Duke to challenge grad students’ right to unionize, arguing they’re not employees
On Friday, Duke University announced it will challenge graduate students’ right to unionize by arguing they are not employees. If successful, this challenge would not only end the current Ph.D. student union drive at Duke, but could upend graduate student organizing efforts nationwide.
“Duke provides significant financial and programmatic support for Ph.D. students to help them reach their academic goals,” said Chris Simmons, the university’s interim vice president of public affairs and government relations in a statement. “That support is very different from an employment relationship. Duke will seek to present evidence demonstrating that its graduate students in their academic programs are not employees, and that the NLRB’s 2016 reasoning was incorrect.”
In 2016, the National Labor Relations Board affirmed that graduate students at Columbia University, who worked as teaching and research assistants, could unionize to collectively bargain their pay and other benefits. Since then, student workforces at several private schools have approved federally recognized unions, including at Brown, Harvard, Georgetown, Yale, Boston University and the University of Southern California.
On March 3, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the organizing group Duke Graduate Students Union (DGSU) petitioned to form a union that would represent all 2,500 doctoral students at the university. The union’s representatives have asked the NLRB to conduct an election during the final three days of March and allow students to cast ballots in-person or by mail.
On Monday, the university publicly opposed the union for the first time. Now the administration indicates it will challenge the legal framework upon which the students’ right to unionize is based.
“In 2016 the National Labor Relations Board decided that graduate assistants at Columbia University — based on the specific facts at Columbia University — were employees and therefore had a right to unionize,” Simmons wrote. “However, a court of law did not review this decision.”
‘Such an outsized reaction’
Doctoral students pursue their own research and don’t pay tuition but they also serve as teaching and research assistants, with duties including instructing classes, grading papers and working in labs. This academic year, Duke Ph.D. students earned a stipend of $34,660, which will rise next year to $38,600.
Matthew Thomas, a third-year English doctoral student and co-chair of DGSU, told The News & Observer on Friday that he’s “disappointed that Duke didn’t choose the path of collaboration.”
“The opportunity is so great, and they reacted with such an outsized reaction,” Thomas said.
Thomas pointed to Syracuse University, where administrators this month reached an agreement with graduate students to not campaign against the union before a upcoming election.
Duke officially has until March 17 to file a position on the union bargaining unit. The two sides are then scheduled to meet at the NLRB subregional office in Winston-Salem on March 27 for a representation hearing.
Jeff Hirsch, a labor law professor at the UNC School of Law, said he wasn’t aware of any other university challenging the 2016 NLRB ruling. Given the current composition of the President Biden-appointed NLRB, Hirsch does not believe it is likely the board will overturn the Columbia decision. In its statement, Duke suggested it may be prepared to take the matter beyond the NLRB, into the courts, if needed.
Yet, overturning the ruling might not be Duke’s top objective, Hirsch said. Instead, he surmised the aim of the university’s challenge might be to delay the election as long as possible.
“Delay is standard operating procedure for employers facing union campaigns,” he said. “It not only puts off the possibility of having to bargain, but significantly weakens union support, which is hard to maintain over time.”
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 March 10, 2023 at 4:00 PM.
