Georgetown graduate student union election set for next month

Georgetown University graduate students will vote Nov. 5-8 on whether to unionize, the administration said today.

The student organizing committee this month filed for a union election supervised by the American Arbitration Association as an alternative to the Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board, which is looking for a case to overturn an Obama-era ruling that allowed grad students at private universities to unionize.

The university has said it will recognize the union voluntarily if the students vote in favor. In an email to students today, the university said the third-party election “creates a framework recognizing that graduate students’ relationship with the university is fundamentally an educational one, while also responding to their desire to have a stronger voice in the terms of their service as Graduate Student Assistants.”

Students at Brown University also are seeking a third-party union election.