Duke grad students file to unionize, say they have support to win election
Update: On Friday, the Service Employees International Union petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to represent all 2,500 Duke University doctoral students “who provide instructional services or research services.”
Doctoral students at Duke University say they have enough support to unionize the school’s workforce of Ph.D. student teaching and research assistants, but before doing so, the students have given the administration a deadline to act first.
In a Feb. 24 letter addressed to university president Vincent Price, the Duke Graduate Students Union (DGSU) Organizing Committee said “a growing majority” of Ph.D. students have signed union authorization cards, signifying their support to have SEIU Southern Region Local 27 negotiate their pay, benefits and working conditions.
On Friday, DGSU leaders told the school it had until March 3, or one week, to recognize the union, after which point, they’ll ask the National Labor Relations Board to organize a vote.
“Duke works because we do,” the group’s letter read. “We undertake research, teach classes, grade papers and exams, and perform other essential functions across campus. We work in every department and school across Duke.”
For the 2022-23 academic year, Ph.D. students at Duke earned a stipend of $34,660, which includes a one-time $1,000 bonus to address Durham’s rising cost of living. Next year, the stipend is slated to rise to $38,600. This is a few thousand dollars above the local minimum living wage, which the City of Durham calculates to be $36,600 a year for a 40-hour work week. Graduate assistants do not pay tuition.
Under state law, graduate students at North Carolina public universities can’t petition the NLRB to unionize, but student workers at private institutions like Duke can. NLRB certification affords unions certain rights, including the ability to compel employers to the negotiating table through collectively action.
One way for workers to form NLRB-backed unions is by elections. Another is for the employer to voluntarily recognize the union, thereby skipping the vote — and the months of campaigning that precede it.
Matthew Thomas, a third-year English doctoral student and co-chair of DGSU, told The News & Observer he wants voluntary recognition so that both sides can quickly broker a first contract.
“The grad community can’t wait any longer on,” he said. “We’re facing issues that are urgent and immediately felt.”
Duke’s response
Duke hasn’t declared its next step. In an email to the N&O, university spokesperson Erin Kramer said, “We are in the process of assessing the request and will respond to the group as appropriate.”
“We value our graduate students as part of the Duke community and have a long history of working collaboratively with them to reach their academic goals during their time at Duke,” she added.
History may hint at what the university will do. Only a few schools have accepted graduate student unions voluntarily, and Duke itself went to an election when Ph.D. students first sought to unionize there seven years ago.
In 2016, the year the NLRB ruled research and teaching assistants at private universities had a right to unionize, Duke doctoral students made an initial bid to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The vote was held in February 2017. The final results were inconclusive, as both sides combined to challenge hundreds of ballots, yet the “No” tallies held a sizable lead when the SEIU ultimately withdrew its petition.
Union landslides on other campuses
Since that Duke union push fell short, graduate students at other elite private universities have embraced organized labor. Brown, Georgetown, Harvard and MIT have all had successful drives, and campaigns are in progress at Emory, Princeton and Boston University.
The past few months have seen student workers notch overwhelming election victories.
In January, Yale University graduate student researchers and teachers approved their union by a vote of 1,860 to 179. The next month, 93% of voting graduate students at the University of Southern California backed unionization.
On Friday, labor supporters rallied in front of Duke Chapel to demand school leaders accept the union. Speakers included civil rights leader Rev. William J. Barber II, who earned a graduate degree at Duke Divinity School.
“You ought to be ashamed that schools in the North are ahead of you in the South,” Barber said, addressing university leaders.
Duke administrators have until Friday to respond.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
This story was originally published February 28, 2023 at 12:41 PM with the headline "Duke grad students file to unionize, say they have support to win election."
