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

nature.com

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

#81

Post by metaphor »

alistairSH wrote: post #49
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But, DC is one of the more affordable top-tier cities in the US.

Is it?

This 2023 study[1] featured on Bloomberg[2] ranked DC at #7 of 76 most expensive large cities in the nation, requiring $245k gross pay to feel like $100k after normalizing taxes and cost of living.

[1] https://smartasset.com/data-studies/new-100k-how-taxes-costs...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-15/making-30...

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

#82

Post by robwwilliams »

rflrob wrote: post #52
Retric wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military personnel move where you tell them, manufacturing jobs can train people up just about anywhere, but research isn’t so simple. It’s a real chicken and egg problem around local talent. Bethesda/Rockville/Baltimore has several different organizations doing medical research which makes the attractive locations for researchers to live. Locate in say Boise Idaho and positions are open for longer and you will need…

I think the biomedical academic job market is tight enough that you could fairly easily attract a strong class of researchers to nearly any second tier city. Maybe not the best of the best of the best (at first), but there’s enough bright people doing 6+ year post docs that you’ll recruit junior faculty in a flash. Credentials: did my PhD and postdoc at R1 institutions, before going to greener pastures in industry.

There is no best-of-the-best at this stage. Only those who seem hyper bright. Success in biomedical research is much more about other factors—persistence and inquisitiveness being two that are crucial.

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

#83

Post by jancsika »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #60
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pressure that a union can place on the NIH is not cutting off production. If basic bioscience research stopped, it would be years before the effects trickled out publicly. The pressure instead is social and political. Union-friendly politicians would haul the NIH administrators in to grill them about why they're blocking cures and cheating scientists. Thus, if some of the scientists in the union continue to work…

Activists can apply social and political pressure without being in a union. The distinguishing aspect of union activism is the union's ability to collectively bargain, backed by its ability to collectively strike, with grave consequences to the employer. As you say, even "if basic bioscience research stopped [in its entirety], it would be years before the effects trickled out publicly." If the consequences of a strik…

Everything you claim here applies to the careers of members of the writers guild. It takes years to release movies/shows.

Yet somehow the power backing their union has historically not been "greatly diminished," at least not compared to other unions.

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

#84

Post by robwwilliams »

alistairSH wrote: post #31
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

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.

Not relevant at all. Many locations are stronger than the DC area. Just an example of NIH inertia. There are many.

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

#85

Post by robwwilliams »

ghaff wrote: post #36
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.

And it's an even bigger issue once professional specialists have partners and families. Even elite schools in relatively remote from major population center areas have long had some trouble attracting faculty whose partners may well be inevitably underemployed if they move to the small town/city where the school is.

Disagree again. Here are some towns and smaller cities that more than rival DC.

Ann Arbor, Davis, Durham, Urbana, Princeton, New Haven, Memphis, Madison, Portland, Eugene, Nashville, Kansas City…

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

#86

Post by MontyCarloHall »

jancsika wrote: post #83
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Activists can apply social and political pressure without being in a union. The distinguishing aspect of union activism is the union's ability to collectively bargain, backed by its ability to collectively strike, with grave consequences to the employer. As you say, even "if basic bioscience research stopped [in its entirety], it would be years before the effects trickled out publicly." If the consequences of a strik…

Everything you claim here applies to the careers of members of the writers guild. It takes years to release movies/shows. Yet somehow the power backing their union has historically not been "greatly diminished," at least not compared to other unions.

There are many key differences:

* A movie/show being delayed mostly has extreme financial consequences for the studio employer, not for the individual writer employees. By contrast, a scientific publication being delayed mostly has extreme career consequences for the individual scientist employees, not for their employer institution.

* The NIH's funding comes from the US government. A studio's revenue comes from the audience. NIH funding is unlikely to decrease as the result of a researcher strike, whereas a studio's revenue will unequivocally decrease as the result of a writer strike.

* Few people outside of the scientific community will directly perceive the consequences of NIH research being postponed for a few months. On the other hand, many people who enjoy watching movies/TV will directly feel the impact of favorite shows being postponed or cancelled.

* As demonstrated in [0], the effects of the strike are already glaringly evident after just a month, and will be even more evident after a few more months.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_productions_impacted_b...

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

#87

Post by 6DM »

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

Until we normalize working for a company until we’re ready to retire, I don’t even see that as an option. What am I gonna do 3-4 years later? That’s why I won’t leave the city, because I know when it’s time to look again there are plenty of jobs close by and I won’t have to uproot the whole family.

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

#88

Post by tomjakubowski »

Retric wrote: post #65
michaelt wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Los Alamos National Lab is a 12,700 person [1] government research facility in a town of 13,200 population [2]. Median household income $98k, highest millionaire concentration of any US city, highest percentage of people with doctorate degrees in the nation. Nearest IKEA store? 500 miles away. A government lab can get scientists to relocate their families to the middle of nowhere. All it takes is a budget of $3.92 bi…

Los Alamos got kickstarted in WWII when the government literally got to tell physicists where to go and it became a major hub of such research. That might work if the NIH wanted to spend 50% of it’s budget in one location, but their proposal was to spread across not just one second tier city but dozens of such locations.

Were Manhattan project scientists really ordered around like that? Was anyone working at Los Alamos against their will?

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

#89

Post by tomjakubowski »

robwwilliams wrote: post #80
Retric wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military personnel move where you tell them, manufacturing jobs can train people up just about anywhere, but research isn’t so simple. It’s a real chicken and egg problem around local talent. Bethesda/Rockville/Baltimore has several different organizations doing medical research which makes the attractive locations for researchers to live. Locate in say Boise Idaho and positions are open for longer and you will need…

Disagree. We have FedEx and Zoom now. My own intimate research community is now 8+ time zones—16 hours if you count where our RNA samples are sequenced.

How often are you grabbing a coffee or lunch (over Zoom) with randomish subsets of that community?

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

#90

Post by culi »

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…

> Passionate, individually invested scientists are therefore much less likely to voluntarily suspend their work than dispassionate laborers in collective industries.

Most of the actual work is done by grad school students and Phd workers. The same demographic that recently set a record for most agreement to go on strike (96+% voting in favor)

I don't know where you draw your conclusions from but from my experience with Academia, I'd wager that you'll see much more solidarity than usual

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