Nearly a year after graduate students at the University of Vermont voted to unionize, the university and union leadership continue to spar over who exactly has the right to join the union.
The latest twist in the legal battle came Friday, when the Vermont Supreme Court reversed a ruling by the Vermont Labor Relations Board that affirmed the rights of predoctoral fellows and predoctoral trainees at UVM to join Graduate Students United.
Predoctoral fellows and trainees are graduate students who often teach and perform research for the university, but receive outside financial support for their work, usually through grants and stipends. They represent almost one-tenth of the 600 member union.
In a decision penned by Justice Karen Carroll, the court stated that the state labor relations board made “no findings to support its conclusion” that those individuals are employees under state law and therefore have the right to bargain with Graduate Students United, according to court filings.
The labor board, Carroll wrote, must now issue a new ruling on whether the group members are employees, providing more evidence to support its decision.
Until it does so, about 60 current members of the UVM grad student union will remain “neither in nor out of the unit,” according to Baxter Worthing, a spokesperson for Graduate Students United, which operates under the umbrella of the United Auto Workers.
“Predoctoral trainees and fellows provide vital research to the University of Vermont as graduate student workers and we remain confident that they are employees and belong in our bargaining unit,” Worthing said in a written statement.
A spokesperson for the University of Vermont did not respond to requests for comment.
Graduate student workers at UVM first voted to form Graduate Students United in March of 2024, a move that was fiercely contested by the university.
In arguments before the Vermont Labor Relations Board prior to the vote, UVM had contended that graduate students were not employees of the school as defined under Vermont law and had no legal right to organize, according to court documents. The school also argued that, if the board were to grant students the right to unionize, it should specifically prevent certain categories of workers from joining the union, including predoctoral fellows and predoctoral trainees.
The Vermont Labor Relations Board rejected those arguments, however, defining graduate student workers — including predoctoral fellows and trainees — as employees under state law, allowing them to unionize.
But even after the formation of Graduate Students United, the university has continued to dispute the rights of certain groups of students to join the union.
Shortly after the state relations board certified the union vote in April 2024, the school challenged the board’s inclusion of predoctoral trainees and fellows in the union, appealing the board’s decision to define them as employees to the state Supreme Court.
With the court’s latest decision on that appeal, the bargaining rights for almost 10% of the union are now up in the air, pending action from the Vermont Labor Relations Board.
“We are disappointed that our members who hold positions as predoctoral trainees and fellows still remain in a precarious position, unaware of their bargaining unit status due to UVM’s contention that they are not employees,” Worthing said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: UVM and grad student union continue legal clash over union size.