Advocacy
Resolution Regarding Collective Bargaining Rights of Graduate Student Teaching and Research Assistants
The following resolution was approved by the CAA membership the Annual Business Meeting on February 18, 2005, during the 93rd Annual Conference in Atlanta.WHEREAS, 260,000 teaching and research assistants are currently identified by the U.S. Department of Education as part of the higher educational instructional workforce; and
WHEREAS, in 2000 the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) unanimously held that graduate employees at New York University (NYU) are employees entitled to organize for collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act (Act), prompting collective bargaining campaigns in a number of private universities; and
WHEREAS, in July 2004, the NLRB in a 3-2 partisan vote overruled the NYU decision in the case of Brown University, ruling that graduate teaching and research assistants are not eligible to unionize under the Act; and
WHEREAS, in the words of the dissenting members of the Board, this decision is "woefully out of touch with contemporary academic reality... seeing the academic world as somehow removed from the economic realm that labor law addresses - as if there was no room in the ivory tower for a sweatshop"; and
WHEREAS, a stated purpose of the College Art Association (CAA) is to "develop, disseminate and, where appropriate, implement standards, guidelines, and statements of policy regarding the activities of the profession(s) and the Association"; and
WHEREAS, the CAA's guidelines for part-time professional employment affirm the right of teaching and research assistants to unionize:
BE IT RESOLVED, that the College Art Association states publicly that
1) we deplore the decision of the NLRB in this matter, which affects the academic workplaces where our members are employed,
2) we affirm our support for the collective bargaining rights of graduate student teaching and research assistants, in art history, the visual arts, and in other disciplines, and
3) we urge university administrators to be neutral toward graduate employees' decision to unionize, and to voluntarily recognize those that show majority support.
Submitted by:
Robert S. Slifkin, Yale University
CAA Member
