Successful Strike at University of California Sparks Organizing Surge Among US Academic Workers (msn.com) 55
An anonymous reader shares this report from the Los Angeles Times:
The University of California strike is over, culminating last month in significant improvements in wages and working conditions after 48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral scholars walked off their jobs in the nation's largest labor action of academic workers. But the effects of the historic strike still reverberate across the nation, helping energize an unprecedented surge of union activism among academic workers that could reshape the teaching and research enterprise of American higher education.
In 2022 alone, graduate students representing 30,000 peers at nearly a dozen institutions filed documents with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. They include USC, Northwestern, Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Caltech plans to officially kick off its organizing campaign this month, and other academic researchers are working to form unions at the University of Alaska, Western Washington University, the National Institutes of Health and such influential think tanks as the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute.
A confluence of several factors has propelled the burst of labor activism: disaffection with rising inflation, unaffordable housing, limited healthcare, growing student debt, university treatment of academic workers during the pandemic, and a more union-friendly Biden administration. But students and labor experts also point to the influence of the UC strike, which drew national attention by marshaling four UAW bargaining units on all 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to pull off a massive walkout that shut down classes, suspended research, roiled finals and upended grading — ultimately winning some of the largest wage gains ever secured by academic workers.
In the article there's examples of stipends recently increasing at other universities, either as a result of student strikes or the need "to remain competitive" in attracting top talent.
A Cornell senior lecturer/director of labor education research also cites some interesting statistics from a 2021 Gallup poll: 77% of people between the ages of 18 and 34 support unions — the largest level of support among all age demographics.
In 2022 alone, graduate students representing 30,000 peers at nearly a dozen institutions filed documents with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. They include USC, Northwestern, Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Caltech plans to officially kick off its organizing campaign this month, and other academic researchers are working to form unions at the University of Alaska, Western Washington University, the National Institutes of Health and such influential think tanks as the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute.
A confluence of several factors has propelled the burst of labor activism: disaffection with rising inflation, unaffordable housing, limited healthcare, growing student debt, university treatment of academic workers during the pandemic, and a more union-friendly Biden administration. But students and labor experts also point to the influence of the UC strike, which drew national attention by marshaling four UAW bargaining units on all 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to pull off a massive walkout that shut down classes, suspended research, roiled finals and upended grading — ultimately winning some of the largest wage gains ever secured by academic workers.
In the article there's examples of stipends recently increasing at other universities, either as a result of student strikes or the need "to remain competitive" in attracting top talent.
A Cornell senior lecturer/director of labor education research also cites some interesting statistics from a 2021 Gallup poll: 77% of people between the ages of 18 and 34 support unions — the largest level of support among all age demographics.
I don't think anyone working is anti-union anymore (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I don't think anyone working is anti-union anym (Score:4, Interesting)
"... there's a shitload of retirees will remain anti-union despite benefiting heavily from Union activity during their working lives..."
As a retired Union (IAMAW) member I have to ask: What are you talking about?
Re: (Score:3)
"... there's a shitload of retirees will remain anti-union despite benefiting heavily from Union activity during their working lives..."
As a retired Union (IAMAW) member I have to ask: What are you talking about?
He is likely referring to while over 2/3rds of those age 18-29 think unions have a positive effect on the country, less than half of those over 65 feel the same way. He is obviously being far too general with his remarks, with a significant amount of hyperbole.
Re: (Score:1)
"... there's a shitload of retirees will remain anti-union despite benefiting heavily from Union activity during their working lives..."
As a retired Union (IAMAW) member I have to ask: What are you talking about?
He is likely referring to while over 2/3rds of those age 18-29 think unions have a positive effect on the country, less than half of those over 65 feel the same way. He is obviously being far too general with his remarks, with a significant amount of hyperbole.
So to you, over 27 million people is not "a shitload"? Pray tell us where "shitload" begins in your lexicon so we can not give a fuck
I don't think I'm being generous at all (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As someone that was a Teamster when I was young I suspect that the actual answer is quite different. People that have never been in a union think that they are a good idea. People that have been in a union, in this case, old people, know that they suck. They especially suck for young, ambitious people, or people who are exceptionally, skilled, intelligent, or experienced. Coincidentally these are exactly the sort of people that most businesses want to hire.
As an example, when I was a Teamster I paid a
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Re: (Score:2)
You think they would since 60 or 70% of their teams are here on work visas from India but well they don't.
There's a lot of ego involved in not seeing it. It's like the myth of the self-made man. Mostly people in tech are simply adequate and placed to have been bourne up by a massive boom. But what kind of a narrative is that? You're the middle of the pack, but lucky with circumstance.
It's a much nicer story to think of yourself as an exceptional individual, who through your own brilliant cunning have become
Re: (Score:1)
As a retired Union (IAMAW) member I have to ask: What are you talking about?
Shitload doesn't mean all. It doesn't even mean most, just in this context, a lot. When it comes to politics, a significant majority is all that's required to make a big difference.
Re: (Score:1)
there are a shitload of us that have seen the damage unions have done or been on the sharp end of union corruption that don't support unions and I am certainly not retired.
Exactly! Just like when a government doesn't do what I like, I don't call for improvement, I call for elimination of all government. /s
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You are in a massive bubble if you think no working adults are anti-union. You do realize votes for unions are still both being won and lost, and those losses are because of the votes of working adults, don't you?
If you're actually curious, a little over half [pewresearch.org] of working age adults think unions have a positive effect on the country. Since one of our two primary parties is so anti-union, that is still a decent number, but no where near all working adults
You appear to have no idea just how strong the anti-unio
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps I misunderstood or it was written poorly but it read like he was saying retired Union members have flipped and were now anti-union. If that's so, I haven't met any.
This discussion is boring.
Re: (Score:2)
You appear to have no idea just how strong the anti-union feelings are in this country.
There are very, very good reasons for this feeling in education. The basic root problem is that there are separate unions for educators and administrators, and administrators are the ones fucking over the schools big-time. Not only do they tend to command outsized salaries themselves (why should executives make more than even the most highly paid educators?) but they tend to contract in more overpaid executive staff which further drains the coffers. Hiring one ed consultant for a year might well cost as muc
Votes are lost because of fear of retaliation (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Some unions are good. Some not. The UAW looks pretty bad right now, and the Teamsters are always good for a laugh. Locally, our chapter of the IBEW is pretty well-respected. Oddly-enough, the IBEW represents a lot of non-electrical workers at the local bottling plant, and I've heard nothing but good things about the reps there.
Re: (Score:1)
But it's tough because there's a shitload of retirees will remain anti-union despite benefiting heavily from Union activity during their working lives. Those retirees vote...
...while the working demographic most impacted by anti-union mentalities refuses to get off their ass and vote. Also known as how you address that problem.
Nurses in red states are particularly getting hit hard with businesses just outright threatening them if they unionized.
Patients dying due to lack of proper staffing at a hospital, can generate billions in lawsuits. We'll see who actually has the power to threaten someone out of existence.
The certified LPN/RN can throw their resume with a rock in any random direction and land a much needed job right now, while the greedy anti-union hospital administrator that threatened
Re: (Score:3)
ORLY? Clearly, you've never had to deal with them. Try doing a trade show in a non-right-to-work state without it costing a large fortune. Want to plug something into a power strip? You can't do that yourself. You have to put in a work order, wait around for hours for the union guy to show up, watch while two other guys stand there supervising, and feel your wallet get lighter during the process.
Re: (Score:2)
I learned quickly that sometimes you just gotte be "clumsy" oops, i tripped and knocked down that ladder, ill put it back (3 feet to the left)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
ORLY? Clearly, you've never had to deal with them. Try doing a trade show in a non-right-to-work state without it costing a large fortune. Want to plug something into a power strip? You can't do that yourself. You have to put in a work order, wait around for hours for the union guy to show up, watch while two other guys stand there supervising, and feel your wallet get lighter during the process.
Try working in a university and realizing that you're severely underpaid and management is trash because the board has effectively been captured by a handful of rich donors.
Sure you can quit, but that means you and your family moving to another city or maybe even another country because of how the academic job market is designed.
Some professions probably shouldn't be unionized, others, like academia, need strong unions because of the market structure.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: ...Among US... (Score:1)
Come on bra...
Your kids and mine must go to the same school
Wrong article on the wrong site. (Score:1)
Why is this on Slashdot ? How is it Technology related ?
I used to visit this site multiple times a day. Jesus how it's fallen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not everything that's news for nerds is gadgets and programming.
Re: (Score:2)
We also tried to get a union also when I was a grad student. Most of it wasn't to get more pay, but to be treated like employees; ability to get a day off, not being required to work until 2am (yes, one prof of a friend was that way), etc.
Re: (Score:2)
But how IS Roger Federer?
Re: (Score:2)
I used to visit this site multiple times a day. Jesus how it's fallen.
No, Slashdot has always had people whining because this or that post didn't meet their personal definition of what Slashdot should be.
let them eat cake (Score:2)
That's great (Score:1)
Re:That's great (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad to see all these parasites are doing their part for raise the cost of education even further.
Vs. the College President parasites who continue to add college administrators, jack up college pricing because the US government is allowing students to borrow money and take on huge amounts of debt that will cripple their ability to contribute to the wider economy and contribute to the eroding of the middle class AND expects a serf class (graduate students) to continue to do nothing and let the colleges f*ck them over by purposely overworking them for its own benefit?
I much rather prefer that the college serfs fight for their freedom this way. I've seen first hand what happens when there is not an outlet for this dis-satisfaction. I went to San Diego State University in the middle 90's. We had a graduate student who killed 3 Professors (2 of whom I personally knew) because of the stress inflicted on the program. I fully admit he was a bit off and different, but the stress of pursuing a graduate degree I feel put him over the edge. There were also rumors (quite solid ones) that his Graduate advisor was using him as basically slave labor for projects the Professor was doing not related to his graduate program. So don't blame the graduate students for pursuing this. The College Presidents free labor serf class finally rebelled after being pushed too far.
Re:That's great (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you'll find that the most well paid individuals at U.S. universities are their athletic directors and football/basketball (depends on the school) coaches.
Just wait until the student athletes get paid to play football, baseball, basketball, etc. ... You think college is expensive now?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
TA positions in particular don't fall under that umbrella. Most TAs are just in it to help pay for their tuition and otherwise contribute to their studies/CV.
Re: (Score:2)
By that logic, you can say student working at McDonalds are only there to help pay for their tuition, etc. Being a TA is a JOB, it is not a part of your education; it actually gets in the way of your education. Universities have used the excuse that these paid jobs are merely educational for too long, especially when the hours being required is excessive and most TAs get less than minimum wage despite all the over time. No benefits either most of the time, not even medical (likely this has changed in US
Re: (Score:2)
It's very hard to fire incompetent teachers (Score:2)
The union makes it very hard to fire incompetent teachers. From https://reason.com/2006/10/01/... [reason.com]
"The regulations are so onerous that principals rarely even try to fire a teacher. Most just put the bad ones in pretend-work jobs, or sucker another school into taking them. (They call that the "dance of the lemons.") The city payrolls include hundreds of teachers who have been deemed incompetent, violent, or guilty of sexual misconduct. Since the schools are afraid to let them teach, they put them in so-calle
Re: (Score:2)
The union makes it very hard to fire incompetent teachers. From https://reason.com/2006/10/01/... [reason.com]
"The regulations are so onerous that principals rarely even try to fire a teacher. Most just put the bad ones in pretend-work jobs, or sucker another school into taking them. (They call that the "dance of the lemons.") The city payrolls include hundreds of teachers who have been deemed incompetent, violent, or guilty of sexual misconduct. Since the schools are afraid to let them teach, they put them in so-called "rubber rooms" instead. There they read magazines, play cards, and chat, at a cost to New York taxpayers of $20 million a year."
The article is a bit broken, here's the graphic it should have shown on the process: https://reason.com/wp-content/... [reason.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The union makes it very hard to fire incompetent teachers. From https://reason.com/2006/10/01/... [reason.com]
"The regulations are so onerous that principals rarely even try to fire a teacher. Most just put the bad ones in pretend-work jobs, or sucker another school into taking them. (They call that the "dance of the lemons.") The city payrolls include hundreds of teachers who have been deemed incompetent, violent, or guilty of sexual misconduct. Since the schools are afraid to let them teach, they put them in so-called "rubber rooms" instead. There they read magazines, play cards, and chat, at a cost to New York taxpayers of $20 million a year."
That's talking about school teachers, not post-secondary educators.
Here's the scenario with my partner.
After graduating high school she did something like 8 or 9 years of education and a 2 year post-doc before starting her actual career as a professor.
She endured abusive behaviour from her dean until she got some fairly prestigious grants.
If she didn't get these grants, and perform very well in her job, she wouldn't have been offered tenure, which is basically getting fired. This would effectively mean she'
Re: (Score:1)
Not successful. (Score:1)