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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

#131

Post by EatingWithForks »

nickff wrote: post #126
EatingWithForks wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this something trivially resolved by the fact that the union members will be the researchers who can decide how to organize themselves? If they feel that their individual research priorities are more important than organizing for greater protections against sexual harassment or whatever-- that's something that can be voted on!

No, this is not a trivial problem, it is more like a prisoner's dilemma. A great majority of union members can agree that there should be a strike in favor of greater protections, remuneration, or benefits, but it is still in each of their individual interests to continue to work for their own benefits. Put differently, they each want the collective to strike, while continuing their own work. I suspect that a 'strike…

I mean, the article explicitly states that as federal employees they may not strike. So I presume there are other things they will plan, such as public demonstrations.

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

#132

Post by ProjectArcturis »

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…

A union's power is not solely in the ability to threaten to strike. Collective bargaining, for one. Right now, there is zero bargaining for postdocs over salary or benefits. You start work and you get the salary on the chart for your years of experience. How were those numbers decided? I don't know, but actual current postdocs had zero input. Simply forcing the NIH to have to sit down at a table and justify their (unjustifiable) numbers with the union would be a win.

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

#133

Post by dsr_ »

aidenn0 wrote: post #116
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…

This is why sports players, actors, and other individually credited people in other industries don't have a union...

This is, of course, sarcasm:

SAG/AFTRA

AEA (Actors' Equity)

MLBPA

NFLPA

NBPA

NHLPA

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

#134

Post by natechols »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #107
data_acquired wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scabs in a scientific union strike? I’ve routinely see it take months for a new joinee to get up to speed on someone else’s project. And hiring is strictly controlled, and no one has a budget to suddenly hire new workers out of the blue to break a strike. This is a fanciful view of scientific labor. Even if not hiring new labor, asking another existing worker to take over an existing project runs into the same issues…

By "scabs," I mean union members continuing to work on their research despite a strike. People I've spoken with at Columbia and Harvard, which both recently had graduate student strikes, told me that graduate research was mostly business as usual during the strike, even though graduate TA instruction was essentially completely suspended (the latter is what caused the administration to acquiesce to union demands). For…

> The frequent (incredibly petty) fights I've seen over publication authorship order demonstrate otherwise.

Likewise, and this is one of the many reasons I left academia.

I feel like everyone who criticized your original comment is forgetting (or just ignorant) that biomedical science is an international field. What incentive do EU or Chinese or Japanese science have to honor the strike of US scientists? There's no way China's government would even allow such a union, and they're certainly not going to slow down just because NIH grant recipients feel they're being unfairly treated.

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

#135

Post by dsr_ »

ant6n wrote: post #121
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…

Does this explain why Hollywood writing feels so factory-produced these days? The writers guild has turned script writing into a collective, dispassionate activity?

No, it's a product of the economics of the system.

In 2022, 449 "major" movies were released. Total gross: $7.4 billion.

The top ten movies took 3.8 billion of that. Numbers 11 through 20 took another 1.2 billion.

You will probably have heard of most of the top 100. No movie ranked better than 161 took in a million dollars. The bottom 80, all together, took in about a million.

Nobody wants to pay for any of the movies not in the top 100. How do they back a winner?

In terms of story: sequels/prequels, licensed content and shared universes. All of the top ten fit into 2 or 3 of those three categories. 26 of the top 50. (If you want something original and available, horror is your best bet. Of the top 20 horror movies in 2022, only 5 were sequels/prequels, licensed or shared.)

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

#136

Post by rexpop »

bourneavent wrote: post #117

Software engineers should do this. We got complacent with the high pay but we were never really in control. Recent layoffs would be less likely to happen were it not for unions.

> were it not for unions

I think you mean literally the opposite of what this idiom signifies.

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

#137

Post by missedthecue »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #99
photochemsyn wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions in Germany get seats on the corporate board, about the same number as the shareholders do. Public universities receiving NIH grants are a bit different in structure, but there are administrative government boards of one sort or the other at all such institutions, and having union representatives on those boards makes a lot of sense. This would mean researchers have more say over things like how much overhead i…

If only unions in the US worked like their European counterparts! :(

I don't really see why that's logical. Should aluminum suppliers get board seats on Mercedes Benz if labor suppliers do?

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

#138

Post by travisporter »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #107
data_acquired wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scabs in a scientific union strike? I’ve routinely see it take months for a new joinee to get up to speed on someone else’s project. And hiring is strictly controlled, and no one has a budget to suddenly hire new workers out of the blue to break a strike. This is a fanciful view of scientific labor. Even if not hiring new labor, asking another existing worker to take over an existing project runs into the same issues…

By "scabs," I mean union members continuing to work on their research despite a strike. People I've spoken with at Columbia and Harvard, which both recently had graduate student strikes, told me that graduate research was mostly business as usual during the strike, even though graduate TA instruction was essentially completely suspended (the latter is what caused the administration to acquiesce to union demands). For…

What’s the solution though? If not collective bargaining it’s status quo

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

#139

Post by selimthegrim »

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…

It is common knowledge in the local community that many of the post docs at Tulane medical school qualify for food stamps.

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

#140

Post by selimthegrim »

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.

That’s interesting, because Tulane seems to be having a lot of trouble with this.
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