UAW Local 4121

Since 2010, UAW has been the union of choice for nearly 12,000 higher education workers seeking representation at public universities across the country. As colleges and universities rely more on contingent and temporary workers, more and more have been organizing in order to address short and long-term challenges. The NLRB decision comes just weeks after several hundred postdoctoral scholars working at UC Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory submitted a petition with the State's Public Employment Relations Board to join UAW Local 5810, which represents postdoctoral scholars at University of California. Many universities across the country have resisted the efforts of higher education workers choosing to form unions. Yale, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and Stanford filed an amicus brief with the NLRB to oppose the position of the Academic Student Employees wanting to organize. But today's decision rebukes such opposition, creating a basis for Graduate Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants at private institutions to follow those at public institutions and form unions and collectively bargain.