Letter to the editor
Black History Month is an opportune moment to reflect on the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) ruling recognizing teaching and research assistants at private colleges and universities as employees with the right to protection under the National Labor Relations Act and to consider the ongoing organizing campaign at Duke. Duke University's first labor union was formed in the crucible of labor, civil rights and student organizing in the late 1960s, and it was the demands of Duke’s low-wage African American workforce that galvanized that campaign. AFSCME Local 77 still represents some campus workers.