Graduate student unionization efforts at Syracuse University, its peer institutions and other private colleges have become urgent following President Donald Trump’s election last year.

A 2016 decision from the National Labor Relations Board, an agency that enforces federal labor laws, allowed graduate students at private universities to unionize. Graduate students at several universities, though, have said they believe their right to unionize is at risk after Trump appointed two Republicans to the board, creating a conservative majority.

Syracuse Graduate Employees United is the only graduate student union at SU. It has spent the past two years “under the radar,” but that’s about to change, said SGEU member Brian Hennigan, in an email.

At a rally outside Hendricks Chapel on Wednesday, SGEU will protest the House Republican tax plan, which would raise taxes for graduate students by thousands of dollars. The rally will also be used to announce SGEU’s affiliation with Service Employees International Union, a large labor union that is working with graduate student unions at Duke University and Emory University, Hennigan said.

“Our own administration has shown time and time again that they don’t value the work we do, and the only way to defend ourselves is collective action,” said Emily Bukowski, an SGEU union member, in an email.

In 2015, health insurance was the main motivation for the union’s formation after SU announced it would switch graduate student employees from the employee health insurance plan to the student health insurance plan, which offers less benefits and had higher premiums, Bukowski said.

There are two approaches SGEU could take to unionize: Petition the NLRB to allow a vote on unionization or convince university officials to agree to an election, said Jack Wilson, president of SU’s Graduate Student Organization. The NLRB method often involves a lengthy legal process.

Yale University, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Duke University and Emory University have all hired Proskauer Rose LLP, considered a “union-busting” law firm by an activist.

Harvard University and Boston College, an SU peer institution, have both hired Morgan, Brown & Joy LLP — a firm specializing in “management-side employment law.”

The 2016 decision by the NLRB was made in response to a petition from Columbia University. Despite winning an election to unionize in December 2016, Graduate Workers of Columbia and its parent union, United Automobile Workers, are still awaiting a final decision from the NLRB.

Columbia’s objections to the election and to decisions made by a regional director have delayed the process, said Olga Brudastova, a Columbia Ph.D. student who’s on the bargaining committee for GWC.

Brudastova described how the recusal of Trump appointee Marvin Kaplan, due to a conflict of interest — his wife works at the Columbia University Medical Center — could result in a tie at the NLRB. In this case, the board would defer to the regional director’s decision, which is in the favor of the union.

Other unions have been less successful in opposing Proskauer Rose.

“They were ready to contest everything,” said Hannah Borenstein, a member of Duke Graduate Students United, referring to Proskauer Rose’s appeal to the NLRB that challenged more than 500 ballots on the basis of voter ineligibility.

SEIU, the union representing Duke’s graduate students in the case, thought it would be unable to put up a sufficient fight, Borenstein said. The union withdrew its petition in February 2017 to form a minority union, which does not have a legal right to collectively bargain.

At Emory University, the union drive was stalled before the union was able to bring its case before the NLRB.

“We could tell mainly because of the Trump administration being in office, as long as the university wanted to challenge this effort, they would be successful,” said Jonathan Basile, a member of “Emory Unite!”

Despite the failure of Duke’s and Emory’s graduate student unions to gain legal bargaining rights, both unions continue to have demonstrations, with some notable successes.

Duke University issues continuation fees — charges doctoral students pay if they do not finish their dissertations by a certain deadline, which was limited to five years instead of the current six. DGSU was instrumental in persuading Duke to cover continuation fees through the sixth year, rather than just the fifth, Borenstein said.

Some unions, including Cornell Graduate Students United, opted for the second method, getting the university to agree to an election. Cornell University, an SU peer institution, held an election earlier this year in March, which had inconclusive results. CGSU is currently negotiating with Cornell officials the terms for another election, according to the Cornell Daily Sun.

New York University was the first private university to voluntarily recognize and form a contract with its graduate student union. NYU agreed to recognize the Graduate Student Organizing Committee in 2013, and a contract went into effect in 2015, said Nate Preus, an organizing committee member and delegate for UAW Local 2110, which also includes the union at Columbia University.

“Many universities are anticipating that the new NLRB, which is conservative again under the Trump administration, will reverse the Columbia decision,” Preus said. He said some NYU graduate students fear the university would reverse its position on graduate student unionization if the Columbia decision is overturned.

The NLRB has flip flopped on the issue of graduate student unionization over the past two decades. In 2000, a petition from the NYU graduate student union led to the board deciding graduate students could unionize. A 2004 decision relating to Brown University reversed the rights gained in 2000.

After GSOC’s contract ended in 2005, NYU chose to derecognize the union and ignored the ensuing strike that lasted two semesters. NYU re-recognized the union in 2013 and started another contract with the organization. The students fear the university will do the same if one of the pending cases results in the right to unionize being taken away again, Preus said.

Preus said NYU hired Proskauer Rose in  2010 when GSOC petitioned the NLRB. The 2010 petition was withdrawn in exchange for NYU’s recognition of the union.

Brudastrova said she looks to universities like The New School, Tufts University, Brandeis University and American University — all of which have respected their students’ wishes to unionize and are in the bargaining stage — in hope that graduate student unionization efforts will succeed.

“Given the momentum of the movement, it is very possible that the universities will have to budge even if the law does not force them to do so,” Brudastova said.

Published on November 28, 2017 at 10:44 pm

Contact Casey: casey@dailyorange.com | @caseydarnell_