Appeals court finds MU grad assistants are employees
Citing a cocktail of case law, the Missouri Constitution and a dictionary definition, a state appeals court found Tuesday that graduate assistants at the University of Missouri are workers under the law with a right to organize.
However, the court found the law is complicated when it comes to how they organize to bargain with their employers.
The Missouri Western District Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday on the university’s appeal of a decision by Boone County Circuit Judge Jeff Harris. The court in its two-part opinion said the graduate workers at MU, represented by a group called the Coalition of Graduate Workers, meet the definition of employees under Missouri law.
However, the court found that the legality of the process to appoint the group as the collective bargaining agent for MU’s graduate assistants was not clear, sending that part of the case back to Boone County.
A university spokesman said the ruling in part backs up MU’s argument that the coalition was not a proper representative of graduate assistants.
“As we have said from the outset, the election purporting to select the CGW as the exclusive bargaining representative for graduate students was invalid,” Christian Basi wrote in an emailed statement. “Saying that, we will continue to work to provide an environment that supports graduate students appropriately and encourages a lifetime of learning and discovery.”
Basi said the university is studying the opinion to determine its next steps.
The coalition held an election in April 2016 in which about 30 percent of the school’s 2,600 graduate assistants voted. Of those who voted, 85 percent cast ballots choosing the coalition as their exclusive collective bargaining representative.
The university denied a collective bargaining request from the coalition after the election, disputing the validity of the results and arguing that graduate assistants are not employees under the law. The coalition sued and Harris ruled in June 2018 that graduate assistants are employees and that the election entitled the group to bargain with the university on behalf of graduate assistants. The university appealed.
In its ruling the appeals court said graduate assistants are paid, taxed and provided benefits in the same way that employees are and are assigned work duties and required to report to supervisors in the same way other employees are. Appeals court Presiding Judge Victor Howard wrote that assistants are employees per the definition used in the state constitution as well as the dictionary, and legal precedent also has established their employee status.
The Missouri Constitution “does not exclude employees who also happen to be students,” Howard wrote.
The law is complicated, however, on how graduate assistants choose their bargaining representatives and how employers recognize those representatives. Missouri law provides a framework for collective bargaining for public employees but excludes teachers. However, Howard wrote the lack of clarity on how some public employees are represented “does not excuse public employers from their constitutional duty to collectively bargain with employees.”
Further muddying the picture is the fact that some graduate assistants are teachers and others are not, Howard wrote. The facts on record do not show that the election was held in accordance with the state’s public sector law, which governs non-teachers, and thus the Coalition of Graduate Workers did not meet the standard to be entitled to a legal judgment, Howard wrote in sending that part of the case back to Boone County.
