Belabored Podcast #111: Workers’ Rights for Graduate Employees, with Lindsey Dayton

Lindsey Dayton from the Graduate Workers of Columbia joins us to talk about the recent NLRB ruling that graduate students who work for private universities are employees and have the right to unionize.

Members of Graduate Workers of Columbia in 2014 (GWC-UAW)

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It’s been a long time coming: the NLRB ruled on August 23 that graduate students who work for their universities are, in fact, workers. Columbia University student workers had petitioned for union recognition in 2014, and now, the board has finally ruled 3-1 to overturn its 2004 decision that graduate students at private universities were students, not workers. Lindsey Dayton is one of those Columbia employees, and she returns to Belabored to tell us about the win, and what comes next for their organizing drive.

We also hear from Yale graduate employees who filed a petition for recognition after the ruling, and an update from locked-out Honeywell workers; we look at whether Nike’s “Girl Effect” philanthropy has inspired it to improve working conditions for the women who make its shoes, and the impact of climate change on today’s young workers.

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News

Nike Boasts of Empowering Women Around the World (Slate)

Michelle: Are You a Millennial? Congratulations! Climate Change Will Cost Your Generation $8.8 Trillion (The Nation)

The Price Tag of Being Young: Climate Change and Millennials’ Economic Future (Demos)

Moral Monday Rally for Locked Out Green Island Honeywell Workers (WAMC)

Going Back to the Table (Times Union)

Yale Graduate Assistants File 10 Petitions for Union Elections (Bloomberg BNA)

Conversation

Michelle: It’s Official: Graduate Students Can Unionize (The Nation)

Columbia University Decision, Briefs (GWC-UAW)

Sarah and Michelle: Belabored #78: The Union and the University (Dissent)

Sarah and Michelle: Belabored #67: Bodies on the Gears (Dissent)