Tag Archives for " Yale "

Handsome Dan Meets the NLRB

Yale Students Seek to Join Union

No, it’s not the title of a horror movie, it’s a union campaign by graduate student teachers at Yale University taking advantage of a new ruling that allows graduate students at private universities to form unions, and also taking advantage of the NLRB’s 2011 Specialty Healthcare ruling to form units which will allow them to easily win representation in these elections.

Politico Morning Shift is taking the week off – apparently for Labor Day, but they are still emailing headline stories to Politico Pro subscribers.  This news that just broke shows that labor unions and graduate students are wasting no time in getting petitions for election started, with graduate students at Yale University seeking representation by Local 33-UNITE HERE, following an NLRB ruling last week that graduate students are employees and may join unions.

The students filed the petitions department by department – an effort to take advantage of the NLRB’s 2011 Specialty Healthcare ruling, which said that upon request, the board would order representation elections in the smallest possible units.

“By starting with a set of departments where the desire to form a union is overwhelmingly clear, we hope to avoid the unnecessary legal gamesmanship that typifies NLRB elections,” UNITE HERE legal counsel Kristin Martin said in a statement.

According to local media reports , students have been preparing their campaign for months.

 “In asking for certification of Local 33-UNITE HERE as their union, the Yale graduate students are seeking NLRB elections department by department, beginning with those where union support appears strongest.

“We’ve been ready to vote for a long time,” said Local 33-UNITE HERE co-chair Robin Canavan. “We’re extremely excited to have our election, make it official, and get to negotiating a contract for the improvements we want to see.”