Labor organizers on college campuses are adjusting their tactics after President Trump abruptly shifted the course of the National Labor Relations Board, the independent federal agency that protects employees’ rights to organize and addresses unfair labor practices.
Just days after his second inauguration, Trump fired both the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board and one of the board’s Democratic members, Gwynne A. Wilcox. While the removal of the general counsel was expected under a new president, Wilcox, who had three years remaining in her term, has filed a lawsuit challenging her termination, calling it unprecedented and illegal; under the National Labor Relations Act, a president can remove a board member only “for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.” With Wilcox gone, the board has two remaining members, one Democrat and one Republican, and three vacancies awaiting nominations by Trump; at least three members are required for the board to take action.
Then, on February 14, William B. Cowen, the NLRB’s acting general counsel, rescinded several memos issued by his predecessor, Jennifer A. Abruzzo, including one from 2021 classifying student athletes as employees. Trump also issued an executive order on February 18 asserting greater authority over regulatory agencies including the NLRB, although it remains to be seen what the impact will be.
Between election day and Trump’s second inauguration, a handful of groups of academic employees withdrew their petitions to form unions before the NLRB. Several labor organizers said they wanted to preserve previous rulings favorable to the unions; each case reviewed by the board presents an opportunity to reverse precedent. Those include a 2016 decision by the NLRB classifying graduate students working at Columbia University as employees with the right to form unions, which opened the door for students at private colleges to unionize. “If there’s another Democratic President in four years, we can file again,” said Connor Courtney, who helped lead the effort to organize a collective-bargaining unit at Berea College, a federal work college. Students there are seeking better pay and working conditions, as well as better processes to report workplace discrimination.
At Dartmouth College, members of the men’s basketball team sought to become the first unionized college athletes in the country. A regional director of the NLRB ruled in February of last year that the basketball players were employees of the college with the right to unionize, and the members of the team voted the next month to do so. Dartmouth administrators filed an appeal of the regional director’s decision. But on December 31, the basketball players ended their unionization attempt, out of concern that a labor board dominated by Trump appointees could hurt the team’s efforts.
“By filing a request to withdraw our petition … we seek to preserve the precedent set by this exceptional group of young people on the men’s varsity basketball team,” Chris Peck, president of the union representing the Dartmouth players, Service Employees International Union, Local 560, said in a statement. “They have pushed the conversation on employment and collective bargaining in college sports forward and made history by being classified as employees, winning their union election 13-2, and becoming the first certified bargaining unit of college athletes in the country.”
Students at Kenyon College, the New School, New York University, and Vanderbilt University also withdrew their petitions to form unions before the NLRB in recent months, according to William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, at City University of New York’s Hunter College.
Labor unions are going to be very wary of having major decisions issued by a management-friendly labor board.
In addition, the National College Players Association in January halted its efforts to classify Division I football and basketball athletes as employees of their colleges entitled to workplace protections and the right to unionize.
“Labor unions are going to be very wary of having major decisions issued by a management-friendly labor board, and the consequence will be they may not file petitions, or withdraw petitions they have pending, in an effort to avoid decisions that they would consider to be in error,” said Nicholas DiGiovanni, a partner at the Boston-based law firm Morgan, Brown and Joy, who frequently represents colleges in labor and employment issues.
Over the decades, the NLRB has bounced back and forth on whether students at private colleges have the right to unionize, based on the politics of the board. A labor board in the Clinton administration first gave graduate students at private colleges the right to collectively bargain, which was taken away by a board under George W. Bush and then returned under Obama.
Student employees at Macalester College and Clark University have outstanding petitions to form unions with the NLRB, which could open the door for the board to take away private-college students’ right to unionize again. Students at Macalester were seeking to improve issues related to compensation, management, scheduling, and pay, according to a student news site, while students at Clark University were seeking better wages, safer working conditions, and more hours, according to the student newspaper.
The labor board could also take action without waiting for a case to make its way to the board. In 2019, during Trump’s first term, for example, the board proposed a rule that would have excluded teaching and research assistants at private colleges from being covered by the National Labor Relations Act, arguing that “students who perform services at a private college or university related to their studies [are] primarily students with a primarily educational, not economic, relationship with their university, and therefore not statutory employees.” But the rule was never implemented under Trump and was later withdrawn under the Biden administration, leaving the 2016 Columbia decision intact.
A labor board that was aggressively pro-management “might decide that issuing regulations and rules might be a quicker way to achieve change than waiting for a case to percolate up to the full labor board,” said DiGiovanni. “But we’ll have to see.”
It’s not a challenge we haven’t seen before. When workers organize collectively in large numbers, that’s the real source of power.
If the Columbia decision is overturned, DiGiovanni said, colleges would be legally able to end their relationship with a union representing student employees. If there is no contract in place, a college could end the relationship immediately. If a contract is already in place, however, “it is not completely clear that a college or university could immediately end the relationship as a matter of contract law,” DiGiovanni said, although a college might decide in such a case to wait until a contract expired to end the relationship.
Herbert expects to see union organizers shift their strategy toward getting voluntary recognition at private institutions, as was the case when Syracuse University agreed in 2023 to recognize a union representing graduate assistants. Voluntary recognition would require a university and bargaining unit to agree on who would be included in a bargaining unit, for example, said Herbert. “Both processes are legitimate under the law.”
Over the past decade, unions have flourished across higher education, especially among contingent faculty members and graduate-student workers, with an especially notable increase in collective-bargaining units including graduate and undergraduate students since 2022, according to a City University of New York report.
Brandon Mancilla, a region director for the United Auto Workers who previously served as the first president of the Harvard Graduate Students Union, said that while the tactics for union organizing may shift somewhat, he doesn’t expect the movement will slow down. “It’s going to be a challenge,” Mancilla said of the environment for labor under Trump. But, he said, “it’s not a challenge we haven’t seen before. When workers organize collectively in large numbers, that’s the real source of power.”
Academic-labor unions are stronger today than they were in 2017, when Trump became president the first time, with more collective-bargaining units and more strike activity, according to Gary D. Rhoades, a professor of higher education at the University of Arizona. That doesn’t mean that a Trump administration won’t have an impact, Rhoades said. “It just means that these unions and these employees have the experience under their belt and increased strength. And I would anticipate that the organizing will continue.”
Rhoades said that while in the past, collective bargaining has largely focused on issues like wages and benefits, he anticipates that people will increasingly turn to labor unions for support as the rights of certain groups, such as international students and people who identify as LGBTQ+, come under attack under the Trump administration. For example, he said, some academic employees have pushed for contracts to include independent arbitration for cases of sexual harassment and racial discrimination. “Even more people will see collective bargaining as a place where at least we can develop and enforce working conditions that recognize and support our humanity,” Rhoades said.
