U.S. Has Certified Unions for 50,000 Student Employees

The list of ways next week’s presidential election could affect higher education is long, with Trump and Harris administrations likely to differ significantly on issues such as student loans, accreditation, diversity and Title IX, to name just a few. One less visible area that could also be reshaped is around labor policy, with a second administration for former president Donald Trump likely to take a very different approach regarding the National Labor Relations Board than the relative continuity that would probably follow if President Biden passes the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. The NLRB released data Monday that underscored one way that could manifest itself. The federal agency said that it has certified 54 bargaining units for more than 50,000 student employees since 2022, in the wake of its 2021 withdrawal of a rule proposed by the Trump administration that would have made it much harder for graduate students on private college campuses to form unions.