WASHINGTON - Graduate teaching assistants at private universities do not have the right to form unions, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled, reversing its 2000 landmark decision that resulted in thousands of new union members.
The board, led by three Republicans appointed by President Bush (news - web sites), ruled that about 450 graduate teaching and research assistants at Brown University in Providence, R.I., could not be represented by the United Auto Workers (news - web sites) because they were students, not employees.
The two Democrats on the five-member panel opposed the decision, which does not affect public universities and colleges. The ruling was issued Tuesday and made public Thursday.
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It is one of several recent blows the GOP-dominated board has delivered to organized labor.
Last month, the panel overturned another Clinton-era case that had extended to nonunion workers the right to have a co-worker present at a meeting with supervisors that might result in discipline. Also last month, the board voted to consider two cases that could force unions to abandon recruiting strategies that let them bypass elections in the workplace.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040716/ap_on_go_ot/campus_unions