Since its founding by a Gilded Age tobacco tycoon, Duke University has been a hotbed of labor unrest — and the university has earned a reputation for its often fierce resistance to worker demands.
Now, as Duke prepares to observe its Founders’ Day weekend, the elite Southern university faces a new challenge from Durham Rising, a coalition of labor and community groups calling on the school to raise worker wages to $25 an hour and make bigger investments in its surrounding community.
Durham Rising, which is mobilizing a march near Duke’s campus this week, points to the university’s dependence on its workers in their call to action: “We know that Duke’s founders didn’t build Duke alone. This year, we will celebrate the legacy of the working people who built Duke and all of us who have kept Duke running day after day, year after year.”…