The state of Michigan recently passed a law that prevents student researchers at universities from joining unions. Two students at the University of Michigan will challenge that law in court, according to The Detroit News:
The suit claims that the law, pushed through at the last minute by Michigan Republicans and signed by Gov. Rick Snyder, violates the state constitution and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
In the suit, they say the new law, signed by Snyder on March 13, singles GSRAs out.
“It restricts a single class of public employees from the rights available to every other public employee whether employed by a university, a college, a public authority, a school district, a city or a county,” they said in the suit. “(The law) asserts that Graduate Student Research Assistants are not employees without a factual basis for the conclusion.”
The story notes that U-M President Mary Sue Coleman supports the Republican position that researchers are primarily students, rather than employees, and should not be able to unionize.
Read TCF’s previous coverage of researcher unionization here.
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