Oregon Labor Board: Research Assistants Can Unionize

The Oregon Employment Relations Board has ruled that graduate research assistants at Oregon State University are employees and have the right to collective bargaining, The Corvallis Gazette-Times reported. The university has maintained that the research assistants should be seen primarily as students, and thus ineligible for unionization. The ruling clears the way for a vote by the research assistants on whether they should be represented by a local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, which already represents teaching assistants at Oregon State.