Catherwood LibraryILR School

Following months of organizing by Yale University’s teaching assistants, this morning the graduate students voted to affiliate with UNITE HERE, joining schools such as Harvard University, Duke University, and other private universities that have been fighting for or have won the right to unionize. Yale, like the universities before it, had been discouraging the unionization of the teaching assistants, with representatives stating that the organization effort would lead to fracturing between the graduate students. Eight out of nine departments at Yale held elections voting in favor of unionization, but Cooley argues that the margins were incredibly slim, showing how students were actually very mixed on the issue. Teaching and research assistants have expressed that their priorities at the bargaining table will be affordable child and mental health care, equitable pay and parity for marginalized communities in academia.