National Labor Relations Board's GESO Complaint Dismissed

After 17 days of testimony this spring about the so-called grade strike in 1995 by the Graduate Employees and Students Organization – GESO, and more than a month of deliberation, Michael O. Miller, Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge for the National Labor Relations Board, granted the University’s motion to dismiss the complaint filed on GESO’s behalf by the Board’s General Counsel. GESO teaching assistants’ tactic of withholding grades from undergraduate classes was found not to be protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act.

The University has long maintained that graduate students at a private university are not employees entitled to unionize, but this motion did not raise or reach that issue.

Dorothy K. Robinson, Vice President and General Counsel of Yale, stated: “We are gratified that the Judge has agreed with Yale’s position that the grade strike was not protected by federal law and has thrown out the case on that basis. GESO-represented graduate students were not entitled to withhold grades until the University recognized GESO, while at the same time expecting to teach courses during the spring semester.”

Dean Thomas Appelquist of the Graduate School expressed pleasure with the “conclusion that GESO’s tactic of holding the students’ grades hostage was found not to be legally protected.”

GESO is an organization that seeks to represent a number of graduate students in the humanities and social sciences.