In a letter sent to Provost Francis Doyle Tuesday morning, the leaders of five unions representing over 2,000 student and postdoc workers asked Doyle to reaffirm his “current commitment to workers on our campus” following President Trump’s second inauguration.
The letter was authored by the elected leadership of the RIFT-AFT Local 6516, the union chapter founded by the Graduate Labor Organization. The chapter has since grown to encompass the unions representing Community Coordinators, postdocs, computer science teaching assistants and student workers at the Brown Center for Students of Color.
The unions of Community Coordinators, postdocs and student workers at the Brown Center for Students of Color are currently negotiating or finalizing their contracts with the University.
“With Trump’s most recent rhetoric, labor protections may erode even more drastically under his second administration,” the letter reads. “Our demand is for Brown University to continue to recognize all the workers represented by Local 6516 as workers beyond the contracts that are currently in place or being bargained.”
Doyle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the letter, union leaders detail what they say are threats to student labor organizing under a Trump administration.
In 2019, during Trump’s first term in office, the National Labor Relations Board proposed a rule that would have overturned a landmark 2016 decision requiring private colleges and universities to recognize undergraduate and graduate student workers as employees. The proposal was withdrawn by President Joe Biden’s NLRB in 2021.
But in the letter, union leaders warned that the new administration may double down on their efforts to overturn the decision. As a result, they want the University to commit to continue recognizing their unions and bargaining efforts, regardless of whether the decision requiring them to do so stands.
Student workers “make this campus run,” wrote Connor Flick ’26, president of the Teaching Assistant Labor Organization, in a message to The Herald. “We think it’s incumbent on the University to realize its obligation to its student workers and the wider campus community by publicly committing to recognize students as the workers they are.”
The letter also asked Doyle and University leadership to protect non-citizen workers.
These workers comprise half of GLO’s membership, according to Chun-Tak Suen GS, GLO’s lead organizer for international graduate workers. For students that are denied entry into the US, GLO’s contract currently guarantees remote work opportunities, re-employment under different visa categories and continued support from the University, Suen explained.
Suen added that the letter reflects GLO’s “desire to continue to bargain with Brown over our work conditions.” He believes unions are one of “very few institutions” that represent the work interests of non-citizens, who lack political representation in other arenas.
Union leaders began drafting the letter “well before” Trump’s second inauguration, Suen said.
In an interview with The Herald, GLO Vice President Victoria Antonetti GS said the union fears they may no longer be recognized by the University if the NLRB overturns their 2016 decision.
“We want Brown to stand with us,” Antonetti said.
Postdoctoral fellow Sarah Neville, an organizer for the Brown Postdocs Labor Organization, wrote in a message to The Herald that “the postdoc workers in BPLO stand in solidarity with their graduate colleagues whose ability to bargain could be threatened by this presidential administration.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ethan Schenker is a university news editor covering staff and student labor. He is from Bethesda, MD, and plans to study International and Public Affairs and Economics. In his free time, he enjoys playing piano and clicking on New York Times notifications.
