NLRB proposes new rule regarding university students

Some federal agency issues just seem to swing back and forth like a pendulum - like, whether college students are employees who can unionize under the NLRA. A brief history:

Not official use.

• NLRB’s 2000 NYU decision: Certain graduate students are “employees”; 

• NLRB’s 2004 Brown University decision: college and university students are “primarily students” and not employees; 

• NLRB’s 2016 Columbia University decision: Graduate student teaching assistants and research assistants are “statutory employees."

Well, guess what? The Trump NLRB is swinging the pendulum back the other way. Per the announcement, "[T]he proposed rule would exempt from the NLRB’s jurisdiction undergraduate and graduate students who perform services for financial compensation in connection with their studies." Such services specifically include teaching and research. You can read the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) here.

Comments are due by November 22nd.