, Researchers
Graduate assistants from ten Yale departments are petitioning the National Labor Relations Board to certify its union. Photo credit: Thomas Autumn, Creative Commons
Emily Sessions had just started a new semester teaching art to Yale undergraduates, when she was told that her teaching load would be doubled, but her pay would remain the same.
“So it really showed me how opaque and often uneven the process for assigning teaching is, and how important it is to have the ability to negotiate collectively for the terms of our work,” Sessions said.
Graduate assistants from ten Yale departments are petitioning the National Labor Relations Board to certify its union — the Local 33-UNITE HERE. This follows a recent decision by the NLRB that found graduate teaching and research assistants at private universities are covered by labor laws and should be allowed to collectively bargain.