Duke Grad Students to Vote in Union Election, NLRB Official Says

Duke University graduate research and teaching assistants will decide whether to unionize in a mail ballot election that starts later this month, a National Labor Relations Board official ruled.

The NLRB’s Atlanta regional director said Monday that the facts of the case haven’t changed enough to reject the same type of bargaining unit—RAs and TAs pursuing Ph.D degrees at Duke—that the Atlanta region approved in 2017.

The decision is likely just the first step in Duke’s battle to prevent its graduate students from unionizing. If the school continues to fight, litigation probably won’t end until 2025 or later with a ...