As students in higher education flock toward unionization, private sector colleges and universities (educational institutions or institutions) are forced to reconcile the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act’s (FERPA)...more
Private colleges and universities employing student workers face the unique challenge of balancing privacy obligations and a growing push from federal labor authorities to release student information to unions. Recent...more
The National Labor Relations Board (Board) recently conducted an election in which student workers in the Office of Admission (Admissions) at Hamilton College (College) voted 25 to 20 to be represented by Local One of the...more
Colleges and universities have witnessed major developments in September with student teaching and research assistants at private schools losing the right to unionize but student-athletes in California gaining the right to be...more
On September 23, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that addresses the long-standing issue of whether undergraduate and graduate students who perform services for...more
The National Labor Relations Board took the latest step in the long-simmering debate over whether college teaching and research assistants could unionize when it released a proposed rule on Friday that would once again block...more
On September 20, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board (Board) issued a proposed rule that would exclude from the National Labor Relations Act (Act) undergraduate and graduate students at private colleges and universities...more
As we discussed in an earlier client alert, the National Labor Relations Board announced in May that it would be issuing proposed rules that would establish a “standard for determining whether students who perform services at...more
We previously reported, in 2016, that the Obama-era National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued a decision in Columbia University that paved the way for graduate students to unionize at private higher education...more
Reed College has been directed to permit a subset of its student workers (known as Housing Advisers or HAs) to hold an election to form a union. Reed College opposed an election arguing that: 1) HAs cannot meet the statutory...more
In August 2016, the National Labor Relations Board reversed longstanding precedent and ruled that students “who have a common-law employment relationship with their university are statutory employees under the [National Labor...more
During the Obama Administration the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) opened wider the gates of private colleges and universities to organized labor. In 2014 the Board made it easier for faculty to...more
As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in a 1984 decision involving the University of Oklahoma, there exists in this country a “revered tradition of amateurism in college sports.” Despite this tradition, there have been an...more
In what will come as no surprise to even the most casual labor law observer, last Friday an Acting Regional Director for the National Labor Relations Board created a new inroad for unions to organize undergraduate resident...more
Late last week, the Departments of Labor (“DOL”), Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and the Treasury (collectively, the “Agencies”) issued a very welcome FAQ that will allow higher education institutions to continue...more
In the midst of a heated presidential election cycle, employers are following recent decisions of the National Labor Relations Board closely. Before losing its three-member Democratic majority at the expiration of Board...more
In recently issued guidance, the U.S. Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services indicated that they will indefinitely extend relief to colleges and universities that subsidize the cost of individual...more
In yet another reversal of precedent, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that students who perform work for a university for which they are compensated can form and join labor unions under the National Labor...more
In a setback to private colleges and universities, the National Labor Relations Board ruled on August 23, 2016 that student assistants have unionization and collective bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act....more
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or the Board) on Aug. 23, 2016, issued a 3-to-1 decision concluding that graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants at Columbia University are employees under the National Labor...more
On August 23, 2016, in a 3 to 1 decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a ruling that renders graduate student assistants "employees" for the purposes of unionization, overturning a standard that previously...more
In a sweeping decision issued on August 23, 2016, the National Labor Relations Board reversed its 2004 holding in Brown University that graduate students are not employees under the National Labor Relations Act. The Board...more
In an August 23, 2016, decision, Trustees of Columbia University, 364 NLRB No. 90 (2016), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overruled existing precedent and held that student assistants, who have a common-law...more
The National Labor Relations Board has ruled in a 3-1 decision that graduate students at private, nonprofit higher education institutions "who perform services at a university in connection with their studies are statutory...more
Reversing more than a decade of precedent, the activist National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled on August 23, 2016 in The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York and Graduate Workers of Columbia–GWC, UAW...more