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Lede: A labor professor says the NLRB acted improperly in a 2004 ruling on grad student teachers that continues to have ramifications today. Doug Cunningham reports.

By Doug Cunningham

Labor Professor Ellen Dannin says the Bush labor board decision that graduate student teachers working for universities are not employees was improper policy making by the NLRB. Dannin says the National Labor Relations Board is supposed to use the facts of cases to enforce the workers law – the National Labor Relations Act – and not make new labor policy.

[Dannin]: “When the board majority said that graduate students are not employees – graduate students across the United States – that was a decision that was not made on the facts and it was also not a decision that was not made in each case, in that specific case. They tried to extend it across all graduate students. So that’s one thing that’s wrong with the decision.”

Dannin says despite the National Labor Relations Board decision that ruling graduate student workers are not protected by labor law, it’s still not illegal for grad student teachers to find common cause with each other and attempt to organize. Dannin says there’ little
Recourse to hold NLRB members accountable for not properly enforcing labor law.

[Dannin2]: “As a practical matter you have to wait until you get another board – board members in there – who are interested in taking that case and will grant an appeal up to the board and then would reverse the case.”