William Gould IV is a professor emeritus at the Stanford Law School and served as the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1994-98. The NLRB recently ruled that teaching assistants (TAs), many of whom are graduate students, are eligible to organize labor unions and collectively bargain their contracts. The Daily asked Professor Gould about efforts to organize at Stanford, next steps and the possible merits of TA unions.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Have you heard anything about students at Stanford trying to organize a graduate student union?

William Gould (WG): Not in recent years or months. I do recall that when there was a discussion about some of the earlier NLRB decisions involving NYU and Brown University. Years ago, I spoke to a group of graduate students, teaching assistants — of course this [most recent] decision covers undergraduates as well — who were interested in invoking the procedures of the NLRB [to organize a union].

TSD: What happened last time students were interested in organizing?

WG: I know that Stanford University has historically been hostile to the idea of collective bargaining for employees here at the University, generally, but I don’t think that anything with this group of employees ever got sufficiently off the ground to raise the issue. My recollection is that I received a number of inquiries from people here and also from people throughout the United States who were graduate teaching assistants, who were interested in invoking NLRB procedures.