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MIT graduate students vote to unionize

thetech.com

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Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#371

Post by hayd »

dchapp wrote: post #329
_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…

Would you have been willing to hire this person without them graduating?

They've paid many tens+ of thousands of dollars for graduate school... they likely place some value on graduating!

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#372

Post by aidenn0 »

nautilius wrote: post #194
aidenn0 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

So what's this 'road' in your analogy that was installed by the union, that wasn't there before, and that introduced a lot of utility, comparable to a road?

The implication in the comment I was replying to was that if people see the value in something, they will voluntarily contribute to its maintenance.

The fact that many workers would not pay optional dues does not prove that the workers don't see value in the union.

Obviously the purported value of a union is in the ability to collectively bargain on behalf of its members (and to provide tangible support for workers participating in strikes or who are pursuing legal action against an employer). Unions may do this or not, but the argument that gp made is not a good one.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#374

Post by dotnet00 »

ModernMech wrote: post #358
dotnet00 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until that rant in the second paragraph, it's pretty insulting to treat your grad students as if they must've spent their time partying. Being as green as grad students are, it's entirely understandable for them to feel good about themselves about their first publication, especially when you also consider the problem of imposter syndrome. Working on my first publication, getting feedback on drafts, fin…

> it's pretty insulting to treat your grad students as if they must've spent their time partying. Sorry I thought I was clear I had gone of on a tangent with someone in particular in mind. That wasn't literally directed at all grad students.

I had gotten that, I could've sworn I added a caveat about "unless you know that the student you're referring to was like that" but looks like I did not.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#375

Post by Fomite »

ipaddr wrote: post #286
lumost wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would a death or a retirement have the same effect?

Not really, no.

Generally, for retirement, faculty try to "draw down" their labs, and there's very often a "I'm going to see X student through to their defense, and then I'm done" as the end of an academic career.

For unexpected deaths, generally there's a scramble to help cushion the students, get them in with new advisors, etc. But often, their former advisor's grants, data sets, etc. are still available. Unless one is really early in the process, the goal is to help the student finish their current work in a timely fashion.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#376

Post by patrick451 »

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.

Yeah, that's all just a dog and pony show. If you escalate an issue with your advisor through any of those channels, your career is toast. You might as well just quit.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#377

Post by Fomite »

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?

One very specific example I'd like to see is protection for foreign students on visas in the event that they report academic misconduct - there's lots of ways they can lose their funding after that, even if there's not retaliation, and that's bad for the system.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#378

Post by Fomite »

logifail wrote: post #201
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.

> 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 P…

"it's only ever going to go one way."

I have seen it go the other way as well.

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#379

Post by [deleted] »

joshvm wrote: post #326
omginternets wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious, what’s the going rate? I was a phd student in France circa 2013 and the salary was 1.3k€/month.

Currently about 16.5k tax free. If you live in London you get slightly more, and if you're an STFC-CASE student you get more again (total of around 20k in London). It equates to somewhere between 19-22k if you were paying income tax. For anywhere outside London and Oxford/Cambridge (where rents are also extremely inflated) it's a fairly liveable wage. Shared housing pretty much anywhere else is in the range of 500 a…

[deleted]

Re: MIT graduate students vote to unionize

#380

Post by patrick451 »

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.

I take it you think we should do away with workplace discrimination laws, the minimum wage and OSHA too. I for one, wish there were more thumbs in my canned chili. It's been a little bland lately.
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