What it means: 

• All Duke PhD students are to be recognized in our Union as graduate student workers across all appointments, including research assistant (RA) and teaching assistant (TA) positions. 

Why it matters:

• This is a major victory—many other graduate student unions were not able to win the right for RA students on fellowships to be recognized as workers.

What it means:

• The grievance procedures in this article are how we legally hold Duke to follow the terms of our contract, including access to third party arbitration or mediation in cases we can’t resolve amicably. 

Why it matters:

• This article is how we enforce all of the protections we won in our contract, including protections from harassment and discrimination.

What it means:

• This establishes a minimum two months guaranteed funding for a grad worker who has to transition between labs (in both cases of being forcefully removed or individually deciding to leave.)  Workers have the right to leave their lab and use this bridge funding at any time to find a new advisor.

• This article also guarantees support of a DGS or Dean in finding a new advisor.

Why it matters:

• Transitioning between labs or advisors is not uncommon among grad workers—often due to incompatibility, harassment, or discrimination. 

• This allows grad workers a runway to find a new suitable advisor and sets them up for a successful transition.

What it means:

• Duke must now always use the standard of “just cause” when disciplining graduate student workers, meaning they must provide valid evidence and a clear set of policies for how to resolve workplace issues.

• This article also gives the right to bring a Union representative to disciplinary and investigatory meetings. 

Why it matters:

• Grad workers were often disciplined, suspected, or fired for unclear or unjust reasons. This contract now ensures that the University has a burden to prove that all disciplinary action is well justified, and provides Union support to workers going through difficult University processes.

What it means:

• Appointment work (e.g. TA positions) cannot be required to exceed 19.9 hours per week, and graduate student workers cannot be required to regularly exceed 40 hours per week towards dissertation progress in total. 

Why it matters:

• Many supervisors take advantage of grad workers’ lower stipends to perform tasks that, while may benefit the supervisor, lab, or their department, do not contribute to our progress towards completing our program. 

• This helps ensure that grad workers have reasonable expectations for working hours.

What it means:

• Guarantees University’s support for international workers; providing necessary authorization documents, and reappointment in case an international worker can not return to the United States for an extended amount of time. 

Why it matters:

• This ensures Duke continues to do its best to provide support for international workers to be here on campus.

What it means:

• The Force Majeure article allows Duke to legally deviate from the economic terms in our contract if the University finds itself in unprecedented financial circumstances (e.g. ceasing operations due to extreme federal funding cuts.)

• If a Force Majeure event is ever triggered, the University must notify us immediately and articulate the precise basis to triggering the article. They would then have to prove that any cuts they make are equitable across the whole university, and our union would have the right to have a third party arbitrator decide whether the Force Majeure event actually occurred. If the event is deemed real, we would then enter an expedited bargaining period to come up with alternative solutions to any cuts they might plan to make.

Why it matters:

• This article is extremely unprecedented— Duke and Emory University (our partner union in higher ed) are the only two grad unions ever to receive such an article in bargaining. Force Majeure is a direct reaction by the University to the current presidential administration’s attacks on higher education.

• This article was agreed upon by our Union only because of the severity of the situation in higher education, and will not be continued into our next contract.

• This TA version is significantly stripped down from the original proposal by the University, which had a much broader definition of a Force Majeure event and did not include our power to bargain around or arbitrate their action.

• Permitting the FM article, which was by far the University’s most persistent issue, was a difficult decision, but this allowed us to gain grounds on other areas in the contract, notably the one-year extension MOA (see below) and the final stipend bump on the last day of bargaining.

What it means:

• In a situation where the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overturns the Columbia Decision (which gave grad workers the right to unionize nationwide,) this article guarantees us the ability to extend our contract duration by a full year, no questions asked. We won this in exchange for bargaining around Force Majeure.

Why it matters:

• The University only recognizes our union and is obligated to bargain with us because 88% of us voted “yes” to unionize with the NLRB in 2023. If the current NLRB overturns the Columbia Decision, Duke will likely not voluntarily return to bargain with us when the next contract comes around in 2028.

• This article guarantees that if the NLRB abandons grad workers, we can extend our recognition by a full year, hopefully into a new presidential administration who will reinstate our right to collective bargaining.

Conditions under which graduate workers will be granted leave, and their funding situation while on leave including parental, military, jury duty, bereavement, and sick leave.

• Parents are eligible for longer leave! A “primary” caregiver can take up to 9 weeks off after birth or adoption. Non-primary caregiver is eligible for 2 weeks of leave.

  • If both parents are PhD students, the leave can divide up the sum of total 11 weeks (9+2 = 11 weeks) in any way. 

• Military leave - according to policy

• Jury duty - leave with pay and full benefit

• Bereavement leave - 3 consecutive days of paid leave upon death of a family member (spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, in-laws).

• Sick leave - 6 days per year

Makes clear the prohibition on retaliation related to the academic work produced by or circumstances of a bargaining unit member and lays out a procedure for addressing any instances of such retaliation from supervisors.

Terms to ensure that the university complies with relevant legal assurances (at baseline) of not discriminating based on a number of characteristics, in addition to other terms for protection of members.

Enumerates the responsibilities related to academic integrity that bargaining unit members have, and their related protections from retaliation.

Protections for undocumented and DACA students, as well as reimbursement for DACA fees to maintain status.

Details the rights that bargaining unit members have regarding the intellectual property they produce.

The process and tools by which supervisors provide feedback on performance of student workers' assignments.

Provisions for guaranteed funding from the graduate school, including during summer and the duration of the program

Health insurance plans available to graduate workers, including details on dependent plan costs

Rates & benefits of employer-provided insurance plans.

Details on transit passes, bike benefits, Duke transit & pedestrian infrastructure support. Also expanded parking near to Chesterfield and Carmichael, which was a major inaccessibility issue before our contract.

Outlines the rights to holidays and time off for all grad student workers

Providing funds upfront or reimbursement of expenses of work-required professional development and conferences, including timeliness and preference for pre-pay.

Health and safety related procedures that must be followed by all parties, and how unsafe working conditions can be corrected.

Assistance provided by the University for tax preparation.

Rights of graduate workers who stay in university housing, and responsibilities of the university in providing that housing.

Establishing a more clear and transparent process for English Language Proficiency testing, proposing that compensation be provided for the ELP training since it is a job requirement.

Describes the training that should be provided for covered positions in the bargaining unit, and how bargaining unit members should be notified and compensated for training.

This article specifies the effective dates and the length of the collective bargaining agreement.  This contract will last 2.75 years until March 31st 2028, after which we will re-enter negotiations.

As according with all other grad union contracts, we cannot go on strike or participate in a management lockout for the duration of our contract. We can only strike after the contract expires. We are still entitled to lead protected actions on campus (e.g. protests.)

If any part of the contract is found to be/becomes illegal, the rest of contract is still valid until expiration if grad students are no longer considered workers by the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB.). We also won a related article allowing us to extend the contract by a full year no questions asked if that does happen.

The creation and function of a group of union representatives and university representatives for managing ongoing and new issues relevant to the terms of our union contract.

This article details frequency of pay, details and itemization of paystubs, penalties and/or reparations associated with pay issues.

The rights of the employer, including to determine policy & rules, make decisions about hiring/firing and services provided, and set standards of performance, to name a few.

Authorization and removal of authorization of service fees (union dues), rate of fees, and usage of such fees.

Number and source of union representatives, ability to hold meetings and conduct union business, disbursement of union information and events, and access of union representatives to University spaces and orientation of new members.

Agrees that the policies and procedures in university handbooks will still be upheld except where superseded by this contract

The information which Duke provides when grad workers receive a teaching or research appointment.

Establishes union access to the Graduate School Orientation, and lays out the subjects that may be covered during orientation.

Information on incoming & graduated students will be provided by the University to the bargaining unit at regular intervals.

The workspace and materials that grad workers will be provided by the University, and how they can request additional materials or a change in workspace if necessary.

The process by which jobs are assigned to grad workers, and how appointing units can create a more transparent and clear process for jobs that pull from a pool of applicants.