A regional office of the National Labor Relations Board dismissed a petition from a group of tenure-track science faculty members at the Tufts University School of Medicine to hold a union election.
The decision was based largely on a set of tests to assess faculty members' managerial status established by a major 2014 board decision concerning an adjunct faculty union bid at Pacific Lutheran University. The labor board's regional office said the members of Tufts' proposed unit were in fact managers under those guidelines and therefore ineligible to form a union. Additionally, science faculty members with labs and direct reports are supervisors, according to the decision.