Catherwood LibraryILR School

An arbitrator has ruled that Cornell violated the NLRA by abusing official mass communication channels to propagate an anti-unionization campaign. Senior vice provost and dean of the Graduate School Barbara Knuth sent out mass emails to graduate students to discourage them from voting in favor of unionizing. The American Federation of Teachers lost the March 2017 election by a narrow margin, with 856 votes in favor, and 919 against. A petition circulating prior to the election, however, showed that a majority of Cornell graduate employees supported unionization. Despite finding that the administration interfered with the free choice of voters, arbitrator Howard Edelman upheld the election results. Edelman also noted that in order for the graduate union’s request for re-election to be granted, they would need a substantial showing that without the university’s interference, the results would have been different.