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Graduate assistants at Georgetown University on Wednesday asked the institution to voluntarily recognize them as a labor union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. In a letter to campus President John DeGioia, graduate student organizers said they’d reached majority support for unionization and hoped that the university would begin to bargain a contract with them. A number of other private institutions have challenged or signaled that they will challenge graduate assistant unions, following a 2016 decision from the National Labor Relations Board saying that graduate assistants on private campuses are employees, not students, and therefore entitled to collective bargaining. The Georgetown students in their letter cited the university's “just employment policy" saying that workers “have the right to freely associate and organize, and that the university will respect the rights of employees to vote for or against union representation without intimidation, unjust pressure, undue delay or hindrance in accordance with applicable law.” A spokesperson for Georgetown said it is carefully reviewing the request.
