The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday that Penn State research assistants are employees who can unionize, rejecting an appeal by the university to exclude research assistants from the union graduate student employees voted overwhelmingly in favor of forming in 2025.
Research assistants make up more than half of the roughly 4,000 graduate workers at Penn State. The university had argued that research assistants are different from teaching assistants and administrative support assistants. For RAs, the university argued, research is part of earning their degree and requires flexibility.
But the Coalition of Graduate Employees argued that RAs do work in much the same way as teaching assistants do and should be in the same bargaining unit.
CJ Witherell, a research assistant in mechanical engineering who has been working on the graduate student union since August 2023, said they were "incredibly excited about the board's decision."
"It's really important for us because of how much we contribute to Penn State that we are recognized as employees," Witherell said. "I mean, I know personally that I wouldn't be here doing all the research that I do, traveling to disseminate that research, mentoring other students and things like that if I wasn't an employee of the university."
The Coalition of Graduate Employees is affiliated with the United Auto Workers. Negotiations between CGE-UAW and the university began in 2026. While the vote to unionize included research assistants, the bargaining has focused only on teaching and administrative assistants.
"Basically their decision just reaffirms the rights of research assistants to form a union as public employees," Witherell said. "Previously, we had been bargaining on behalf of teaching assistants and ASAs, but this now forces them to include research assistants in that as well."
A Penn State spokesman said in an email that the university is aware of the state labor board's decision and is reviewing it, and that the university "will have more information to share soon."
