Our History

2022-23 Campaign

On September 15th, 2022, the Duke Graduate Students Union kicked off its card campaign to become the officially recognized representative of graduate student workers at Duke. After months of gathering cards from across the university, DGSU announced their strong and growing majority in early March of 2023, calling on the administration to voluntarily recognize the union, as many peers had done.

However, instead of working with DGSU, administration decided to take a path of unprecedented legal opposition. Administration announced their intention to challenge the right of graduate students across the country to unionize, putting at risk the hundreds of thousands of graduate students who have already fought for an won collective bargaining rights.

Their decision was met with an outpouring of condemnation, from students, community organizations, and the larger Duke community. Alumni pledged en masse to donate “No Dollars for Duke” until administration reversed course. Even faculty members, over 250 in total, signed a letter of support, as did several departments.

Despite the legal challenge, in early July the NLRB ruled decisively in DGSU’s favor, scheduling an election via mail. With ballots pouring in from around the world, Duke graduate students voted overwhelmingly in favor of a seat at the table, by an 88% margin of 1000-131. After the NLRB certified the election results a week later, it was official, and DGSU began to prepare for bargaining. When we fight, we win!

Show of support at NLRB hearing in March 2023.

 

However, DGSU was not born in 2022. In early 2016, a group of Duke graduate student workers decided to start organizing to shift the balance of power on campus.

Across the country, university administrators have increased their own salaries and poured money into luxury buildings while cutting funding for actual education. Students face rising tuition payments that saddle them with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Universities have become more and more reliant on underpaid and overworked adjunct faculty and graduate workers to perform essential education labor.

In Durham, Duke students face these issues, which have only become a graver problem in light of skyrocketing cost-of-living expenses and stagnant stipends. In the midst of this ongoing crisis in higher education, these student workers decided to form a union with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

SEIU has been at the forefront of organizing labor movements throughout the Southern U.S., where most states have so-called “Right-to-Work” laws that make it harder for workers to collectively bargain. SEIU has supported fast food workers organizing  the Fight for $15 and a Union, an effort to bring the minimum wage for all workers up to $15 per hour. Previously, adjunct faculty at Duke formed their union with SEIU.

Workers know what workers need, and those working in university classrooms and research labs know what changes need to be made to make higher education affordable and sustainable.

In the aftermath of an NLRB ruling in the summer of 2016, which recognized the legality of graduate students forming collective bargaining unions, the Duke Graduate Students campaigned to form a majority union. The University administration spent millions of dollars to fight the union effort. They hired lawyers with thousand-dollar hourly fees and impounded over four hundred legitimate ballots during the election.

“The University administration spent millions to fight the union effort”

After the election’s indeterminate outcome, Duke Graduate Students decided that direct, collective action would be more effective than fighting the University administration’s obstructionist tactics through the legal system. The Duke Graduate Students Union was formed in the spring of 2017 as a direct-action, direct-join union, borrowing the model for labor organizing in the “Right-to-Work” South that had been pioneered by SEIU members, fast food workers in the Fight for $15, and public sector unions in North Carolina.

With growing participation from across campus, DGSU efforts were able to win a number of victories for all graduate students at Duke. After holding rallies, staging public demonstrations and having conversations with administrators, DGSU has won:

  • Affordable dental coverage for Grad Students through the Bright Dental Plan

  • Increased minimum guaranteed funding for all Grad Students by over 30%

  • Guaranteed 12-month funding for all Grad Students

  • Guaranteed move-in stipend for incoming Grad Students

  • Protected health coverage for dependents from being cut by Duke administrators

  • The elimination of continuation fees for PhD students in their 6th year

  • A longer accommodation period for PhD students for childbirth or adoption. The accommodation period was increased to 9 weeks for primary caregivers and 2 weeks for non-primary caregivers.

  • Higher allowances for graduate students to earn supplemental income. PhD students are now able to earn up to $5,000 per year for supplemental TA and RA assignments and up to $5,000 per calendar year for other supplemental work from home departments.

  • Restored free access to University gyms for students in Years 3 through 5 of a PhD program

DGSU is also a member organization of Duke Workers United.

Interested in working to make Duke University a better place? Click here to join DGSU!