On April 2, Georgetown University announced a path-breaking agreementwith the Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (GAGE/AFT), to hold a union election monitored by a neutral third party through which the university's graduate assistants will choose whether they wish to bargain collectively with the university. In announcing the agreement, the university pledged that it “will continue its efforts to improve conditions for graduate students if a union is not elected, and will bargain in good faith if one is elected.”
The Georgetown agreement holds important and potentially game-changing implications. It has the potential to defuse some of the most bitterly contested labor questions that have divided institutions of higher education, secular and Catholic alike, and to point a way forward to negotiated solutions to these labor conflicts.
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