Academic unions.

The National Labor Relations Board ruled on July 15, 2004 that graduate students at private universities do not have the right to form labor unions, striking down its own landmark 2000 ruling that led to a wave of organizing. The decision, a 3 to 2 split, came from a Republican-controlled board that undid the 2000 decision of a Democrat-controlled board (The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 16, 2004. Also see this article for background articles on the previous ruling). The American Federation of Teachers, meeting at exactly the same time, was shocked and outraged, with 3,000 delegates yelling "No" when told of the NLRB decision. The AFT has represented graduate employees in 14 major public universities for over three decades. In public universities, unlike private institutions, graduate employees fall under state labor laws and not the National Labor Relations Board Act. This new ruling challenges all graduate employee unions formed since the 2000 NLRB decision. In protest, graduate students from public and private universities, in New York City on July 23, 2004 for the annual conference of Graduate Student Employee Unions, converged outside the Manhattan office of the NLRB and spent much of the conference time planning a response to the NLRB decision (August 2, 2004, www.citylimits.org). For a "Point of View" analysis of this major labor decision, read Nelson Lichtenstein's "Graduate Education Is a Seamless Web of Learning and Working, Not Class Warfare" (August 6, 2004 http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i48 /48b01601.htm" http://chronicle. com/weekly/v50/i48/48b01601.htm). The author says the decision "represents another battle in the long, successful war that conservatives have waged to marginalize the labor movement and confine it to a shrinking blue-collar ghetto.... Meanwhile, the ruling raises even larger issues. What is the meaning and definition of work in the modern university? What is the relationship among teaching, learning, and creativity? And how is the idea of trade unionism, which once stood close to the imaginative heart of the American democratic ethos, to be restored to its former status?"

In a May 24, 2004 mobilization, more than 1,000 people rallied outside the City University of New York's Board of Trustees meeting to demand a fair Professional Staff Congress contract: one that provides real salary increases, more support for the PSC-CUNY Welfare Fund, and improvements in working conditions, equity, and support for family life (Clarion, Newspaper of the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, Summer 2004).

On August 19, 2004 California State University agreed to recognize the California Alliance of Academic Student Employees/UAW as the union for Teaching Assistants, Graduate Assistants and Student Assistants doing teaching, grading and tutoring (http://home. earthlink.net/~caaseuaw).