Duke grad students allowed to vote on unionization, National Labor Review Board says

Grad students are voting to unionize Wednesday night in Durham.

If the students vote in favor of the union, the student group will be one of the only ones at a private university in the southern United States to do so.

The graduate students are waiting on a list of eligible voters who they can rally support from. Mail-in ballots for voting will be sent to students by 10 a.m. July 24.

“Once the ballots come out, we can talk to our peers,” said one student. “We know what's best for grad students, and we want to be able to say that proudly, and with power.”

Duke University had pushed back and challenged the measure, claiming students “weren’t considered employees and therefore ineligible to do so.”

The National Labor Relations Board rejected the university’s bid to stop the vote. The university had previously challenged the right of the students to form a union in 2017.

In the decision Monday, the NLRB stated students “are employees within the meaning of the Labor Relations Act.”

UNC Law professor Jeff Hirsch said challenges to union elections make it harder for unions to form.

“A lot of what Duke and other universities have done is simply try to delay the election, which often makes it harder for the union to maintain support,” Hirsch said.

Hirsch added there has been a trend to unionize at universities, but a unionization win at Duke would be unique.

“It is, in general, more difficult to unionize in the South,” Hirsch said.

While employees at public universities, like N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina, can form unions, the state of North Carolina forbids them from entering collective bargaining agreements.

The NLRB handles the cases of private entities and universities, like Duke.

Despite the vote, it could take years before a union is even in place at Duke, according to Hirsch.

“A lot of employers will say ‘alright, we’ve lost. It’s time to bargain,’ but they don’t have to,” Hirsch said. “That’ll be an interesting pivot point as to what Duke decides to do.”

The final counting of the voting will take place August 22.