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Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

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Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#41

Post by davemp »

Eumenes wrote: post #6
DirectorKrennic wrote: post #3

[flagged]

[flagged]

The teacher union seems to be mostly ineffective based on what I've seen/heard in my county. My county literally hires teaching contractors at a significantly higher rate than union teachers because it is such an unattractive job. Somehow the union still fails to negotiate a salary within $20k of the state median.

--- Tangential Rant:

Look into your county's education budget and it might surprise you. In mine, the yearly budget is $1.5B and only about $900M goes to actual school operations (everything from ~300 principles, ~6k teachers, 64 physical/occupational therapists, IT, TAs, and benefits). Another ~$70M goes to bus contractors that can't accommodate reasonable start times across the grade levels. ~$30M goes to facility maintenance/construction/planning. Most of the left over is bloat that manages useless initiatives, flirts with ed-tech/curriculum grifters, marketers/comms/etc, and weird pork that doesn't belong in an education budget. That's like $300-400M/yr in bloat at just the county level (assuming at least some of the left over provides actual value).

It's embarrassing that these administrators get paid 2-4x the teachers, but still fail to staff schools properly with a $1.5B budget for ~80k students.

Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#42

Post by matthewowen »

nashashmi wrote: post #2

What is there possibly for a bunch of employees who have lived with status quo for so many years all of a sudden want to change? It is typically new employees who come in (from elsewhere?) that feel like changing everything around them. And then either they get those changes, or get comfortable with the things that exist, or leave. Edit: Reasons for unions historically have been better working conditions and better w…

Are you sure you read the article closely enough? These are early career researchers: grad students and postdocs. These are generally roles someone holds for no more than 6 years, often less. They _are_ all new employees.

Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#43

Post by KRAKRISMOTT »

matthewowen wrote: post #39
KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #16

It's not going to work. The NIH has no equivalent private sector competitor. For every single researcher, there are 10 other graduates and staff who would be willing to do their job for a fraction of the cost. This is a supply and demand problem, a funding problem. Strip congress and the medical board of their ability to control the number of residency spots and you will see the free market correct itself. Most biolo…

This is poorly informed. There are many viable alternatives for these researchers. For starters, all the other academic institutions! Which have their own problems, but have been increasing salaries for graduate students and post docs in response to organization (eg Penn just raised biomedical postdoc salaries in large part because of the threat of unionization, and in large part because of the competitive threat of…

Outside of the overfunded Ivies, Stanford and MIT, most other state schools and academic institutions do not have the ability to absorb the sheer quantity of researchers employed by NIH.

> It’s also not even remotely true that being an MD is the first choice for researchers

You should try talking to some actual graduates in the life sciences department at your local state school, and not just MD-PHDs. I am willing to bet money that the number of non-medical biology researchers whose number one choice is medicine outnumbers wannabe researchers.

Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#44

Post by matthewowen »

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #43
matthewowen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is poorly informed. There are many viable alternatives for these researchers. For starters, all the other academic institutions! Which have their own problems, but have been increasing salaries for graduate students and post docs in response to organization (eg Penn just raised biomedical postdoc salaries in large part because of the threat of unionization, and in large part because of the competitive threat of…

Outside of the overfunded Ivies, Stanford and MIT, most other state schools and academic institutions do not have the ability to absorb the sheer quantity of researchers employed by NIH. > It’s also not even remotely true that being an MD is the first choice for researchers You should try talking to some actual graduates in the life sciences department at your local state school, and not just MD-PHDs. I am willing to…

My wife is nearing the end of her postdoc (cell biology). I’ve known her since she was 18 years old. She never wanted to be an MD. Neither did the colleagues of hers I talked to.

Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#45

Post by uncletaco »

iso1337 wrote: post #13

NIH should build more institutes in cheaper areas (eg not NoVa). It’s a win win since it will help revitalize poorer areas of America and save on costs. It will also tilt more senators/congresspeople to vote for NIH funding, similar to military base funding

I work for a national lab and in my experience it will take a lot for someone to give up a place like the Eastbay for East Tennessee. If the national lab were near Nashville that might be different. Los Alamos has to give software developers a sizeable bonus each year just to keep them from flying to greener pasteurs in a less remote location. I know I left partly because my wife had such a hard time finding work and the remoteness made the area too expensive for what we were getting out of it socially and careerwise.

Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#46

Post by KRAKRISMOTT »

matthewowen wrote: post #44
KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of the overfunded Ivies, Stanford and MIT, most other state schools and academic institutions do not have the ability to absorb the sheer quantity of researchers employed by NIH. > It’s also not even remotely true that being an MD is the first choice for researchers You should try talking to some actual graduates in the life sciences department at your local state school, and not just MD-PHDs. I am willing to…

My wife is nearing the end of her postdoc (cell biology). I’ve known her since she was 18 years old. She never wanted to be an MD. Neither did the colleagues of hers I talked to.

Try a bigger sample size. I have seen countless life science graduates switch into software engineering precisely because of medical school admissions and the rest of the industry and academia being a career dead end.

Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#47

Post by rfrey »

foooorsyth wrote: post #23
delfinom wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know, instead of crying about change like you are. Existing employees finally cracked. The STM part of STEM has been seriously underpaid and meager living for years. All of that is coming home to roost with inflation and cost of living spiraling out of control.

The E part of STEM is typically the commercial application of STM, so why would that be a surprise? This is the nature of research: most efforts will be pretty useless, and even the useful ones will need significant additional focus, effort, investment, and labor to create a viable commercial product.

The assumption that only commercialization efforts are deserving of rewards, and the labour to discover and make viable the things that are being sold are not deserving of rewards, is one that needs reflection.

Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#48

Post by HDMI_Cable »

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #43
matthewowen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is poorly informed. There are many viable alternatives for these researchers. For starters, all the other academic institutions! Which have their own problems, but have been increasing salaries for graduate students and post docs in response to organization (eg Penn just raised biomedical postdoc salaries in large part because of the threat of unionization, and in large part because of the competitive threat of…

Outside of the overfunded Ivies, Stanford and MIT, most other state schools and academic institutions do not have the ability to absorb the sheer quantity of researchers employed by NIH. > It’s also not even remotely true that being an MD is the first choice for researchers You should try talking to some actual graduates in the life sciences department at your local state school, and not just MD-PHDs. I am willing to…

> You should try talking to some actual graduates in the life sciences department at your local state school, and not just MD-PHDs. I am willing to bet money that the number of non-medical biology researchers whose number one choice is medicine outnumbers wannabe researchers.

I want to credit your point and believe what you're saying, but the burden of proof is on you to give evidence that most Biology researchers want to be in medicine.

Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#49

Post by alistairSH »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #38
alistairSH wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NIH isn't in NoVA. It's across the river in Bethesda, MD. The problem with opening remote locations is attracting people. Montgomery County, MD (where Bethesda is located) and the broader DC metro region has lots of biotech, medical, and software opportunities.

But the traffic is a nightmare (I-270 is the Tenth Circle of Hell). Like most high-density commute areas, homes close to work are pricey, so people have to live in the boondocks, and commute. I know people that live in Frederick, and commute to DC. Of course, Frederick has Ft. Detrick. That's a fun place. I think it was the model for the biolab in The Stand .

so people have to live in the boondocks

Homes are pricey, no question. But, DC is one of the more affordable top-tier cities in the US. Especially if your work is in the suburbs.

For software people, you can buy a reasonable[1] TH in Reston for around $600k and have a reasonable commute to most of the NoVA tech corridor. Or Metro downtown. Or ride your bike to many employment centers. Or, if you're really lucky, you can walk to quite a few employers in Reston (Google, MS, Ellucian, Walmart Labs, various three-letter agency IT offices, etc).

1 - mid-70s build, 3-bed, 2.5 bath, 1500-1800sqft, in a good school district and with walk/bike access to schools, grocery/pharmacy, many doctors, and Metro.

Re: Thousands of early-career NIH researchers forming union for first time

#50

Post by bjornsing »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #35

I think academic scientists are criminally underpaid (especially at the NIH), and really hope something can be done to rectify this. However, I don’t think unionization is the way. Ultimately, unions' power comes from the threat of striking. Unions' demands only have teeth because of their ability to completely suspend economic output for an entire company or industry. This is possible because economic output of most…

I’m surprised this is being downvoted. It’s a good point.
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