This article is a summary discussion of the main issues faced by faculty at private, often church-sponsored, universities who sought to be represented by a union in collective bargaining with their employers. The discussion begins by tracing the origins of the rule that faculty at private universities are managers and not employees under the aegis…

The recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the "Columbia University"case granting students who serve as teaching or research assistants at private universities the right to unionize dealt a major blow to private higher education as we know it. In a long-anticipated decision, the NLRB ruled that any student who…

Rightly or wrongly, a language of "firsts" has long permeated graduate student labor at New York University (NYU). In 2002, NYU's graduate student employees were the first in the nation to secure a union contract at a private university. In 2005, they were also the first to lose their contract, precipitating a bitter six-month-long…

Problems presented by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asserting jurisdiction over colleges and universities are analyzed and recommendations made for legislative response to help resolve remaining issues. Development of common labor-management regulations for both public and private higher education is suggested since similarities in…

The decision will have little impact on public universities in those states that have public employee bargaining statutes expressly including university faculty members. However, it may provide ammunition for anticollective bargaining forces in states where the legislatures are considering whether to extend collective bargaining to university…

Hearings on proposed legislation to amend the National Labor Relations Act are presented. H.R. 3291 would protect the right of faculty at private educational institutions to engage in collective bargaining, while H.R. 5107 is intended to make meaningful the right of performing artists to engage in collective bargaining. H.R. 3291 stipulates that…