An overwhelming majority of Cornell University's teaching assistants, research assistants, graduate research assistants and graduate assistants have voted to reject representation by the United Auto Workers union.

The 1,351 to 580 vote against representation came after two days of balloting, Oct. 23 and Oct. 24, at two polling places on the Ithaca campus and at the Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y. The polls closed at 7 p.m., Oct. 24, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which monitored the election, announced the results at 1:30 a.m. today, Oct. 25. An additional 118 challenged and voided ballots were cast by students but not counted in the outcome. The 2,049 ballots cast were 88.4 percent of the 2,318 graduate students on the final bargaining unit eligibility list.

"I want to commend Cornell's graduate students for coming out to vote in great numbers," said Cornell President Hunter Rawlings. "Both the pro- and anti-union groups conducted their campaigns with vigor and mutual respect. It was our hope from the beginning that our graduate teaching and research assistants would inform themselves on the important issues presented by this representation vote and then participate directly in the decision-making process by going to the polls. They have done so, and I am proud of them all. We will continue to work with representatives of the entire graduate student community to see that their educational experience here at Cornell continues to be of the highest quality in the years ahead."

According to NLRB rules, a simple majority of those voting determined the vigorously contested election.

Had the union been approved, it would have become only the second graduate student union in the country at a private university. In 2000 the NLRB, in reversing previous decisions, ruled that some graduate students at New York University should be counted as employees under federal law. Since then, the issue has surfaced at Columbia, Brown, Yale and Penn, as well as at Cornell.

The university and the Cornell Association of Student Employees/UAW (CASE/UAW) reached agreements in July that defined the bargaining unit, set dates for the NLRB-administered election and recognized that certain academic issues lie outside the scope of bargaining. Earlier this week, representatives of Cornell, the union and the NLRB finalized the voting roster at 2,318.

Rawlings last week urged all eligible graduate students to vote and to become fully informed about the issues in the election. In an earlier statement to students, he said he did not believe the union would be in the best interest of graduate students because of the potential loss of flexibility in the fundamental relationship between the university and its graduate students.

Student organizers for CASE/UAW asserted that low wages, inadequate health and dental benefits and a lack of voice in working conditions were reasons for the union drive. AtWhatCost?, an ad hoc graduate student organization, mobilized student opinion in opposition to the CASE/UAW representation drive. An on-campus forum in September on the issue drew a widely divided student response from a spirited, standing-room-only crowd.