On Monday, the union representing graduate student instructors and staff at the University of Michigan announced that more than 2,200 graduate student research assistants would now be represented by their bargaining unit.
According to the Graduate Employees Organization Local 3550 of the American Federation of Teachers, 92% of grad student research assistants voted in favor of joining the union at its accretion election on Thursday.
The union called the successful vote a “historic win” and the result of decades of sustained organizing. After the Michigan Employment Relations Commission in 1981 determined that graduate student research assistants were not considered employees under the Public Employment Relations Act, they were barred from unionizing. However, that right was restored in 2023…