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Graduate student workers at Yale University call for the university’s neutrality during unionization process in a rally Oct. 13, 2022, in New Haven.
Graduate student workers at Yale University call for the university’s neutrality during unionization process in a rally Oct. 13, 2022, in New Haven.
NEW HAVEN — Following a rally less than two weeks ago calling for Yale University’s neutrality in the unionization process, graduate student workers officially filed a petition Monday with the National Labor Relations Board seeking a union election.
Unite Here Local 33, an unrecognized union group, said it garnered more than 3,000 union cards from the proposed bargaining unit of 4,000 workers.
“This is the biggest group of teachers and researchers that has had the opportunity to form a union at Yale, so this is a really exciting moment and a really historic day for our campaign to win a grad worker union here,” said Local 33 organizer Arita Acharya.
Abigail Fields, an organizer, said a really common anti-union tactic is to delay, so she hopes the university won’t delay the petition review.
In terms of the next steps — including when an election would take place — both said it really depends on how the university chooses to respond to the petition.
Karen Peart, a Yale spokesperson, said “we’ve just received the petition and are reviewing it” but didn’t comment on when and how the university plans to respond.
According to the NLRB, submitting a formal petition is an early stage of forming a union. A minimum of 30 percent of a proposed bargaining unit must sign a union authorization card and submit to the board.
NLRB Press Secretary Kayla Blado said the federal office will work with Local 33 and Yale on an election agreement to set up a date, time and place for balloting after confirming that the signed union cards came from at least 30 percent of the proposed unit.
“If the parties do not agree on parameters for the election, there will be a hearing,” Blado said. “After the hearing, the regional director will issue a decision with the details of the election.”
The latest attempt to unionize by graduate workers returned this year, most recently with a rally less than two weeks ago where they called Yale to commit to neutrality during the unionization process.
Organizers and workers highlighted what they saw as the university’s anti-union tactics including a frequently asked questions email from a university official.
In response to the rally, Peart said that Yale supports “a free and robust debate over graduate student unionization among those who may be affected by it” and “the rights of employees to form unions” — the same statement she sent in response to Monday’s filing.
However, in the group’s previous union bid, the university reaffirmed its opposition and argued that graduate assistants should not be allowed to organize because they are students and not employees.
Yale recognizes Local 34 and Local 35, which represent clerical, service and technical workers in varied positions, including research, administration, facility and dining hospitality jobs.
Other universities that recognize unions for graduate workers include Harvard University, Brown University, Columbia University and MIT, among others.
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