Brown, Tufts and Columbia are currently awaiting that national board review, which upheld in November 2000 the NYU students’ right to unionize. The board’s make-up has changed with President Bush’s appointment of more conservative members, leading some to speculate that it might overturn the decisions of the previous board as it reviews the upcoming cases.

Friendly Professor of Law Paul C. Weiler, who specializes in labor law, says “it’s not uncommon” for the NLRB to reverse the decisions of previous boards, but adds that graduate student unionization may not be the new board’s focus.

“I don’t know that the Bush board would feel as strongly about this kind of issue as they would, say, about specific obligations that were imposed on employers in dealing with unions,” he says.

Johnson says organizers at Harvard hope to obtain initial signatures from at least 50 percent of eligible graduate students —instead of the required 30 percent—and that she did not know when the UAW might file for recognition on behalf of the teaching fellows.

“There are no dates on the horizon,” she says.

Rein says his knowledge of the petition drive is “word of mouth” and that, when he had asked supporters of graduate student unions to speak at council meetings, none had responded.

Ellison, who wrote that he and other administrators were also aware that the UAW had been looking into forming a graduate student union on campus, added that the administration has not been contacted by organizers.

“It appears to be a pattern on other campuses for the organizing effort to be very clandestine at first, which is itself unfortunate,” he wrote. “If an issue of this magnitude were in fact to be raised on this campus, it would be very important that it be debated as fully and openly as possible, with all views being expressed and heard.”

Johnson says that because the process is still in its early stages, the organizing committee is concentrating on discussion rather than any formal moves.

“Really we’ve been working on talking to other graduate employees to see if people want a union here,” she says. “The goal mostly is to build an organization that wants to decide what to do.”

—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore can be reached at theodore@fas.harvard.edu.