The VICE Guide to Right Now: Grad Student Teachers at Private Colleges Can Now Unionize

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The labor movement won a significant victory Tuesday when the feds ruled graduate students at Columbia University who work as teaching and research assistants have the right to unionize, the New York Times reports.

While certain state laws allow teaching and research assistants at many public universities to organize, a 2004 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision held that teaching assistants at Brown University could not unionize because their relationship with the school was "primarily educational," rather than economic.

The Board reversed that decision Tuesday, recognizing certain graduate students as employees under federal law. In a 3-1 decision, the majority—all Democrats—decided that students should be treated like workers if the university is paying them for jobs it oversees.

"We are elated that the NLRB has overturned Brown and restored our collective bargaining rights," Paul R. Katz, one of the Columbia graduate students trying to form a union there, told the Times.

Read: Do Workers Need Unions?

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