COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- A union has filed a lawsuit against the University of Missouri to determine if graduate students qualify as employees.
The Coalition of Graduate Workers filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Boone County Circuit Court. It seeks recognition as the bargaining unit for about 2,700 graduate students who work at the university.
An attorney who filed the lawsuit says the university is violating the graduate assistants' right to collective bargaining by refusing to recognize the union. Graduate assistants voted in April to support the coalition as their representative but the university has refused to recognize the group.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/1NrMocU ) that the university argues the graduate assistants are students, not employees, and have no right to form a union.
The university declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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Information from: Columbia Daily Tribune, http://www.columbiatribune.com