Stefan Dolgert’s excellent column, “Mr. Brodhead, tear down the wall,” brings up a very important but neglected issue at Duke—graduate employee unionization.
It is naïve to think that the University is doing things in the best interest of the graduate students. Running a university is a political process and requires balancing between interests. Unionization would give graduate students an effective voice in assuring that the balance does not shift too far away from our interests.
Even if one argues that a union is unnecessary at Duke right now, the future is much less certain. You don’t build a fire department in response to a fire. You setup the fire department in advance so that the necessary tools are in place to put out any fires.
But in reality, there are already some fires at Duke that need to be put out. One salient issue is health insurance. There are no assurances that the burden of increasing health care costs will not fall entirely on graduate students. Duke also has very little incentive to find us the most affordable health insurance plan. Graduate students also don’t get any vision or dental care. All of these costs are paid entirely out-of-pocket. And our pockets are not that deep.
TA’s of Duke University: UNITE!
Dan Lee
Grad ’09
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