Punching In: Grad Student Unions Face Duke University Challenge

Monday morning musings for workplace watchers.

Duke Contesting Grad Student Union|California Bill Targets Caste Bias

Robert Iafolla: While most private colleges have accepted that their graduate student workers can form unions, Duke University has become a higher education holdout that’s contesting the National Labor Relations Board precedent providing that legal right.

Lawyers for Duke will appear Monday at a conference room at the Hilton near the school’s campus in Durham, N.C., to argue that its Ph.D. graduate students aren’t employees with organizing rights.

The hearing before regional NLRB officials begins a long legal process that—unless Duke changes its tune—likely won’t ...