> Date: Thu, 07 Aug 1997 22:58:49 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Scott Saul <scott.saul@yale.edu>
> To: Undisclosed recipients: ;
> Subject: NLRB vs. Yale: graduate employee status stands
>
> Dear GESO supporter,
>
> As you may have heard, there has been a recent development in the case
> brought by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Yale
> University on behalf of GESO, the graduate teacher's union on this
campus.
>
> The Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) had been filed by the NLRB in November,
> and had been based on three determinations by the NLRB's General Counsel:
> (1) that graduate students who teach at Yale have protected workplace
> rights; (2) that the grade strike of 1995-96 was a protected form of job
> action; and (3) that therefore Yale's reprisals (ranging from a job
> lock-out to threats of blacklisting, expulsion and even deportation) were
> illegal.
>
> Last week, after six weeks of trial, Administrative Law Judge
> Michael Miller recommended that the ULP be dismissed, based on Yale's
> argument that the grade strike was a "partial strike" and that therefore
> Yale had the legal right to engage in reprisals. He then transferred the
> case to the full NLRB in Washington, D.C. Most importantly, however,
Judge
> Miller left standing the landmark within the General Counsel's November
> determinations: that graduate teachers are *employees* with the right to
> unionize. This remains a huge precedent that should encourage other
> graduate students at private universities to organize.
>
> The judge's decision does not spell the end of the Unfair Labor Practice,
> although it does mean that its forum will shift from a courtroom in New
> Haven to the NLRB's boardroom in Washington. The NLRB may very
> well dissent from the judge's recommendation on this technical point,
> in which case the case will be remanded back to New Haven, and the trial
> will pick up where it left off--with Yale administrators called to
> testify.
>
> Yale's motion-to-dismiss had been based on a legal technicality brought
> retrospectively to bear on the grade strike. Labor law does not protect
> workers who engage in "partial strikes," where strikers perform some
> actions and refuse to perform others. Yale argued that, in order to be
> protected, those who refused to submit final grades should also have
> explicitly refused to write recommendations, hold review sessions, and
> teach for Yale in the near future. Yale argued that those on strike were
> threatened with blacklisting, firing, and expulsion only because the
grade
> strike was a "partial strike."
>
> Yale's recent motion-to-dismiss was ironically a signal that they had
been
> losing on the employee issue. In April, at the start of the trial, Yale
> filed a previous motion-to-dismiss that claimed graduate teachers were
> students, not employees. Judge Miller refused to grant the motion--and
> after six weeks in the courtroom, the evidence on our employee status was
> stronger than ever. So Yale switched tactics and assumed, for purposes of
> argument, that we *were* employees--in which case we have the right to
> strike, but not the right to "partial strike."
>
> As always, thank you for your support and interest in this issue; you can
> rest assured that organizing here at Yale is continuing apace. If you
have
> any questions or concerns, please write back. We are still awaiting the
> judge's full decision, which should clarify the legal issues involved.
>
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Scott Saul
> GESO Research Director
>
>
>