The National Labor Relations Board ruled Friday that research assistants at UB have the right to unionize.
A vote will be held within the next month in which research assistants decide whether to join the Graduate Student Employees Union.
Research assistants are graduate students who work along with UB faculty on research. They do not teach any classes, which distinguishes them from graduate assistants and teaching assistants, who already belong to the Graduate Student Employees Union.
Chad Pearson, who led the unionization effort, said that if RAs vote to unionize they will be able to earn better health insurance plans from their employer, the Research Foundation.
"RAs have terrible health insurance," Pearson said. "The Research Foundation has money coming out of their ears, and the health insurance they give is insulting."
Scott Oldenburg, the Buffalo-area business agent for Communication Workers of America 1104, which includes the Graduate Student Employees Union, said he was pleased with the ruling and predicted research assistants will vote to join the Graduate Student Employees Union.
"On a daily basis, people's rights are violated. If you're not unionized, you kind of have to grin and bear it," said Oldenburg.
"There are specific benefits that individual employees cannot ask for, that a union can," he added.
Vandana Payal, a graduate research assistant in the Department of Biological Sciences, has been campaigning for unionization rights for the past three months.
Payal said she spent her first two years as a graduate assistant in biological sciences and had a good health insurance plan. When she became a research assistant this year, she received a "pretty bad" health insurance plan, compared to a standard graduate assistant or teaching assistant plan.
"I'm really happy that it happened," Payal said. "We were kind of lost here."
Xun Liu, president-elect of the Graduate Student Association, campaigned on a platform of tighter cooperation between GSA and the Graduate Student Employees Union. By joining the Graduate Student Employees Union, Liu said the research assistants can help all unionized graduate students because it would give the labor organization more bargaining power.
"If RAs join, what it means for other grad students is that Graduate Student Employees Union is going to be larger," Liu said.
Liu said he believes most research assistants will vote to join the Graduate Student Employees Union.
"They have now formally an organization to protect their rights," he said.
According to Liu, some graduate departments at UB will be more affected by research assistant unionization than others.
"A lot of student employees in natural sciences are RAs, not TAs or GAs," he said.
If research assistants vote to join the Graduate Student Employees Union, Oldenburg said they would pay monthly dues of 1.15 percent of their total income. He said he believes the dues will not discourage research assistants from voting to unionize.
"It will be the best of everything for everybody," Oldenburg said. "They only stand to gain."
Pearson said that a majority "yes" vote of the graduate research assistants who show up to vote will be needed to join the union.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
