Our Education Group discusses how college and university legal counsel can track and prepare for changes in student-athletes’ employment status....more
In a rare rebuke of its own General Counsel, the National Labor Relations Board has rejected an invitation to flip-flop on its own precedent and will instead continue to apply a simple, bright-line test when determining...more
On August 9, 2024, the NLRB denied Pardee RAND Graduate School’s (“RAND”) request for review of a regional director’s Decision and Direction of Election (DDE) finding that a petitioned-for unit of graduate policy researchers...more
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
On March 12, 2021, the National Labor Relations Board (Board) announced that it is withdrawing a rule proposed in September 2019 that would have excluded undergraduate and graduate students at private colleges and...more
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) recently announced it was changing course on whether students should be considered employees and therefore can unionize. This change of course returns to previous Board...more
The “Respect Graduate Student Workers Act,” introduced by Representative Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), aims to classify graduate student workers as employees and ensure them “full labor protections” under the National Labor Relations...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
Since 2000, the National Labor Relations Board has taken the position that some graduate students who are paid for teaching and research functions by private colleges and universities qualify as employees eligible to organize...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
In an effort to resolve a hotly debated legal issue spanning decades for private college and university employers, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently released a proposed rule that would effectively 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 anticipated, today the National Labor Relations Board published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) proposing a regulation which would establish that students at private colleges and universities who perform any...more
Last week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) released a proposed rule that would remove graduate and undergraduate students who perform work for pay in conjunction with their academic studies from the definition of an...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
Seyfarth Synopsis: A 2016 decision of the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) finding that the graduate students at Columbia University were employees under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) has been teed up for...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
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
On Friday, April 21, 2017, a regional director for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered that a union representation election must be held in a unit composed of 110 undergraduate student residential advisors at...more