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Half the reason I'm ambivalent about unionization is that I was involved with the graduate student union when I was in school. The nominal reason for it was to

Half the reason I'm ambivalent about unionization is that I was involved with the graduate student union when I was in school. The nominal reason for it was to improve working conditions and pay for grad students. In practice, it improved very little, and added a modest amount of overhead, in the form of a union apparatus which fed itself by taking a little bite out of those paychecks every month. To be clear, the net result was still higher pay overall, but not a lot. All in all, it really had only a small overall effect on us students, and didn't hurt the university much. It felt like the real winner was the UAW itself, which is the source of my mixed feelings.

qzx_pierri 5y ago
As long as human beings run a union, the union will be self serving.
- dmitriid_y 5y ago
  As long as a tyrant is unchallenged, they will remain a tyrant.
  - qzx_pierri 5y ago
    What does this reply even mean? Are you seriously comparing the privileged plights within the ranks of academia to victims of a tyrannical ruler?
    - spacemanmatt 5y ago
      It's germane. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_tyranny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_tyranny * https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247717438_Petty_Tyranny_in_Organizations https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247717438_Petty_Tyr...
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Who is running the university? Robots?
bjourne 5y ago
> To be clear, the net result was still higher pay overall, but not a lot. Then I don't understand your ambivalence. Who would complain about getting more money?
- IMTDb 5y ago
  Because it probably cost a lot more to the institution than it brought to the intended target. A middleman takes the bulk of the additional investment, without providing that much value in itself. And that money came from somewhere, probably partly from profits, but also from other investments (buildings, teaching material, ...). Overall teacher got a little bit more, but both the org and the students lost a lot, comparatively.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    At many universities, there's a massive stash of funds: the Athletics Department, which is a completely different organization and therefore off the table. Also, university administration lover building pyramids of hierarchy. When you add a level to the pyramid, everybody gets a raise. Executive salaries are ludicrous -- and similar to the bank execs in the '08 bailouts, they cut themselves bonuses for "saving money" on handling disasters of their own creation. By and large, university endowments are treated as separate investment vehicles and are no longer used to ease times of hardship. Universities have largely been sold out. What was once a venerable public institution is now run like a profit-driven business. Welcome to wal-mart.
- chmod600 5y ago
  It's like class-action lawsuits: sure, maybe you get $2.43, but the lawyers are really the beneficiaries. The individual is just used to justify the whole thing.
  - HarryHirsch 5y ago
    No, the lawyer's job in a class action is to hold the someone accountable to prevent recurrences. They did a job, so they ought to be paid. If some company habitually breaks the law and causes damages to a large group of people you can either pray that the Attorney General takes the case (but they won't, they want to advance their political career) or a law firm will take the case out of pure financial interest. I'll go with the law firm.
wyldfire 5y ago
> The nominal reason for it was to improve working conditions and pay for grad students. In practice, it improved very little It might be interesting to consider how much worse the pay or conditions could have gotten in the union's absence.
hedora 5y ago
You had an unusually positive experience with UAW. They own the UC system contract, and negotiated pay caps, lowering grad student pay on some campuses. They also negotiated to discontine coverage for various women's health issues. Just before COVID, UC Santa Cruz went on a wildcat strike because the union negotiated pay for that campus below the cost of living. A bunch of foreign students lost their visas as a result. In the second two cases, the grad students tried, but failed to organize against the union. Most obvious routes to correcting the situation are illegal. In particular, organizing a strike against the union, or organizing a replacement union would have been illegal.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  It is amazing that unions get a legal monopoly in this manner, and it is not surprising that, with such rights, they fail their constituents, preferring to amass money and power for a corrupt leadership. Imagine a world with two or three unions per employer and you could actually pick which one you were under. They’d actually have incentives to deliver! But we’ll never have that because it means less lobbying money and smaller campaign contributions to our representatives in government.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    This is a bad idea for a number of different reasons. I'll highlight one. The actual "competition" wouldn't be among which union the employees joined - rather they would compete to undercut each other on contract negotiation, which would only bolster the employer's hand. There are good reasons why this is not common practice - but there is also no law preventing multiple unions.
    - Manuel_D 5y ago
      Unions are competing both for contracts with employers, but also for employees among other unions. If Union A is demanding but gives good pay, Union B is more laid back but has less reward, and Union C is both demanding and gives poor bay then it will fail as A or B grows. If there are no competing unions and you're in union C, then you've got no options but to quit or try and topple the union (impossible, effectively).
lokar 5y ago
As a UAW steward I represented (with lawyers provided by the UAW) students in arbitration who were being treated unfairly by the UC (breaking their own rules). It was a positive experience.
- wardedVibe 5y ago
  As a former UC grad student, thank you for your labor.
wardedVibe 5y ago
Fwiw, UAW has recently had a major shake up, where the corrupt leadership of the overall union just got prosecuted, and actual one person one vote is being voted on, so I expect you (and I) caught them at the worst possible time. I'm definitely more weary of large cross sectoral unions than before my time at UC though.

qzx_pierri 5y ago

As long as human beings run a union, the union will be self serving.

dmitriid_y 5y ago
As long as a tyrant is unchallenged, they will remain a tyrant.
- qzx_pierri 5y ago
  What does this reply even mean? Are you seriously comparing the privileged plights within the ranks of academia to victims of a tyrannical ruler?
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    It's germane. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_tyranny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_tyranny * https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247717438_Petty_Tyranny_in_Organizations https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247717438_Petty_Tyr...
whimsicalism 5y ago
Who is running the university? Robots?

bjourne 5y ago

> To be clear, the net result was still higher pay overall, but not a lot. Then I don't understand your ambivalence. Who would complain about getting more money?

IMTDb 5y ago
Because it probably cost a lot more to the institution than it brought to the intended target. A middleman takes the bulk of the additional investment, without providing that much value in itself. And that money came from somewhere, probably partly from profits, but also from other investments (buildings, teaching material, ...). Overall teacher got a little bit more, but both the org and the students lost a lot, comparatively.
- klyrs 5y ago
  At many universities, there's a massive stash of funds: the Athletics Department, which is a completely different organization and therefore off the table. Also, university administration lover building pyramids of hierarchy. When you add a level to the pyramid, everybody gets a raise. Executive salaries are ludicrous -- and similar to the bank execs in the '08 bailouts, they cut themselves bonuses for "saving money" on handling disasters of their own creation. By and large, university endowments are treated as separate investment vehicles and are no longer used to ease times of hardship. Universities have largely been sold out. What was once a venerable public institution is now run like a profit-driven business. Welcome to wal-mart.
chmod600 5y ago
It's like class-action lawsuits: sure, maybe you get $2.43, but the lawyers are really the beneficiaries. The individual is just used to justify the whole thing.
- HarryHirsch 5y ago
  No, the lawyer's job in a class action is to hold the someone accountable to prevent recurrences. They did a job, so they ought to be paid. If some company habitually breaks the law and causes damages to a large group of people you can either pray that the Attorney General takes the case (but they won't, they want to advance their political career) or a law firm will take the case out of pure financial interest. I'll go with the law firm.

wyldfire 5y ago

> The nominal reason for it was to improve working conditions and pay for grad students. In practice, it improved very little It might be interesting to consider how much worse the pay or conditions could have gotten in the union's absence.

hedora 5y ago

You had an unusually positive experience with UAW. They own the UC system contract, and negotiated pay caps, lowering grad student pay on some campuses. They also negotiated to discontine coverage for various women's health issues. Just before COVID, UC Santa Cruz went on a wildcat strike because the union negotiated pay for that campus below the cost of living. A bunch of foreign students lost their visas as a result. In the second two cases, the grad students tried, but failed to organize against the union. Most obvious routes to correcting the situation are illegal. In particular, organizing a strike against the union, or organizing a replacement union would have been illegal.

fennecfoxen 5y ago
It is amazing that unions get a legal monopoly in this manner, and it is not surprising that, with such rights, they fail their constituents, preferring to amass money and power for a corrupt leadership. Imagine a world with two or three unions per employer and you could actually pick which one you were under. They’d actually have incentives to deliver! But we’ll never have that because it means less lobbying money and smaller campaign contributions to our representatives in government.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  This is a bad idea for a number of different reasons. I'll highlight one. The actual "competition" wouldn't be among which union the employees joined - rather they would compete to undercut each other on contract negotiation, which would only bolster the employer's hand. There are good reasons why this is not common practice - but there is also no law preventing multiple unions.
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    Unions are competing both for contracts with employers, but also for employees among other unions. If Union A is demanding but gives good pay, Union B is more laid back but has less reward, and Union C is both demanding and gives poor bay then it will fail as A or B grows. If there are no competing unions and you're in union C, then you've got no options but to quit or try and topple the union (impossible, effectively).

lokar 5y ago

As a UAW steward I represented (with lawyers provided by the UAW) students in arbitration who were being treated unfairly by the UC (breaking their own rules). It was a positive experience.

wardedVibe 5y ago
As a former UC grad student, thank you for your labor.

wardedVibe 5y ago

Fwiw, UAW has recently had a major shake up, where the corrupt leadership of the overall union just got prosecuted, and actual one person one vote is being voted on, so I expect you (and I) caught them at the worst possible time. I'm definitely more weary of large cross sectoral unions than before my time at UC though.