Trump’s Labor Board Picks Are Scaring Away Unions
Management-friendly NLRB appointees have unions for graduate students seeking direct talks with universities rather than risk damaging rulings.
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After pushing for years, unions finally secured a ruling late in the Obama administration restoring collective bargaining rights to graduate students paid to teach and conduct research at private universities. That ruling came from the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that enforces private sector labor law and sometimes forces companies to negotiate with unions.
That was then. Now, under President Donald Trump, unions are abandoning the NLRB and going it alone. Meanwhile, universities such as the University of Chicago and Yale University, which have fiercely opposed such union efforts, may have a new friend in the Trump administration.