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MIT graduate students vote to unionize

thetech.com

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Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#291

Post by gwbrooks »

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.

Agree, and let's also remember that these are wholly voluntary situations. Unchecked power is a pretty big charge in a situation where the student can (Yes, at a cost) always walk away.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#292

Post by caddemon »

kergonath wrote: post #267
ModernMech wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what they really feel ripped off on is the lack of academic freedom that was promised as part of this training Where would this idea be originating? I think that would be one of the first things I would tackle, because anyone making a claim of academic freedom for grad students to just research whatever they want is spinning a tale. Students with this perception are being lied to, so we should first address the fol…

This is probably very context-dependent. I have supervised PhD students at a top British university and 2 European research institutes, and usually the students had some freedom within the bounds of the project they chose initially. That’s how it should be: you want students to develop some initiative and they are not here just to follow instructions. Now, sure it is not absolute freedom because it is supervised and…

Exactly, it's not about being literally unconstrained, but a lot of biology PhD programs turn into "follow my advisor's weekly (sometimes even daily) instructions to the letter". This can be very demoralizing and it is concerning for the development of future PIs as well.

In addition to micro-management of the thesis project, there's also consideration of outside academic activities. Many students end up spending 50+ hours per week on the work their advisor designed. This leaves little time for the student to explore learning new skills that might be relevant to them - for example programming tutorials, a reading group in a different subfield, mentoring an undergrad project, communicating with the general public, etc.

Obviously there is not time for every PhD to involve all of those things, but currently it is much too restricted. For some people to the point that their advisor forbids them from taking a night class or whatever despite the fact it is outside the (already overtime) working hours of the lab. Research may indeed be the priority, but entirely ignoring other parts of the academic role has not gotten us anywhere good.

What it boils down to is that part of the compensation of the PhD is supposed to be training. Yet as it stands many students are treated as only employees, with no regard to teaching them to become a better researcher and no time allowed for their own personal/career development activities.

Students are being lied to for sure (at least in certain fields/locations). But the solution is not to just be blatantly honest about what PhD currently entails. Part of the shift also needs to be a return to considering the PhD as an important piece of the training for becoming an academic.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#293

Post by wardedVibe »

lokar wrote: post #140
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 a UAW steward I represented (with lawyers provided by the UAW) students in arbitration who were being treated unfairly by the UC (breaking their own rules). It was a positive experience.

As a former UC grad student, thank you for your labor.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#294

Post by andreyk »

citizenpaul wrote: post #260

Good! The grad student system is incredibly broken. Grad students are basically slaves at worst or indentured servants at best. The worst part is the universitys all know this and dont care because the university gets massive benifits from having highly educated slaves producing intellectual property that can be sold and licensed. The grad student of course gets no benifit from this. Its like the work for exposure BS…

hmm, as a grad student a lot of this seems hugely hyperbolic to me

"slaves at worst or indentured servants" is a rather harsh way to put it, it's not like you can't quit your PhD (many people do this after getting their Masters, so the times spent in the program is not wasted).

"gets massive benifits from having highly educated slaves producing intellectual property that can be sold and licensed" is again way overstating things. Very little of research is worth much as far as IP; in my 5 years as grad student I only know of one research project that resulted in a patent. The production of IP is much more of a thing in industry research, as would make sense.

"The grad student of course gets no benifit from this." in CS (especially AI, where I work) this is not really true, doing research lets you get really good research positions in industry, even assuming you don't want to stick around in academia.

Don't get me wrong, there is a ton wrong about academia/the grad student system. I really wish I was paid anything near my value on the job market. But I think your view is way too negative.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#295

Post by logifail »

gwbrooks wrote: post #291
ModernMech wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agree, and let's also remember that these are wholly voluntary situations. Unchecked power is a pretty big charge in a situation where the student can (Yes, at a cost) always walk away.

> Agree, and let's also remember that these are wholly voluntary situations

Someone is in a position of power over someone else, and is exploiting that, and a response is to claim that this is a "wholly voluntary situation"?

Really?!

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#296

Post by wardedVibe »

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.

The tragedy of the Commons is when there is a public good that, if most people contribute, everyone gets back more than they put in, but because it's rational for each person independently to not contribute (since it isn't strictly necessary for them in particular), it fails to happen.

You know, like not contributing your Union dues.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#297

Post by changoplatanero »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #164

I was a graduate student with a research assistantship position at the University of Washington in the mid 2000s, a few years after they unionized and got a contract with the UAW. By the time I was there, even though it was only a few years after the union struggle, I didn't hear much about the union, at least in my department. But what I knew it meant was: we had good health insurance, we had a guaranteed minimum st…

I was also a grad student at the University of Washington and my feeling was that the union was a net-negative. I remember one time in particular when my advisor had an extra funding source for me but the union rules didn't allow her to hire me in that position. It's hard for me to understand why business the union has in inserting itself in between the relationship between me and my advisor.

On top of that, the union took a portion of pay pay from each check. I wish they would give me a refund.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#298

Post by lvs »

_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…

No post body was provided.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#299

Post by ModernMech »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #274
ModernMech wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As I’m sure you know, Most PhD students stop taking classes by the end of the 2nd year, and focus entirely on research and teaching thereafter, which means that the “free tuition part” is just a sham to avoid classifying PhD students as workers, and to hence avoid paying them for their labour.

As a grad student you are there for an education and your education doesn't only (or even mostly) happen in the classroom. If grad students want to be treated more like employees and less like students, the relationship between student/advisor will shift more toward an employee/employer relationship. This may result in more pay but it will also result in different expectations. For example, if you want to be treated more as an employee, then I would have a lower tolerance for mistakes a student would make. If you want to be an employee I will start hiring for skills rather than potential. As employer/employee relationships have developed maxims like "fire fast", this attitude change may work against grad students.

Also just to be precise, tuition isn't just to pay for classes, it goes to pay for all of the resources you use as part of the university community. If you are done your requirements you will still have to pay tuition. And students don't stop taking classes by the end of year 2 (or 4 depending), they stop taking required classes. Since your advisor pays your tuition, you can negotiate with them if you want to take more than the minimum. You are done your requirements after 2-4 years and don't have to take more classes, but of course you can (I did). Maybe this is something unions can help with.

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