Labor groups filed a complaint with a U.N. agency Monday about a federal decision that graduate assistants at private universities do not have the right to form unions. The AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers complained to the International Labor Organization about a July 2004 decision by the National Labor Relations Board denying teaching assistants the right to organize. The unions say that decision violates workers' rights under international labor standards. The NLRB ruled in 2004 that about 450 graduate teaching and research assistants at Brown University in Providence, R.I., could not be represented by the United Auto Workers because they were students, not employees.
See "AFL - CIO, UAW Protest Student Labor Rule", Associated Press, The New York Times, February 25, 2007