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MIT graduate students vote to unionize

thetech.com

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Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#91

Post by anonymousDan »

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…

I think your view on unionization is very US centric. In the UK at least there is a university union. In fact it is currently striking over a range of issues (mostly related to pension cuts).

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#92

Post by temp234 »

otachack wrote: post #62
_huayra_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are so many horror stories about academia waiting to come out.

The way vulnerable people are exploited and mistreated in what is, in fact, a work environment; moral hazards and conflicts of interest everywhere; lots of untrustworthy research results and inability to reproduce research.

Universities are big business and ought to be regulated just as much as any other big business

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#94

Post by aidenn0 »

bombcar wrote: post #81
jasode wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.…

It IS interesting to note that if most unions went dues-optional they'd starve from lack of money. If their members were really convinced of the value that tragedy of the commons wouldn't occur.

If you made tolls on a toll road optional, the road owners would not be able to keep up with maintenance, yet I think most drivers value the road...

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#95

Post by selimthegrim »

dls2016 wrote: post #84
hervature wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn’t find any of this to be true Any of what? You felt with the union that you could change your advisor on a dime? How many of your fellow students did so? > the university would not be able to provide the same level of service without graduate student TAs Just factually not true. The difference between a senior and a first year PhD student is quite literally one year. Plus, graduate student TAs are not the un…

At my institution the 9-month pay was less than $25k per year (from 2010-2016) with subsidized housing (still pretty expensive) and family on MediCal when my wife worked part time. How are you going to replace 50 TAs with full time employees? Class sizes were already 700 students in basic calculus and up to 300 in engineering calculus.

I made 16-19k/yr as a chem TA 09-11 there IIRC

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#96

Post by canjobear »

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…

I doubt that a union could do much against the alleged toxic aspects of academia that you are pointing out. There’s nothing they can do, for example, to change the fact that tenure track jobs are rare, which is what drives a lot of the stress for grad students.

More likely they will be involved in labor disputes involving how much TA work the grad students have to do.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#97

Post by ProjectArcturis »

bombcar wrote: post #81
jasode wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.…

It IS interesting to note that if most unions went dues-optional they'd starve from lack of money. If their members were really convinced of the value that tragedy of the commons wouldn't occur.

No, it's because if dues were optional, the only game-theory-efficient outcome is that no one pays dues.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#99

Post by light_hue_1 »

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 know exactly what the long term effects are because some grad schools have been unionized for 50 years.

The effects are: slightly better working conditions, slightly less discrimination, slightly better healthcare. Just look at what say, the grad student union at University of Michigan is able to gain for their students.

Neither apocalyptic nor utopian predictions are anywhere near the mark.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#100

Post by slim »

neutronicus wrote: post #65
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.

Not if the international students get unionized. They're actually the most prone to unionization if the union is able to defend them.
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