Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MIT graduate students vote to unionize

thetech.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 400 posts

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#121

Post by mumblemumble »

ModernMech wrote: post #101
temp234 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you expand on what regulations you feel are lacking and how you'd like to see them implemented?

Decent labor standards would be a start.

Universities are rather analogous to sweatshops in how they operate and the economic reasons for doing so. And I suspect that, in much the same way, this state of affairs represents a sort of Nash equilibrium that cannot be significantly altered except by an outside force changing the rules of the game.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#122

Post by klyrs »

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.

In my experience, international students are very active in grad student unions. Also, good luck bringing in scabs during finals week. Admission runs on a schedule, visas add delays, and even if they show up in time, they'll soon be informed that it's a closed shop and scabbing has financial penalties. Oh, and there's typically a high degree of solidarity between profs and their grad students -- you don't just get admitted by a university, you get admitted by a committee of professors in the department you apply to.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#123

Post by timkam »

Rovanion wrote: post #5

Coming from Sweden I'm surprised they aren't already. Do you also not have student unions to represent you until you reach undergrad?

In Sweden, students and graduate students are well-organized/unionized, but the situation for PostDocs and other post-doctoral fixed-term employed academics is dire nonetheless, in particular for immigrants, for whom the fixed-term contracts cause problems with their residence permits, considering recent changes in immigration laws.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#124

Post by hedora »

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…

You had an unusually positive experience with UAW. They own the UC system contract, and negotiated pay caps, lowering grad student pay on some campuses.

They also negotiated to discontine coverage for various women's health issues.

Just before COVID, UC Santa Cruz went on a wildcat strike because the union negotiated pay for that campus below the cost of living. A bunch of foreign students lost their visas as a result.

In the second two cases, the grad students tried, but failed to organize against the union.

Most obvious routes to correcting the situation are illegal. In particular, organizing a strike against the union, or organizing a replacement union would have been illegal.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#125

Post by lkey »

lettergram wrote: post #35

I can’t imagine this actually producing better results long-term. Unions objectives are to limit competition amongst relative parties in order to combat the higher authority/ employer. The purpose of graduate school is to put compete your peers. What this will likely lead to IMO is more “equity” among the less capable (grants, funding, etc) which will reduce the opportunity for meritocracy and more capable (while ass…

You misunderstand grad school. Typically you and your PI will be the only people with a given specialization at a given school. You will mostly be competing for grants with your colleagues from other schools. Even students under the same PI will often have focuses so different as to rule out direct competition. Additionally "The purpose of graduate school is to put(out) compete your peers." is not /the point/ of grad school at all. You can't 'win' academia, you survive it long enough to pursue your research interest. Moreover, the 'competition' for grants is more like a lottery than anything else for reasons too complex to get into here.

"What this will likely lead to IMO is more “equity” among the less capable (grants, funding)" Putting aside your assertion that "equity" is bad, grants are not decided by people that know or care if the applicant is in a union.

"which will reduce the opportunity for meritocracy and more capable" Not all games are zero-sum and 'merit' based, I'd recommend that you not universalize this outlook.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#126

Post by ModernMech »

mumblemumble wrote: post #121
ModernMech wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on what regulations you feel are lacking and how you'd like to see them implemented?

Decent labor standards would be a start. Universities are rather analogous to sweatshops in how they operate and the economic reasons for doing so. And I suspect that, in much the same way, this state of affairs represents a sort of Nash equilibrium that cannot be significantly altered except by an outside force changing the rules of the game.

In grad school we definitely had decent labor standards though. I mean, I was worked really hard, but I can't say I was worked any harder than I was in private industry. And the pay wasn't great, but it was more than enough to support myself, and the understanding has always been that you get free tuition as part of the deal, which is pretty great, so that makes up for a lot of the pay deficit. I could see better pay for students with families, but other than that I think grad students have it pretty good these days.

An example of a specific labor standard you'd like to see implemented would be welcome.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#127

Post by fennecfoxen »

hedora wrote: post #124
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…

You had an unusually positive experience with UAW. They own the UC system contract, and negotiated pay caps, lowering grad student pay on some campuses. They also negotiated to discontine coverage for various women's health issues. Just before COVID, UC Santa Cruz went on a wildcat strike because the union negotiated pay for that campus below the cost of living. A bunch of foreign students lost their visas as a resul…

It is amazing that unions get a legal monopoly in this manner, and it is not surprising that, with such rights, they fail their constituents, preferring to amass money and power for a corrupt leadership.

Imagine a world with two or three unions per employer and you could actually pick which one you were under. They’d actually have incentives to deliver!

But we’ll never have that because it means less lobbying money and smaller campaign contributions to our representatives in government.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#128

Post by azernik »

klyrs wrote: post #122
neutronicus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In my experience, international students are very active in grad student unions. Also, good luck bringing in scabs during finals week. Admission runs on a schedule, visas add delays, and even if they show up in time, they'll soon be informed that it's a closed shop and scabbing has financial penalties. Oh, and there's typically a high degree of solidarity between profs and their grad students -- you don't just get ad…

Yup - especially because student unions (in the labor-union sense, not in the faux-government US sense) are the norm in many places abroad rather than an exception.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#129

Post by lumost »

ipsin wrote: post #64
_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…

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.

An advisor is your gateway into your field of interest. To graduate, a student must publish a notable work in the field. If you lose your advisor, then you will likely need to start over with someone else - delaying your graduation by 2-6 years depending on the field.

Even if the university offered a new advisor, it would be unlikely to help the student.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#130

Post by stale2002 »

sjg007 wrote: post #36
hiptobecubic wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"MIT fires entire graduate student body in union-busting move" is probably not a great look for them.

The would use the term "expells" because they want to say they are students and not employees.

At which point there would be a lawsuit, and they would lose the lawsuit.

Labor labors are an established thing. If a union is approved by the government, then they would have protections.

Post reply on HN