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University of Hawaii graduate students who are seeking to unionize as public employees are due another hearing with the Hawaii Labor Relations Board (HLRB), the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled last week. That means the fight over unionization rights between graduate student organization Academic Labor United (ALU) and the state’s university system is far from over.
ALU can now seek a declaratory judgment from the HLRB that its grad students are public employees with collective bargaining rights, despite a 50-year-old HLRB decision that turned them away. The high court’s ruling suggests that decision could be side-stepped by seeking to join a bargaining unit distinct from university employees’ units considered in 1972.