Graduate students won a significant labor victory Tuesday, when the National Labor Relations Board ruled graduate student teachers and research assistants at private universities have the right to unionize. The 3-1 ruling stemmed from a case brought by Columbia graduate students. It overturns a 2004 ruling that denied collective bargaining rights to some graduate student teachers. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said, “The truth is graduate workers are the glue that holds higher education institutions together—without their labor, classes wouldn’t get taught, exams wouldn’t get graded and office hours wouldn’t be held.”