The National Labor Relations Board has reversed its decision of four years ago and ruled that graduate students at private universities who work as teaching and research assistants do not have the right to unionize. In rejecting a petition by the United Auto Workers seeking to represent 450 graduate students at Brown University, the board stated that the National Labor Relations Act was ?designed to cover economic relationships? and that the collective bargaining process could be detrimental to the educational process.
See "Labor Board Says Graduate Students at Private Universities Have No Right to Unionize", Steven Greenhouse and Karen W. Arenson, The New York Times, July 15, 2004