Vanderbilt University graduate students filed with the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday for a union election, a move that signals confidence from organizers who have been consolidating support on campus for more than a year.
Within 24 hours, Vanderbilt lawyers filed a petition to slow down the process, arguing that an Oct. 10 hearing scheduled by the NLRB did not provide the school with enough time to prepare its response. The NLRB filing estimates the campus bargaining unit — the total number of eligible employees covered under these negotiations — at 2,200, encompassing “all graduate student employees enrolled at Vanderbilt University who provide instructional services, research services, or administrative services, regardless of funding source.” To win the union, a simple majority of the bargaining unit must vote in favor.
Universities across the country have experienced a boom in on-campus unions over the past few years.
Organizers collect authorization cards, the first step toward a vote on official recognition
Vanderbilt organizers reported in February that they had collected hundreds of union authorization cards from colleagues, a typical first step in consolidating support. National labor giant United Auto Workers of America has helped guide on-campus group Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United through the legal and practical work of forming a union. The NLRB opened the labor case on Oct. 2.
The university has ramped up anti-union messaging in recent months. A school webpage titled “Union Facts” lays out arguments against unionization. While petitioners’ case is built on how graduate students function as employees, the school emphasizes campus work as educational and describes a “mentor-mentee relationship” between faculty and grad students.
On Friday, administrators C. Cybele Raver and C. André Christie-Mizell sent a letter to graduate students criticizing the union push.
“We believe unionization conflicts with the core goal of the Vanderbilt educational experience: to provide a flexible, collaborative environment in which learning, discovery and innovation are nurtured,” reads the email, sent Friday morning. “Further, we believe graduate students do not meet the definition of ‘employee’ under the National Labor Relations Act. For these reasons, our position is that unionizing is not well-suited to meeting the varying individual needs of our graduate students.”
The email promotes the Graduate Student Council, an elected on-campus body, as a way to address student grievances. While direct doctoral stipends this year range from $34,000 to $38,000, Vanderbilt administrators referenced a “comprehensive financial aid package” worth more than $75,000 a year in the email.
Stipends at Peabody will increase to at least $34,000 amid campus unionization drive
“It’s pretty offensive stuff, honestly — ‘We believe graduate students do not meet the definition of employee’ is ridiculous,” one Ph.D. student, who is preparing to defend his thesis, tells the Scene. “At least in STEM, all of us do some amount of labor to produce science that significantly benefits the university financially. TAs do critical labor for many classes. I just don’t understand how you could consider that not to be an ‘employee.’”
Students across disciplines work in labs, produce research for grants and facilitate undergraduate classes.
Grad students’ efforts have already cost the university money. Days after an on-campus rally, the school announced it would increase students’ annual pay floor from $28,000 to $34,000, an immediate concession toward union demands for higher pay. Vanderbilt also retained attorneys Jim Thelen, Brooke E. Niedecken and Kameron Miller at Littler Mendelson — known for representing employer interests in unionization attempts — to lead labor negotiations.
Vanderbilt did not immediately respond to the Scene’s request for comment. The UAW and GWU have not issued an official press release.
