Duke University Press workers celebrate NLRB ruling

Staffers at Duke University Press are celebrating a big win after the NLRB rejected the company’s challenges to their June 2021 vote on Monday. Management has until April 4 to appeal the ruling, but members of the DUP Workers Union fully expect the board’s decision to stand.

Employees announced their intention to form the DUP Workers Union a year ago to address “constant turnover, extended vacancies, disruptive reorganizations, lack of professional growth opportunities, patterns of discrimination, inconsistent enforcement of policies, and compensation that is not commensurate with our quality of work and years of experience as professionals” that have “contributed in various ways to make working at DUP harder than it should be.”

Management has fought them every step of the way.

The workers have persevered and consistently defeated Duke’s trumped-up objections to their organizing efforts. When the NLRB decision is finalized, DUP Workers Union will become one of only a few unionized academic publishing houses in the U.S. The unit includes about 80 staffers from all areas of the press and its warehouse and is a unit of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild Local 32035.

They’re eager to get down to the business of bargaining their first contract.