University of Connecticut graduate students who work as teaching or research assistants won union recognition Thursday — the first group of graduate assistants recognized in the state.

The state Board of Labor Relations verified that more than half of the workers had signed cards authorizing the Graduate Employee Union/United Auto Workers to represent them, according to union officials.

"I think the activities of these graduate employees will really inspire others to organize as well," Julie Kushner, director of UAW Region 9A, said Friday.

Unlike many universities with administrations that have fought graduate assistants' efforts to unionize, UConn officials recently agreed to leave the decision up to the graduate assistants.

"Throughout, the university has been committed to remaining neutral …" UConn spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz said. "There was a strong sense that the people in the best position to make the decision are the (graduate assistants) who it would most directly affect."

Graduate assistants at 60 institutions across the country have organized, including the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and New York University.

Madelynn von Baeyer, a UConn graduate student in anthropology and a member of the organizing committee, said: "I think it's wonderful that UConn came out and recognized our right to collectively bargain. Being recognized, we're hopeful to enter a new mature relationship with the university that will improve not only (the) experience as a graduate employee, but will benefit the university by bringing in top-quality graduate employees for future years."

Kushner said that organizing among graduate assistants and also adjunct faculty has been on the rise across the country as budget-squeezed universities rely more and more on cheaper "contingent labor."

Von Baeyer said the university's 2,135 graduate assistants function as teaching assistants in classes reaching thousands of students, as well as research assistants involved in projects that bring in $150million a year to the university in grants and contracts.

"I don't think the university could function without them," von Baeyer said.

Von Baeyer said UConn graduate assistants have been frustrated with "unilateral changes" the university had made resulting in higher health insurance co-payments and an increase in student fees from $800 a semester to $1,100 a semester.

"They are living on very limited means." Kushner said. "An increase of, say, $300 — it hits you really hard."

Stipends for graduate students range from $20,159 to $23,583.

Reitz noted that graduate assistants work 20 hours a week for the academic year and have tuition waived.

She said the new union will be UConn's largest union, followed by 1,700 in the faculty union and 1,600 in a staff union.

Kushner praised the UConn administration for acting so "decisively and so quickly … They should get a lot of credit for that. I imagine it was the fastest organizing campaign anywhere in the United States in a university."

At Yale, some graduate students have tried to organize during the past two decades but they have not formed a union that the university has recognized.

In an email, Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said that in a 2004 case involving Brown University, the National Labor Relations Board ruled graduate students at private universities are not employees of the school who can bargain collectively under the National Labor Relations Act. He said that act is "the relevant law."

"It will be interesting to see how Yale responds to all of this," Kushner said.