On March 3, 2026, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced its intention to withdraw recognition of NIH Fellows United-UAW, the union representing approximately 5,000 early-career researchers at the agency. These researchers include postbaccalaureate, predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows.
The NIH takes the position that its fellows are not “employees” and that “the NIH/UAW bargaining unit should never have been certified.”
While the NIH decision affects federal trainees rather than private university graduate students, it signals a broader reconsideration of employee status for graduate-level students across all sectors. The principles underlying the NIH’s action may foreshadow significant changes to the National Labor Relations Board’s (Board) treatment of graduate student employees under the Trump administration.
NLRB’s Shifting Positions
The question of whether graduate students who serve as teaching assistants or research fellows are “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) has been the subject of repeated reversals over the past 25 years.
In 2000, the Board held in New York University (III), 332 NLRB 1205 (2000), that graduate assistants are statutory employees entitled to collective bargaining rights. Four years later, in Brown University, 342 NLRB 483 (2004), a Republican-majority Board overruled that decision, concluding that graduate assistants are primarily students rather than employees and that extending NLRA protections to them would improperly intrude upon educational relationships.
The pendulum swung again in 2016 when a Democratic-majority Board decided Columbia University, 364 NLRB 1080 (2016), overruling Brown University and restoring employee status to graduate assistants. The Columbia decision emphasized that graduate students who perform services for compensation under the university’s control satisfy the statutory definition of “employee,” regardless of their simultaneous status as students. This framework remains the governing precedent today.
In recent years, graduate student unionization reached historically high levels. By 2024, approximately 38% of graduate students were union members, representing one of the most densely unionized segments of the American workforce.
Trump Administration’s Potential Review
During President Donald Trump’s first term, the Board initiated rulemaking in September 2019 proposing to exclude students who perform services in connection with their studies from the definition of “employee” under the NLRA. The proposal largely reflected the reasoning of the Board’s earlier decision in Brown University, which treated graduate assistants as primarily students rather than statutory employees. That proposed rule was withdrawn during the Biden administration, but the NIH’s recent decision signals that the second Trump administration’s underlying policy preference remains unchanged from the first administration.
If the NLRB were to reverse Columbia University, either through adjudication or rulemaking, graduate students performing services in connection with their studies at private universities would likely cease to qualify as “employees” under the NLRA. Without statutory employee status, they would lose the protections of Section 7, including the right to organize and bargain collectively. Such a shift would place existing certifications and bargaining relationships in serious doubt and could eliminate universities’ statutory duty to bargain, significantly altering the landscape of labor relations in higher education.
The NIH’s decision to withdraw recognition of its early-career researcher union marks a significant development in the ongoing debate over employee status for academic trainees. For private universities, the more consequential question is whether the Trump administration will pursue a broader reversal of Columbia University, which has enabled graduate student unionization over the past decade.
The intersection of academic governance and labor law presents unique challenges. Universities should engage counsel with expertise in both higher education and labor matters to navigate the evolving regulatory environment. For questions, contact the authors, your McGuireWoods contact or a member of the firm’s Higher Education team or Labor-Management Relations Practice Group.