The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that George Washington University is breaking the law in its refusal to recognize its adjunct professors' union, which won a labor-board-certified election held in October 2004.

Sticking to the position it has held for months, the university maintained that the election was "flawed" and, on Wednesday, filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asking for a review of the labor board's decision.

The university administration first took issue with the union election results last June, when it announced that it would not negotiate with the Service Employees International Union, the elected representative of the adjuncts.


...The ruling orders university administrators to bargain with the union and to post notices around the campus which read, in part, "The National Labor Relations Board has found that we violated federal labor law."

In a statement posted on its Web site, the university said that the ruling, "reached at the administrative level and based on a motion filed by the NLRB's own general counsel, was not surprising."

Kip Lornell, the lead organizer for the union and an adjunct professor of music, said he was likewise not surprised by the university's response. "They are desperately clinging to the hope that they will not have to bargain collectively," he said. "We assumed that the university would continue to spend students' tuition money litigating and not educating."