Duke University president Vincent Price was not around Tuesday afternoon when scores of graduate student workers chanting “Hey Duke, your pay is ass” marched to his office door hoping to deliver a living wage petition to him in person.

“Coincidence? I think not,” said Ratchanon “RP” Pornmongkolsuk, a student in the School of Medicine, in reference to Price’s absence. “It’s a good thing we brought tape.” 

Duke graduate student Ratchanon “RP” Pornmongkolsuk speaks at a DGSU rally Credit: Courtesy of DGSU

The Duke Graduate Students Union, or DGSU, organized the action. It’s been just over a year since Duke graduate students unionized and began the grueling process of forming a collective bargaining agreement with the university. 

As the INDY reported in July, wage negotiations have been rocky thus far. The DGSU demanded that Duke increase its stipend minimum to $50,000 a year, the living wage for a single adult with no dependents in Durham County. But Duke declined to raise the stipend minimum for the 2024-25 school year beyond the increase from $38,600 to $40,000 that it had already planned on implementing.

The petition that union members carried to Price’s office this week calls on Duke to follow in the footsteps of many of its peer institutions and raise stipends in accordance with living wage calculations. More than 1,000 people have signed it. 

“I took a couple hours of my sweet Labor Day holiday yesterday to print all of the names out and tape them together and make them into a scroll,” said Pornmongkolsuk, before taping said scroll to the third-story staircase banister inside the building that houses Price’s office. It hung all the way down to the ground floor.

Duke grad students and other union members tape a scroll with names of people who signed a living wage to petition to the banister outside Duke president Vincent Price’s office. Credit: Photo by Lena Geller

Before and after marching to Price’s office, DGSU members rallied, gave speeches, and ate Costco pizza at the Bryan Center Plaza, near Duke Chapel. Members of the Union of Southern Service Workers, the Duke Faculty Union, and the UNC Chapel Hill and NC State graduate student unions joined them.

“We watched our universities come together to protest university-funded genocide,” said Bryce Ross, a member of The Workers Union at UNC, in a speech. “We have to capitalize on that unity to make waves for worker justice, too.”

The DGSU’s living wage demand was at the forefront of the rally, but students also spoke on the need for more support for international graduate students who make up almost half of all graduate students at Duke.

“After my first year at Duke, I couldn’t book an appointment for my visa review and had to travel to different countries, spending an extra amount of money that wasn’t in my stipend,” said Daria Kozhanova, a Russian graduate student studying Romance Studies.

“This small episode made me reflect on how we international students have to struggle with the sense of precarity and instability.

“We demand not just material benefits, like reimbursements for visa renewals and legal assistance for immigration issues,” Kozhanova continued. “We demand that international students be recognized as an integral part of the Duke community.” 

Duke graduate student Daria Kozhanova speaks at DGSU rally Credit: Courtesy of DGSU

Duke did not respond to a request for comment on the rally and petition delivery.

Track the status of the DGSU’s negotiations with the university over wages, accommodations for international students, and other contract articles here.

Editor’s note: Ratchanon “RP” Pornmongkolsuk is a student in Duke’s School of Medicine. This story has been updated.

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Lena Geller is a reporter for INDY, covering food, housing, and politics. She joined the staff in 2018 and previously ran a custom cake business.