State: PSU grad assistants can organize as union

Clears way for vote; Pitt watches closely

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board has ruled that graduate assistants at Penn State University have the legal right to organize as a union, rejecting the school’s contention that they are not employees and thus are ineligible.

The decision clears the way for an election. A date for one has not been set “but will be forthcoming,” the Coalition of Graduate Employees at Penn State said in reacting to the decision.

The case is being watched closely at the University of Pittsburgh, where graduate teaching and research assistants have petitioned the state labor board for an election of their own.

The decision in the Penn State case, announced by both sides Friday, follows a week-long hearing in September. It drew a jubilant reaction Friday on the Coalition’s Facebook page. “In the eyes of Pennsylvania we are officially workers!”

Penn State posted to its web site a statement responding to the decision. “Penn State became aware of the decision of the hearing examiner appointed by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) directing an election among certain graduate students at the University,” it said. “The decision is disappointing, but Penn State will continue to follow the PLRB process, while evaluating all its options going forward.”

The university said all graduate students on graduate assistantships or traineeships will be eligible to vote in the election. This week’s ruling was made under the Pennsylvania Public Employee Relations Act.

“Penn State’s administrators spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to deny us this vote,” said a statement from Jerome Clarke, coalition co-president. “Ultimately, it didn’t matter. We are workers and today the PLRB affirmed that status.”

Penn State said the election will be decided by a simple majority (50 percent plus 1) of those who vote.

“We encourage graduate students to become informed and consider all points of view as they formulate their own opinions regarding graduate student unionization,” its statement said.

At Pitt, university officials have taken the position that graduate assistants there are not employees.

The university has not said whether it will challenge the election filing made in December by a committee of students seeking to affiliate with the United Steelworkers.

“I’m not going to speculate on what our actions will be until we go to the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board,” Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Jan. 24.

Pitt and Penn State are among Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities. At Temple University, a third state-related institution, graduate assistants already are organized into a union.