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MIT graduate students vote to unionize

thetech.com

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Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#201

Post by logifail »

ModernMech wrote: post #176
logifail wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you expand on what regulations you feel are lacking [..] It's fundamentally wrong for one human (the PhD supervisor) to have so much unchecked power over another (the PhD student). Without changing how the entire system works, I'm not sure how you fix that by means of regulation.

It's not really unchecked though. There's the department vice chair, department chair, the college dean, the dean of student affairs, a student senate, a faculty senate, etc. etc... there's a structure here for resolving grievances.

> there's a structure here for resolving grievances

That may look good on paper. Yet a 20-something student vs an academic surrounded by supporters and wielding power and influence, it's only ever going to go one way.

I've personally been on the wrong end of it. After reviewing my options, noting that my supervisor had just been elected Fellow of the Royal Society in London, I decided to bite my tongue, complete my PhD, and leave.

The relationship was so broken I didn't even say goodbye to my supervisor (literally cleared out all my stuff from the lab very late one night), and I've never spoken to him, or had any contact with anyone in his research group ever since.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#202

Post by [deleted] »

jasode wrote: post #68
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.…

[deleted]

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#203

Post by slibhb »

rossdavidh wrote: post #163

Unionization usually works when: 1) the workers in question are not easily replaced (for example, specialized skills or long training period before they become productive) 2) the workers in question are not easily able to switch employers, so they need the protection of a union (instead of just switching employers whenever they are unhappy, such that they are normally happy) There are lots of professions which either…

I think you're right. I'm usually skeptical of unionization but it may make sense in this case. Grad students have little leverage, the universities know this and use it.

I also think there are too many grad students but that's a different issue.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#204

Post by bick_nyers »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #73

I am not sure how to fairly express this concept, so I will write it as it comes, younger generations are kinda fixing all the fuck ups of millennials in terms of working conditions, in a bit maybe they will even get paid overtime, I felt always like my generation was more focused in trying to find someone to blame rather than fighting to fix things, more focused on saying "Ok boomer" or blame "GenX". And I think the…

I just turned 26, so I straddle the line between millennial and Gen Z. I have friends that are distinctly in both generations. What you say definitely rings true to me, although I think the relationship with emerging technology also plays an interesting part here too. From all that I can tell of the situation, Gen Z is much more integrated and connected with each other due to the existing popularity of the internet and smartphones, where millennials growing up still followed that traditional model where there were strong cliques throughout school, and interests in things like the internet were still fairly obscure. That's not to say that cliques don't exist today, but it's hard for me to describe the right words behind the communication & relationship model that changed so dramatically. As a result, millennials don't feel nearly as much comraderie as Gen Z, which I believe to be playing a large role in the current societal anti-exploitation movements.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#205

Post by whimsicalism »

cycomanic wrote: post #136
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…

You write like the professors are just sitting around raking in the glory, but not doing anything while they let everyone else does the work. The reality is that professors tend to work just as hard as their grad students. I completely agree that academia is very disfunctional, but it actually affects all levels. I am familiar with many academics that work >60h a week every week, in fact I believe the most outrageous…

> You write like the professors are just sitting around raking in the glory, but not doing anything while they let everyone else does the work.

I've worked at two major research universities in multiple labs. While this is not entirely true, it is more true than not.

Professors work hard, but many are not working hard on the actual research work, especially once they have been tenured for a long time.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#206

Post by whimsicalism »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #173
walkhour wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason why Academia and Big Tech love immigration. And then there's the argument they use to justify why immigration is good, like diversity, inclusion, globalization, ... which may be valid or not. But isn't it just perfect when your objectives are so closely aligned with what is considered morally right. To regard these agents as moral actors instead of self-serving profit seekers is just lunacy.

Except in general people from other countries may be more amenable to union organizing and joining, since they often come from cultures where unions are viewed more positively than in the US, and where more of the workforce is unionized, and may possibly even have experience themselves with unions, or else have family members who do -- or if not with unions, with other kinds of collective political action of sorts th…

Speaking from my personal experience - which includes involvement in unionization drives, that has never been true. I think this is supported by the evidence.

Maybe if you're talking about immigrants from Western Europe. Otherwise, no.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#207

Post by jrochkind1 »

walkhour wrote: post #197
jrochkind1 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in general people from other countries may be more amenable to union organizing and joining, since they often come from cultures where unions are viewed more positively than in the US, and where more of the workforce is unionized, and may possibly even have experience themselves with unions, or else have family members who do -- or if not with unions, with other kinds of collective political action of sorts th…

> where more of the workforce is unionized Is this fact coming from the weighted average of how unionized is the workforce in the diferented countries from which workers comes to USA? Is this true for high and low paying jobs? Are the migrants from these countries representative of the workforce of their country? Could you provide proof? My first reaction is to be agnostic upon this claim.

I know from observation that international students are often involved in grad student unionization efforts, especially in leadership positions -- anecdotal but generally noted by anyone else paying attention.

The rest is, yes, a theory I have that I don't currently have the data to back up -- and the theory is not just about union density in countries of origin, although that's part of it.

But as far as that part, just for some quick napkin math sanity check, if we're talking "countries from which workers come to USA" -- let's choose Mexico for example. First google hit (this is just a sanity check) says "Approximately 90% of Mexican production workers in industrial enterprises that employ at least twenty-five employees are unionized."

As far as international students, the top countries are China and India. China is it's own thing where unions exist in a completely different context. First google hit for India says "Over all, in India, 34.13% of regular non-agricultural workers are trade union members" -- this is of course much higher than the US. (First google hit says 10% USA, although that may be general not "non-agricultural").

The US is very low in unionization rate compared to most countries, most countries on the planet are going to have higher rates.

But I'm definitely not going to convince you of anything in this HN thread, it would require actually doing some research, like probably original research,, probably including sociological qualitative research actually talking to immigrants and such, not just the off-hand googling I am willing to put the time into now. It's just a theory I am sharing, yes. It would be an interesting research topic... for a grad student in some social science field. :)

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#209

Post by memish »

selimthegrim wrote: post #86
cowsandmilk wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dental insurance is a scam.

Because it pays out so little or what?

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#210

Post by jkaplowitz »

whimsicalism wrote: post #189
hedora wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your comment doesn't make sense to me. > the union negotiated pay for that campus below the cost of living ...and the graduate student workers voted to approve the contract? Every negotiated contract goes back to the members for approval. What would this have looked like in the absence of a union? You are saying that with negotiation, UC Santa Cruz got pay below cost of living, but if they didn't have that negotiatio…

> What do you mean? Just get 30% of your members to sign a petition and you can hold an election to change unions. That is literally what organizing is.

> If you can get 30% of your members to go on a "wildcat strike" against UC Santa Cruz & UAW, then you can get 30% to sign a union replacement card.

Are you speaking based on California public sector union law or the federal National Labor Relations Act? The federal NLRA doesn't apply to state public sector workplaces, including UC Santa Cruz, with that being handled by state law.

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