131–140 of 194 posts
You gotta mistreat people pretty bad to get 94% yes vote.
...or over promise them on what a union can deliver...no laws state that the union can't lie or misrepresent what they will get them in negotiations.
How does a group of diverse people "win" a vote? Did the people who voted "no" also win? The person you vote for can win, sure, and you can win if your preference is the majority, but the group can't win or lose. i.e. this title doesn't make any sense - what did they actually vote for?
This may seem like a tongue-in-cheek response, but I believe addressing this question in good faith will lead you to the answers you seek.
Good for them! Academia is a toxic and broken environment, and this seems like a great first step in fixing it. Interested to see how the dynamic plays out at Stanford, and if other American universities follow suit.
A first step, maybe, but far from enough to fix it. Toxic: That won't be fixed until they start firing tenured profs for abusing grad students. Nothing else will do. Broken: There's no route to professorship for most grad students, ever. We either need far bigger universities, or far fewer grad students.
There's value to graduate/post graduate education other than a chance of tenure. I'd assume many do MSc/PhD without an expectation to become a prof, or work in academia at all (like I and most of my peers did).
What seems to be the problem is the lack of a clear indication that only few percent student have a chance of ever becoming a professor, or students' wishful thinking on the matter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was great for us at UC Santa Cruz. The reason I had healthcare during grad school was because the union won it right before I joined. The reason they have a housing stipend now (in the most expensive rental market in the US[1]) is because the union fought for a cost-of-living allowance. We at UCSC didn't always agree with the course of the larger UAW 2685 but they did a lot for us. I'm not sure what the system was…
> The reason I had healthcare during grad school was because the union won it right before I joined. I’m sorry if this is weird, but as someone who also went to UCSC for grad school I found this a bit confusing. So I looked it up and you started at UCSC at 2014, yeah? UCSC grad students had GSHIP coverage for years before that time. I myself was on it when I joined starting in 2009, and there’s plenty of documentatio…
I spent my final years at UCSC working through the systems they had set up internally (administration meetings with GSA, getting on committees of administrators as a grad student voice, working with on campus housing developers[2]) in order to improve housing availability and cost. We had marginal wins if anything. The strike the next year won everyone thousands of dollars toward housing every year. I understand the nuance of it being a wildcat strike but the entire organizing infrastructure there was from the union.
I agree with your final points and hope stipends will follow upwards in the near future.
[1] https://livinghistory.as.ucsb.edu/tag/uaw-local-2865/ [2] https://payusmoreucsc.com/history-of-students-attempts-to-en...
The workload of grad students has also increased substantially. Not only are they conducting much of the research, but quite often they're asked to significantly contribute to grant proposals as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was great for us at UC Santa Cruz. The reason I had healthcare during grad school was because the union won it right before I joined. The reason they have a housing stipend now (in the most expensive rental market in the US[1]) is because the union fought for a cost-of-living allowance. We at UCSC didn't always agree with the course of the larger UAW 2685 but they did a lot for us. I'm not sure what the system was…
When was this? Just before the pandemic, the grad students protested at UAW meetings and went on a wildcat strike after UAW ratified a contract the campus voted against. Later, Janet Nepolitano released police drones and set up barricades to try to shut down the picket lines. Eventually covid ended the drama, but only after some students were deported (I assume. The plan was to deport them, but the story stopped maki…
The wildcat strike was led by the local union leadership after they abdicated their official positions iirc. Having that previous level of organization and identified leadership certainly made organizing wildcat actions easier.
Unions are more than just the highest level of leadership.
It was a disaster at Wisconsin. Union favored the 8th year humanities students at the expense of the 1 and 2 year STEM students, and traded cash for benefits that really only affected people with families. Stipends were the lowest in the country among major research universities, and the union refused to let wages rise for in-demand TAs, so a bunch of them went off and got private sector jobs instead, limiting the si…
Is this adjusting for cost of living?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Democracy isn't perfect, but checking out is the quickest route to ensuring your interests are only minimally represented. True at all levels of democratic organization.
Checking out and moving to an environment that represents your interests well is a way to see that your interests are met, though.
Solidarity, not freedom, is the opposite of tyranny.
Neutrality and running away implicitly supports the injustice you are running away from. Flight-ing instead of fighting leaves those left behind to the wolves.
Political change only happens once people are willing to put themselves at risk.
It was a disaster at Wisconsin. Union favored the 8th year humanities students at the expense of the 1 and 2 year STEM students, and traded cash for benefits that really only affected people with families. Stipends were the lowest in the country among major research universities, and the union refused to let wages rise for in-demand TAs, so a bunch of them went off and got private sector jobs instead, limiting the si…
It was great for us at UC Santa Cruz. The reason I had healthcare during grad school was because the union won it right before I joined. The reason they have a housing stipend now (in the most expensive rental market in the US[1]) is because the union fought for a cost-of-living allowance. We at UCSC didn't always agree with the course of the larger UAW 2685 but they did a lot for us. I'm not sure what the system was…