Coming from Sweden I'm surprised they aren't already. Do you also not have student unions to represent you until you reach undergrad?
What does an undergraduate union consist of?
MIT graduate students vote to unionize
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Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize
#12Is this unprecedented for grad students?
When I was a grad student at a public university, we were affiliated with a larger union (CWA, Communication Workers of America IIRC). So not unheard of I guess.
Exactly what benefits we got I don’t remember, but things got interesting once when CWA was talking about striking :)
Edit: This about 10-15 years ago
Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize
#13Unions can be good. They can be operated poorly and inefficiently too. Good luck to them.
Consumer unions seem like a neat idea too.
Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize
#14For the uninformed, what is the purpose of a student union?
In this case, the union is for grad students employed by the university (i.e. it has the same purpose as a normal union).
Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize
#15Coming from Sweden I'm surprised they aren't already. Do you also not have student unions to represent you until you reach undergrad?
There are usually "student council" programs that give a handful of elected students a regular audience with administrators, but most of these programs don't have any teeth.
Graduate student council programs in particular are often built as a compromise to prevent the students from forming an organization with greater efficacy.
Anecdotally, some PIs I know have had to directly contend with rising organization among students and handed out a raise and a bonus to their labs.
Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize
#16For the uninformed, what is the purpose of a student union?
1. Protect students from advisors who want them to work 100 hour weeks.
2. Get dental insurance for the students. Almost no US graduate school offers this.
Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize
#17Coming from Sweden I'm surprised they aren't already. Do you also not have student unions to represent you until you reach undergrad?
Yeah that's weird, I wish this included undergraduate students as well. But maybe there is a reason behind it that I don't understand.
Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize
#18For the uninformed, what is the purpose of a student union?
Graduate students are paid by the university. Unlike undergraduate student unions, graduate student unions are actual unions in the workers sense. They have the same purpose as any other employee union would: protect the students from arbitrary and capricious changes to working conditions, and to negotiate for better conditions/represent the students in the event of negotiations.
Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize
#19For the uninformed, what is the purpose of a student union?
Elect leadership. Who then negotiates with the faculty.
What leverage do they have? Worker's unions work because they can threaten to withhold labor. Are those students seriously going to not attend MIT? An institution as prestigious as MIT probably has no trouble finding replacements.
Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize
#20In the UK, most students are members of their universitys' branch of the National Union of Students.[1]
The unions have a big presence on campus and a bar with heavily discounted drinks and organise a lot of the social clubs and events that happen outside of the study.
They also negotiate with the university and faculty, fighting for students, and you can get individual advise and help too.
Enrolling to the student union usual happens almost automatically when you turn up and register for your dorm, classes and doctors etc.
The staff of the university (academics, lecturers, trainers, instructors, researchers, etc) tend to belong to The University and College Union.[2]
I didn't know this was abnormal in other countries?
[1] https://www.nus.org.uk/ [2] https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/1685/About-UCU