Sep 20, 2019
Are graduate students also employees?
A proposed rule by the National Labor Relation Board says no, although those students often do perform core university functions.
Yale students walk through the New Haven, Connecticut, campus in 2018.
Yana Paskova/Getty Images
Graduate students at colleges and universities study there but also teach, assist with classes, grade papers and perform research for their institutions. Since 2016, the National Labor Relations Board has said students who perform that work can be classified as employees, meaning they have the right to collectively bargain. But today the board, now with a Republican majority under President Donald Trump, has proposed reversing that decision. It would be the fourth change by the board since 2000, based on which party holds the White House.
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