Tell the NLRB to reject the Trump administration’s latest effort to weaken unions.

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Friend,

The Trump administration is at it again, launching another attack in their never-ending campaign to undermine workers’ rights.

The Trump-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposed a new rule that would rob graduate teaching assistants and other student employees of their rights to organize and collectively bargain. This is just the most recent example of the board’s attack on working people.

Add your name! Tell the NLRB we will not stand by and watch as the right to form a union is being taken from working people across the country. Submit an official comment to the NLRB today! ([link removed])

This is just the latest effort of the Trump administration to further erode workers’ rights. In August, the board determined that misclassifying workers as independent contractors does not violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Before that, the General Counsel’s office released a deeply flawed memo that found Uber drivers were not employees under the NLRA, denying them the rights to a union and collective bargaining.

Now, Trump's National Labor Relations Board has introduced a new rule which would deny graduate teaching assistants the right to collectively organize.

Increasingly, colleges and universities have used students to perform jobs that had previously been performed by faculty. EPI’s research has found that over the last several decades, universities have shifted teaching duties away from tenured or tenure-track faculty and onto graduate students and adjunct or other non-tenure-track instructors.

We must make our voices heard during the NLRB’s official comment period. Add your name! Together, let’s send a clear message to the NLRB that we are not going to tolerate weakening of the rights of working people. Tell the NLRB to reject this misguided rule. ([link removed])

In spite of the Trump board majority’s insistence that collective bargaining will harm “academic freedom,” there is a wealth of evidence to the contrary. Public universities have had graduate student worker unions for 50 years. In 2016, more than 64,000 graduate student employees were unionized at 28 institutions of higher education in the public sector. The colleges and universities with union represented student employees have not reported a loss of “academic freedom” as the Trump board suggests.

In reality, union-represented graduate student employees at public universities have reported that they enjoy higher levels of personal and professional support than that reported by non-union represented students. Unionized and nonunionized student employees report similar perceptions of academic freedom. However, union-represented graduate student workers did report receiving higher pay than non-union represented graduate student workers.

We are not alone in our opposition to this proposed rule. NLRB Board Member Lauren McFerran argued in favor of union protections for working students.

McFerran wrote in her dissent:

“In the wake of the Board's 2016 Columbia University decision, which held that students who work for their universities are protected by the National Labor Relations Act, student employees across the country have been seeking—and often winning—better working conditions: Better pay, better health insurance, better child care, and more. Today, the majority proposes to reverse this progress, in the name of preserving higher education. While student employees clearly see themselves as workers, with workers' interests and workers' rights, the majority has effectively decided that they need protecting from themselves. I disagree. There is no good basis—in law, in policy, or in fact—to take these workers' rights away.”

While pursuing their degrees, today’s graduate students are doing more work providing instruction and research services — and yet the pay they receive rarely rises to the level of a living wage, according to EPI’s research.
Meanwhile, after graduation, as they enter their professional careers, these same students face diminishing opportunities in academia since graduate teaching assistants are being used instead of higher paid academics.

Clearly, individuals who are working while enrolled in graduate school deserve livable wages. One way to address this issue is through collective bargaining — the very right Trump’s NLRB seeks to take away.

Together, let’s stop Trump’s NLRB from rolling back workers’ rights to form a union. ([link removed])

Trump and his corporate cronies have routinely advanced political proposals based on flawed facts and dubious legal reasoning. Through decisions, general counsel memos, and rulemaking the agency is making it more and more difficult for working people to have a voice in the workplace.

All workers deserve the basic right to form a union and collectively negotiate a fair return on their work. The NLRB is the agency responsible for ensuring that right.

Together, let’s unite our voices, and stop this destructive rule from taking effect. Tell the NLRB: Strengthen, don’t weaken, workers’ rights. Make sure they realize that just because you are in graduate school doesn’t mean you sacrifice your right to collectively bargain for wages and benefits! ([link removed])

Thank you for your support. Together, we will continue to build an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.

In solidarity,

Thea Lee
President, Economic Policy Institute
ADD YOUR NAME ([link removed])

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