PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 20, No. 17, April 5, 2001

Board's ruling shapes hearing on proposed union

The Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board issued a ruling March 27 that would presumptively exclude most teaching assistants and research assistants at the UI from eligibility for a proposed labor union. This presumption could be rebutted for individuals or classes of assistants.

The board approved preliminary guidelines that would determine eligibility for voting in a union election. The next step is a hearing before an administrative law judge.

The board had ruled three years ago that graduate assistants were students and therefore, by law, not eligible to unionize. That ruling was reversed by a state appellate court, which said students should be excluded from union eligibility if the work they performed was so tied to their academic pursuits that unionization would be "detrimental to the educational process."