Cornell Ph.D. Student’s Appeal to NLRB’s Top Prosecutor Urges Agency to End Union Control Over Graduate Students
Case attacks Obama-era federal ruling that exposed graduate students to union boss power and forced dues
Ithaca, NY (February 18, 2026) – Russell Burgett, a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University, is asking newly-seated National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Crystal Carey to issue a complaint and ask the NLRB to free graduate students across the country from being forced to fund and associate with union bosses.
Burgett filed an Appeal to the General Counsel on February 10, with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys. In his filing, Burgett presses the General Counsel to have the NLRB reconsider the disastrous 2016 Columbia University decision, a controversial Obama-era ruling that classified graduate students as “employees” subject to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Under Columbia University, union bosses are permitted to gain one-size-fits-all exclusive “representation” powers over graduate students at private universities.
“A graduate student’s primary relationship with his or her school is as a customer of that school’s educational instruction and services, not as a statutory employee,” reads Burgett’s Appeal. “[U]niversities forcing graduate students to pay union dues to act as teaching and research assistants interferes with their ability to complete their course of studies and earn their degrees. Here, the [union contract] effectively makes financially supporting [the union] a condition of receiving a Cornell graduate degree.”
Burgett, who is not a member of the Cornell Graduate Student Union (CGSU-UE, an affiliate of United Electrical), opposes the radical ideology and agitation of CGSU agents on campus. Because New York, where Cornell is located, is not a Right to Work state, CGSU bosses can legally force students (mischaracterized as “employees”) to pay money to the union to complete their graduate programs.
Adding insult to injury, CGSU union officials rejected Burgett’s request to opt-out of paying the portion of dues that goes toward the union’s politics, which is a right guaranteed to workers under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision. CGSU union bosses speciously claimed that Beck objections could only be submitted during a narrow, union-concocted “window period” of 30 days per year.
NLRB Must Reexamine Union Powers Over Students, Including Forced-Dues Mandates
Burgett’s Appeal asks the NLRB General Counsel to prosecute CGSU union officials and Cornell management on the grounds that the union contract is blocking the university from doing business with students who abstain from union membership or union financial support. Union agreements that require an entity to cease doing business with those who refuse union association blatantly violate the NLRA.
The Appeal’s argument hinges on the Board reaffirming that students have a “business and academic” relationship with their universities and are not “employees” was wrongly held in Columbia University.
In addition to his primary argument, Burgett’s Appeal contends that the NLRB should prosecute CGSU union officials for arbitrarily limiting when students can exercise their Beck right to opt out of funding union politics.
“It is unconscionable that current NLRB case law allows union officials, like those from CGSU-UE, to upend the academic careers of students who refuse to associate with them,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Union bosses’ one-size-fits-all bargaining schemes have no place in the world of academia, where freedom of thought and association should be paramount.
“We’re proud to stand behind Mr. Burgett, and urge the Board to affirm the commonsense idea that graduate students are students and were never intended to be subjected to the NLRB’s forced unionism regime,” Mix added.
Cornell University Graduate Student Files Federal Charges Seeking End to Union Boss Control Over Graduate Students
Student case attacks Obama-era federal labor board ruling that exposed graduate students to union boss power
Ithaca, NY (July 14, 2025) – Russell Burgett, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical physics at Cornell University, has just launched a groundbreaking federal labor case challenging the Cornell Graduate Student Union’s (an affiliate of United Electrical) authority to maintain exclusive representation powers over him and his fellow graduate students.
Burgett, who opposes the union and is not a member, filed his charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing private sector labor law. Burgett’s case is a direct challenge to the Obama NLRB’s 2016 Columbia University ruling, which overturned longstanding precedent and permitted union bosses to gain monopoly bargaining powers over graduate students at private universities like MIT, Columbia, and Cornell.
While union monopoly bargaining schemes in academia were already controversial at the time of the Columbia University ruling, student opposition to the policy has spiked in recent years as union officials have pursued increasingly radical and divisive ideological activities on campuses.
Charges: NLRB Must Reexamine Union Powers Over Students, Including Forced-Dues Mandates
Burgett’s charges assert that Cornell graduate students are not “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act. For that reason, the charges say, CGSU-UE union officials’ attempts to force them to abide by a union contract – including provisions that effectively mandate the students pay union dues or fees to complete essential parts of their graduate programs – violate federal labor law.
Furthermore, Burgett’s charges contend the union contract is illegal because it forbids the university from doing business with students who abstain from union membership or union financial support. Union agreements that require an entity to cease doing business with persons who refuse to associate with the union are a clear violation of the National Labor Relations Act.
“Mr. Burgett’s case is the latest chapter in a continuing saga showing why union bosses’ one-size-fits-all bargaining schemes have no place in academia,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “At America’s elite universities, union bosses empowered by the Obama and Biden NLRBs are coercing dissenting students into funding their political radicalism and constant agitation – including Jewish students who have sincere religious objections to the anti-Israel vitriol that campus unions push.
“Forcing students to choose between completing their graduate degrees or affiliating with an ideological group they find unconscionable is antithetical to principles of academic freedom, and Mr. Burgett’s case directly attacks the Obama NLRB’s and Biden NLRB’s flawed rulings allowing such coercion to happen in the first place,” Mix added.
