AFL-CIO and UAW File Complaint with ILO over Denial of Right to Organize by Grad Students

The AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers  filed a complaint with the International Labor Organization on Feb. 26th.  The complaint alleged that the 2004 National Labor Relations Board decison in Brown Unversity, 342 N.L.R.B. No. 42 (2004) violates the rights of workers to freedom of association  and collective bargaining  as protected by ILO Conventions # 87 (asserting the right of workers to establish and join organizations of their own choosing) and # 98 ( exhorting governments to take measures to promote voluntary negotiation of collective agreements regulating terms and conditions of employment) .  In Brown, the NLRB reversed an earlier decision, New York University, 332 N.L.R.B. No. 111 (2000) that unanimously held graduate assistants [GA's] at NYU were employees under the National Labor Relations Act  [NLRA];  that meant that the GA's had the right to organize a union and the employer had an obligation to recognize and bargain with the GA's union.  In the Brown University decision, the NLRB majority (made up of Bush appointees) held that GA's are students rather than employees under the NLRA;  the effect of that decision was to remove the GA's from the protection of the NLRA and to allow the employer-university to refuse to recognize the GA's union.  In response to the Brown University decision, NYU withdrew recognition of the graduate assistants' union, which was affiliated with the UAW.  The GA union went on strike against NYU, but has been unsuccessful in its efforts to get NYU to recognize and bargain with the union for a new contract.  The AFL-CIO press release regarding the ILO complaint can be found at http://www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/prsptm/pr02262007.cfm