SCOVT reverses, for inadequate findings, Labor Board ruling that predoctoral fellows and trainees are “employees” for purposes of the State Employees Labor Relations Act.

 In re United Auto Workers, Local 2322, 2025 VT 8 [filed 2/21/2025]

CARROLL, J. The University of Vermont appeals from a Vermont Labor Relations Board decision concluding that predoctoral fellows and trainees are employees for purposes of the State Employees Labor Relations Act (SELRA). We reverse and remand for further consideration of the issue. 

 

The term “employee” is broadly defined under the SELRA in relevant part as “any individual employed on a permanent or limited-status basis by . . . the University of Vermont” The Board, explaining that the term “employed” is not further defined in the statute, adopted the ordinary dictionary definition of employee, which it described as a person “who provide[s] work to someone for pay” or “any person who works for another in return for financial or other compensation.”

The Board concluded that graduate assistants are employees because they work for the University in exchange for compensation. The Board made no such findings with regard to predoctoral fellows and trainees. The Board’s decision fails to address its own findings that predoctoral fellows and trainees apparently have no obligations to the University beyond academic requirements, do not receive W-2s, or that the funding for predoctoral fellows is tied to the individual student. 

 

It is not clear that predoctoral fellows and trainees fall under the Board’s definition of employee based on the record and findings available to us in this appeal. Without such findings or more detailed reasoning supplied by the Board as to why differences between graduate assistants and predoctoral fellows and trainees are immaterial to the outcome, we can only “speculate” as to how the Board reached its decision. Page v.Smith-Gates Corp, 143 Vt. 280, 283 (1983).  Accordingly, the Board’s order with respect to the employee status of predoctoral fellows and trainees is reversed and the matter is remanded to the Board for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.