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Stanford Graduate Students Won Their Union Vote

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Re: Stanford Graduate Students Won Their Union Vote

#31

Post by maybelsyrup »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #15
Atreiden wrote: post #7

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.

Alas, I'm not sure a union can begin to fix anything except a few cosmetic things. The biggest problem is the massive oversupply of people who want academic careers versus the number of real jobs. The individual unions at the schools can't tackle this oversupply at all because it's caused by the schools acting independently. The natural game is to protect the insiders by restricting admission like many of the other u…

> a few cosmetic things

Show me someone who thinks a living wage and a boss who can’t overwork you anymore are cosmetic and I’ll show you a university administrator.

Re: Stanford Graduate Students Won Their Union Vote

#32

Post by analog31 »

black_puppydog wrote: post #28
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or permanent positions that are reasonably paid and not professors. Like teachers, researchers, ... I don't get the impression that everyone becomes a manager in software, not everyone becomes a line manager in a factory. Not every wants to become CEO eventually. Why should academia be any different? In Germany for one we used to have positions at universities that focused exclusively on teaching. That was, like, the…

In the US, less than half of all college teaching is done by professors. The remainder are "adjunct" teachers, whose job focus is on teaching. An adjunct job tends to have low pay, is short term, and you sign away some of your rights under the labor laws. You have to re-apply for your job every semester.

Perhaps the real difference is how Germany treats workers.

The US has community colleges, that focus on teaching. In my state, the community college teachers are unionized, and teaching is treated more like a career.

Disclosure: I was an adjunct for a semester at a Big Ten university, more than 25 years ago. My spouse has worked there as a non-faculty researcher since that time.

Re: Stanford Graduate Students Won Their Union Vote

#33

Post by CaliforniaKarl »

teruakohatu wrote: post #10

Are graduate students employees in the USA? I know in Europe there are universities where that is the case.

These days, the answer is more likely to be "Yes". At least for graduate students that do some form of teaching, in addition to taking classes and doing research. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_student_employee_unio... for more information.

Re: Stanford Graduate Students Won Their Union Vote

#34

Post by EatingWithForks »

CraigRo wrote: post #22
bigbillheck wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Union favored the 8th year humanities students at the expense of the 1 and 2 year STEM students Having been a one-time 1st or 2nd year STEM student, I think this is the proper decision.

Caused huge attrition of the 1st and 2nd year stem students (i.e. quit with a masters). The union was dominated by humanities students, and they fought for what they wanted, not what the overall membership wanted. Very few STEM folks had any interest in being part of the union, but because so many voted with their feet, it was hopeless to set up a decertifiying petition.

TBH the way you explain it sounds to me like 1st and 2nd year stem students were disengaged and uninterested in solidarity with their academic peers who have less options than them. I'm not even particularly fond of the humanities I just don't understand why you wouldn't fight for the allowance for your peers to start families, god damn!

Re: Stanford Graduate Students Won Their Union Vote

#37

Post by [deleted] »

CraigRo wrote: post #18

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…

[deleted]

Re: Stanford Graduate Students Won Their Union Vote

#38

Post by jrochkind1 »

analog31 wrote: post #32
black_puppydog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or permanent positions that are reasonably paid and not professors. Like teachers, researchers, ... I don't get the impression that everyone becomes a manager in software, not everyone becomes a line manager in a factory. Not every wants to become CEO eventually. Why should academia be any different? In Germany for one we used to have positions at universities that focused exclusively on teaching. That was, like, the…

In the US, less than half of all college teaching is done by professors. The remainder are "adjunct" teachers, whose job focus is on teaching. An adjunct job tends to have low pay, is short term, and you sign away some of your rights under the labor laws. You have to re-apply for your job every semester. Perhaps the real difference is how Germany treats workers. The US has community colleges, that focus on teaching.…

There is also a USA non-adjunct job called "lecturer" that is meant to focus on teaching rather than research. But while better pay and job security than adjunct, it's still usually pretty bad. (Also not tenured).

Re: Stanford Graduate Students Won Their Union Vote

#39

Post by coeneedell »

supernova87a wrote: post #35
fruffy wrote: post #30

A big part of the reason these unionization efforts are happening: https://csstipendrankings.org/ Many universities are not paying a living wage for the area they are located in.

[flagged]

“PhD student” is a more than full time research job. In terms of the experience it’s not unlike being an analyst or a fresh lawyer.

Re: Stanford Graduate Students Won Their Union Vote

#40

Post by jrochkind1 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #9
ineedasername wrote: post #6

Twitter rate limited me (no blue check) could someone screenshot this?

> Twitter rate limited me (no blue check) could someone screenshot this? Just open it in a private window. Twitter is no longer blocking logged-out views (at least for now).

I was surprised by this, so went to check. Individual posts are not blocked, but account streams are!

not blocked: https://twitter.com/StanfordGWU/status/1677048098080845824

blocked: https://twitter.com/StanfordGWU/

Wacky.

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