4 ms·

I also think it is a good introduction to the real world, but for a different reason: it shows that workers are treated as disposable goods that employers can a

by csb6 7y ago

I also think it is a good introduction to the real world, but for a different reason: it shows that workers are treated as disposable goods that employers can and will throw away whenever they become too much of a hassle or ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization. Universities are no different to businesses in this respect; the success of colleges depends on the grunt work of grad students and professors not on the tenure track. Universities will openly deny sane living conditions to these people, and fire them for asking for enough to pay their rents. The way workers in this country are treated is god-awful, and I'm saddened by the people in this thread who are cheering the firing of these students.

csomar 7y ago
> The way workers in this country are treated is god-awful, and I'm saddened by the people in this thread who are cheering the firing of these students. I'm not cheering their firing. I'm just explaining why their strike did not work out as they wished. > ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization That's not how it works in the real world. You get paid by market rate; which means if there is someone else accepting a pay cut, you'll get fired and replaced. > Universities are no different to businesses in this respect Universities are a competitive business, too; and students pay high tuition fees. If the universities are out-competed, they can lose business/students. It's turtles all the way down.
- csb6 7y ago
  > That's not how it works in the real world. You get paid by market rate; which means if there is someone else accepting a pay cut, you'll get fired and replaced. I agree, that's true. It's almost as if this is an unjust system that devolves into a race to the bottom and inevitable exploitation of workers. And that in the real world, anyone who tries to fight against this system ends up screwed by their employers. I'm glad we could agree on the exploitation inherent to the labor market.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    The vast majority of people in the "labor market" are making livable wages. This is not the "unjust system" that a minority at the bottom are complaining about. In any case this "exploitation" is temporary for these student teachers and most importantly as others have pointed out, most of these students are foreign workers and personally I think it's a little exploitive for them to demand entitlements while harming the school to get their way - if it really is so bad no one is forcing them to study here.
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      [Unprintable]
  - dantheman 7y ago
    How is it exploitation? These people are students who are compensated while learning -- they're not full time staff. They get a degree at the end.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Many of these students are paid part-time to do essentially full-time jobs, and often find it difficult or even impossible take up outside employment.
      - refurb 7y ago
        These graduate students are TAing labs. It's nowhere near a full time job.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        You often end up doing 30-40 hours of work, but are only paid for 20.
        refurb 7y ago
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > You get paid by market rate; I love how people dismiss injustice with an appeal to "the market" as if the market was a force of nature rather than a manmade and human manipulated entity. Markets are created by a handful of people and affected by laws. And supply and demand is also an man-made creation. For example, by creating laws allowing seasonal migrants, you could affect the wages of farm workers. The same thing with work visas like H1-B. Also, laws favoring employers' rights and workers' rights can also affect wages. And of course "credentialing" and artificially limiting supply in the case of doctors affects wages. > Universities are a competitive business, too; Not really. Pretty much all the top universities stay at the top because of legacy. Also UC Santa Cruz is a public university. Very little chance it is going to be out-competed and put out of business.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Also UC Santa Cruz is a public university. Very little chance it is going to be out-competed and put out of business. Where do you think UC as a public institution would be if it lost political support of the faction allied with organized labor? It already doesn't have support from the opposing faction.
  - canjobear 7y ago
    > Also UC Santa Cruz is a public university. Very little chance it is going to be out-competed and put out of business. Relatively little of the funding for the UC's comes from the state. Tuition is a much larger percentage. So they do have a concern of being out-competed. https://www.dailycal.org/2018/08/08/2018-uc-accountability-report-shows-high-enrollment-despite-low-state-funding/ https://www.dailycal.org/2018/08/08/2018-uc-accountability-r...
  - allovernow 7y ago
    >than a manmade and human manipulated entity. The market is an emergency force. It isn't determined by a secret cabal of evil capitalists. It may not be a "force of nature" (although that is debatable because it is a direct consequence of natural properties like scarcity), but that doesn't mean it can be simply up and changed. >Markets are created by a handful of people and affected by laws I bake a bunch of bread. You grow a bunch of potatoes. We are both willing to trade. That's a market. All people participate in the market if they consume goods and/or offer labor.
jdm2212 7y ago
> Workers are treated as disposable Workers are treated as replaceable when they are in fact easily replaced. Grad students aren't even really workers, though. They're students where teaching responsibilities are part of their professional training, and as with most similar positions (apprenticeships and internships), they aren't especially lucrative and there's a line around the block to replace anyone who quits.
- csb6 7y ago
  > Grad students aren't even really workers "As part of its commitment to transparency and public accountability, each year the University of California publicly reports employee pay data. The report covers UC's career faculty and staff employees, as well as part-time, temporary and student employees." [1] I think the commonly accepted definition of worker is someone who is an employee and not a manager. Grad students are pretty clearly employees, according to the UC system. [1] https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/ https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/
  - dantheman 7y ago
    They're not workers in the traditional sense. What are other workers get degrees for their work?
    - michaericalribo 7y ago
      If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then for all intents and purposes, it is a duck. As a grad student, I taught 2 undergraduate courses a semester as the professor, the same load as a full faculty member—very much ‘workers in the traditional sense.’ Moreover, grad students are also writing a dissertation and doing research for their advisors and taking a full course load, and apparently in CA, also working a side job to pay their bills.
      - jdm2212 7y ago
        Grad students teaching courses is, as with interns, a hybrid role that is both paid employment and professional training. And, as with interns, the pay is much lower than an experienced industry veteran's salary [1] because part of the compensation comes in the form of experience, connections and resume-building. [1] There are two exceptions to the rule that interns don't get paid much: professional services and engineering. Both fields use internships almost exclusively as a recruiting tool and don't claim to provide any educational value.
zdragnar 7y ago
You're overlooking a few details: These workers belonged to a union The union did not endorse the strike The strike occured during a period of operation under an agreed-upon contract Re-opening the contract for negotiation would have lead to renegotiating for 90,000 other employees during a school year The workers were withholding student grades, harming others who have taken out a significant bet against their own futures that they would get good grades and eventually jobs to repay that financial aid There are a number of ways this could have played out, and was basically the second-to-worst case scenario. I am sympathetic to those working under an oppressive union and university, but there really wasn't going to be a different outcome given the path they took.
- beetwenty 7y ago
  A representative for the union that represents more than 19,000 academic workers across the University of California system said she was surprised by the university's decision. "We are shocked by UC's callousness, and by the violence that so many protesters experienced as they peacefully made the case for a cost of living increase," said Kavitha Iyengar, president of UAW Local 2865, in a statement. "Instead of firing TAs who are standing up for a decent standard of living for themselves, UC must sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a cost of living increase." Last week, the university filed an unfair labor practice charge against the union, claiming the union has failed to stop the wildcat strike by the graduate students as it is required to do by the collective bargaining agreement. The union responded by filing its own unfair labor practice charge, alleging the university has refused to meet with the union to negotiate a cost of living adjustment. Direct from the article. Care to back up your statement?
  - james-skemp 7y ago
    I thought the same thing as they. From the article: "The strike, which is not authorized by the union that represents the graduate student employees, is in violation of the current bargaining agreement, the university said." It's not clear that the union authorized it, despite what they're quoted as saying further down the article. I don't know enough about unions to know whether they could authorize a strike after not explicitly authorizing initially. It reads like the union didn't authorize the strike, but was fine seeing what would happen/causing a reaction.

by csb6 7y ago

csomar 7y ago

> The way workers in this country are treated is god-awful, and I'm saddened by the people in this thread who are cheering the firing of these students. I'm not cheering their firing. I'm just explaining why their strike did not work out as they wished. > ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization That's not how it works in the real world. You get paid by market rate; which means if there is someone else accepting a pay cut, you'll get fired and replaced. > Universities are no different to businesses in this respect Universities are a competitive business, too; and students pay high tuition fees. If the universities are out-competed, they can lose business/students. It's turtles all the way down.

csb6 7y ago
> That's not how it works in the real world. You get paid by market rate; which means if there is someone else accepting a pay cut, you'll get fired and replaced. I agree, that's true. It's almost as if this is an unjust system that devolves into a race to the bottom and inevitable exploitation of workers. And that in the real world, anyone who tries to fight against this system ends up screwed by their employers. I'm glad we could agree on the exploitation inherent to the labor market.
- allovernow 7y ago
  The vast majority of people in the "labor market" are making livable wages. This is not the "unjust system" that a minority at the bottom are complaining about. In any case this "exploitation" is temporary for these student teachers and most importantly as others have pointed out, most of these students are foreign workers and personally I think it's a little exploitive for them to demand entitlements while harming the school to get their way - if it really is so bad no one is forcing them to study here.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    [Unprintable]
- dantheman 7y ago
  How is it exploitation? These people are students who are compensated while learning -- they're not full time staff. They get a degree at the end.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Many of these students are paid part-time to do essentially full-time jobs, and often find it difficult or even impossible take up outside employment.
    - refurb 7y ago
      These graduate students are TAing labs. It's nowhere near a full time job.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        You often end up doing 30-40 hours of work, but are only paid for 20.
        refurb 7y ago
dntbnmpls 7y ago
> You get paid by market rate; I love how people dismiss injustice with an appeal to "the market" as if the market was a force of nature rather than a manmade and human manipulated entity. Markets are created by a handful of people and affected by laws. And supply and demand is also an man-made creation. For example, by creating laws allowing seasonal migrants, you could affect the wages of farm workers. The same thing with work visas like H1-B. Also, laws favoring employers' rights and workers' rights can also affect wages. And of course "credentialing" and artificially limiting supply in the case of doctors affects wages. > Universities are a competitive business, too; Not really. Pretty much all the top universities stay at the top because of legacy. Also UC Santa Cruz is a public university. Very little chance it is going to be out-competed and put out of business.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Also UC Santa Cruz is a public university. Very little chance it is going to be out-competed and put out of business. Where do you think UC as a public institution would be if it lost political support of the faction allied with organized labor? It already doesn't have support from the opposing faction.
- canjobear 7y ago
  > Also UC Santa Cruz is a public university. Very little chance it is going to be out-competed and put out of business. Relatively little of the funding for the UC's comes from the state. Tuition is a much larger percentage. So they do have a concern of being out-competed. https://www.dailycal.org/2018/08/08/2018-uc-accountability-report-shows-high-enrollment-despite-low-state-funding/ https://www.dailycal.org/2018/08/08/2018-uc-accountability-r...
- allovernow 7y ago
  >than a manmade and human manipulated entity. The market is an emergency force. It isn't determined by a secret cabal of evil capitalists. It may not be a "force of nature" (although that is debatable because it is a direct consequence of natural properties like scarcity), but that doesn't mean it can be simply up and changed. >Markets are created by a handful of people and affected by laws I bake a bunch of bread. You grow a bunch of potatoes. We are both willing to trade. That's a market. All people participate in the market if they consume goods and/or offer labor.

jdm2212 7y ago

> Workers are treated as disposable Workers are treated as replaceable when they are in fact easily replaced. Grad students aren't even really workers, though. They're students where teaching responsibilities are part of their professional training, and as with most similar positions (apprenticeships and internships), they aren't especially lucrative and there's a line around the block to replace anyone who quits.

csb6 7y ago
> Grad students aren't even really workers "As part of its commitment to transparency and public accountability, each year the University of California publicly reports employee pay data. The report covers UC's career faculty and staff employees, as well as part-time, temporary and student employees." [1] I think the commonly accepted definition of worker is someone who is an employee and not a manager. Grad students are pretty clearly employees, according to the UC system. [1] https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/ https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/
- dantheman 7y ago
  They're not workers in the traditional sense. What are other workers get degrees for their work?
  - michaericalribo 7y ago
    If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then for all intents and purposes, it is a duck. As a grad student, I taught 2 undergraduate courses a semester as the professor, the same load as a full faculty member—very much ‘workers in the traditional sense.’ Moreover, grad students are also writing a dissertation and doing research for their advisors and taking a full course load, and apparently in CA, also working a side job to pay their bills.
    - jdm2212 7y ago
      Grad students teaching courses is, as with interns, a hybrid role that is both paid employment and professional training. And, as with interns, the pay is much lower than an experienced industry veteran's salary [1] because part of the compensation comes in the form of experience, connections and resume-building. [1] There are two exceptions to the rule that interns don't get paid much: professional services and engineering. Both fields use internships almost exclusively as a recruiting tool and don't claim to provide any educational value.

zdragnar 7y ago

You're overlooking a few details: These workers belonged to a union The union did not endorse the strike The strike occured during a period of operation under an agreed-upon contract Re-opening the contract for negotiation would have lead to renegotiating for 90,000 other employees during a school year The workers were withholding student grades, harming others who have taken out a significant bet against their own futures that they would get good grades and eventually jobs to repay that financial aid There are a number of ways this could have played out, and was basically the second-to-worst case scenario. I am sympathetic to those working under an oppressive union and university, but there really wasn't going to be a different outcome given the path they took.

beetwenty 7y ago
A representative for the union that represents more than 19,000 academic workers across the University of California system said she was surprised by the university's decision. "We are shocked by UC's callousness, and by the violence that so many protesters experienced as they peacefully made the case for a cost of living increase," said Kavitha Iyengar, president of UAW Local 2865, in a statement. "Instead of firing TAs who are standing up for a decent standard of living for themselves, UC must sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a cost of living increase." Last week, the university filed an unfair labor practice charge against the union, claiming the union has failed to stop the wildcat strike by the graduate students as it is required to do by the collective bargaining agreement. The union responded by filing its own unfair labor practice charge, alleging the university has refused to meet with the union to negotiate a cost of living adjustment. Direct from the article. Care to back up your statement?
- james-skemp 7y ago
  I thought the same thing as they. From the article: "The strike, which is not authorized by the union that represents the graduate student employees, is in violation of the current bargaining agreement, the university said." It's not clear that the union authorized it, despite what they're quoted as saying further down the article. I don't know enough about unions to know whether they could authorize a strike after not explicitly authorizing initially. It reads like the union didn't authorize the strike, but was fine seeing what would happen/causing a reaction.