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MIT graduate students vote to unionize

thetech.com

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Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#61

Post by qzx_pierri »

karaterobot wrote: post #55
bognition wrote: post #23

I'm very curious to see what the long term effects of unionizing will be in Academia. I'm hopeful and optimistic it will improve things in the long run. Yes there will be some unintended consequences but academic life is already very rough if you're not tenured. Academia likes to cast itself as a true meritocracy. If you work hard and publish good papers you'll do well. In practice it's more of a gerontocracy where s…

Half the reason I'm ambivalent about unionization is that I was involved with the graduate student union when I was in school. The nominal reason for it was to improve working conditions and pay for grad students. In practice, it improved very little, and added a modest amount of overhead, in the form of a union apparatus which fed itself by taking a little bite out of those paychecks every month. To be clear, the ne…

As long as human beings run a union, the union will be self serving.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#62

Post by otachack »

_huayra_ wrote: post #54
bognition wrote: post #23

I'm very curious to see what the long term effects of unionizing will be in Academia. I'm hopeful and optimistic it will improve things in the long run. Yes there will be some unintended consequences but academic life is already very rough if you're not tenured. Academia likes to cast itself as a true meritocracy. If you work hard and publish good papers you'll do well. In practice it's more of a gerontocracy where s…

We were discussing a potential hire at work a few days ago who suddenly turned down the company's offer for another company despite our team being his "dream place to work" and promising to not make a sudden decision without talking with us first. Turns out he was basically forced to go to this other company by his advisor, who had a lot of funding from this other company, or his advisor would "make graduating very d…

That is f*cked up and I hope people that dropped grad careers chime in in the future about situations like this, especially when more unions pop up.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#64

Post by ipsin »

_huayra_ wrote: post #54
bognition wrote: post #23

I'm very curious to see what the long term effects of unionizing will be in Academia. I'm hopeful and optimistic it will improve things in the long run. Yes there will be some unintended consequences but academic life is already very rough if you're not tenured. Academia likes to cast itself as a true meritocracy. If you work hard and publish good papers you'll do well. In practice it's more of a gerontocracy where s…

We were discussing a potential hire at work a few days ago who suddenly turned down the company's offer for another company despite our team being his "dream place to work" and promising to not make a sudden decision without talking with us first. Turns out he was basically forced to go to this other company by his advisor, who had a lot of funding from this other company, or his advisor would "make graduating very d…

This sounds very much like extortion, and I'm curious how any school with a purported honor code or sense of academic standards could allow it.

Even if the student didn't have proof of threats, the situation itself should be enough to get the student a new advisor or oversight with the existing one.

I mean "should" in an ideal sense. I think this kind of shit is common.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#65

Post by neutronicus »

g_p wrote: post #45

For anyone not familiar with the world of academia, grad students actually have a good bit more power available to them by organising sensibly than you might think. The same is also true for early career postdoctoral research staff. This is because most of the work that actually matters is being done by these individuals, in a very pyramidical structure, but the money stops rolling in without the work that the base o…

On the other side of this equation, I think international students comprise a potent reservoir of strikebreakers.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#67

Post by dls2016 »

hervature wrote: post #51

As someone who just finished their PhD, I fear these unionization efforts will have the exact opposite effect that the students are aiming for. In particular, many universities provide subsidized housing in some of the most expensive places in the US. Housing is not a bargainable. The direct consequence is that universities will kick graduate students out of the housing, replace them with undergrad students to pay fo…

I did a math PhD at USCB, where grad students are represented by the UAW. I didn’t find any of this to be true, in particular the university would not be able to provide the same level of service without graduate student TAs.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#68

Post by jasode »

bognition wrote: post #23

I'm very curious to see what the long term effects of unionizing will be in Academia. I'm hopeful and optimistic it will improve things in the long run. Yes there will be some unintended consequences but academic life is already very rough if you're not tenured. Academia likes to cast itself as a true meritocracy. If you work hard and publish good papers you'll do well. In practice it's more of a gerontocracy where s…

>Arguments against unionization from already tenured faculty usually sound like:

An argument against a union at MIT came from un-tenured graduate student Kevin Wang : https://thetech.com/2021/10/21/why-we-do-not-need-a-gsu

TLDR: he didn't think paying the 1.44% annual union dues (~$620/year) is going to be worth it. He based this on comparing MIT salary increase history to other universities with and without unions.

Also, KW was previously in Germany & UK so he's presumably familiar with the stronger worker unions in Europe.

The MIT union vote was 66%-for and 34%-against. The 34% have various reasons to not join a union but I think we can guess that many of them think the $620/year salary deductions will not be worth whatever benefits the union can negotiate.

I'm not saying KW is right but I think it's more constructive to consider the opinions of MIT grad students who actually vote (e.g. Kevin Wang) rather than your synthesized quote from tenured professors. The collective bargaining unit will negotiate with university administrators (not the tenured professors) who set salaries etc.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#69

Post by j7ake »

some-human wrote: post #20

In 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 u…

Phd student salaries in uk are probably the worst in the developed world. The student union in uk hasn’t been doing a good job to make salaries competitive with other countries at the PhD level.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#70

Post by dmitriid_y »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #61
karaterobot wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half the reason I'm ambivalent about unionization is that I was involved with the graduate student union when I was in school. The nominal reason for it was to improve working conditions and pay for grad students. In practice, it improved very little, and added a modest amount of overhead, in the form of a union apparatus which fed itself by taking a little bite out of those paychecks every month. To be clear, the ne…

As long as human beings run a union, the union will be self serving.

As long as a tyrant is unchallenged, they will remain a tyrant.
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