I was a graduate student with a research assistantship position at the University of Washington in the mid 2000s, a few years after they unionized and got a contract with the UAW.
By the time I was there, even though it was only a few years after the union struggle, I didn't hear much about the union, at least in my department.
But what I knew it meant was: we had good health insurance, we had a guaranteed minimum stipend, we had the right to actually take vacation during university vacations, and a certain number of sick days. I knew from talking to oother students, that before the union contract, grad students with assistantships didn't necessarily have these things (it depended on department), and sometimes literally got no vacation or allowed sick leave at all.
I was aware of no ways that the presence of a graduate student union harmed the grad students involved -- to the contrary of some suppositions in this thread. Grad student unions exist in dozens of universities, some for years now, so it's possible to look at actual experiences, not just forecasting supposition. I was also aware of no ways the union harmed research or academics at the university (beyond of course costing them more money to treat the grad students right).
I wonder if a few years after I left, most grad students even realized what the union had won for them. The union was not very visible, once the fight for a contract was over.
I was also a grad student at the University of Washington and my feeling was that the union was a net-negative. I remember one time in particular when my advisor had an extra funding source for me but the union rules didn't allow her to hire me in that position. It's hard for me to understand why business the union has in inserting itself in between the relationship between me and my advisor.
On top of that, the union took a portion of pay pay from each check. I wish they would give me a refund.
In general the presence of collective bargaining is going to limit the presence of the few best case employment scenarios, but with the advantage of preventing a lot of the really bad cases. It is a collectivist action after all.
Sure you didn’t get some advantage you could have gotten from a kind professor. But it protected many more people from abuse and low pay
> we had good health insurance, we had a guaranteed minimum stipend, we had the right to actually take vacation during university vacations, and a certain number of sick days. I knew from talking to oother students, that before the union contract, grad students with assistantships didn't necessarily have these things (it depended on department), and sometimes literally got no vacation or allowed sick leave at all.
I was in a union as a PhD student. The union did nonsense things like running a (bad) cafe. My pay was set by my funders so the union didn’t have any say on that or any leverage on anything else at all really. Wasn’t sure what the point was. I just opted out after a while. I don’t think they added anything of value whatsoever.
By the time I was there, even though it was only a few years after the union struggle, I didn't hear much about the union, at least in my department.
But what I knew it meant was: we had good health insurance, we had a guaranteed minimum stipend, we had the right to actually take vacation during university vacations, and a certain number of sick days. I knew from talking to oother students, that before the union contract, grad students with assistantships didn't necessarily have these things (it depended on department), and sometimes literally got no vacation or allowed sick leave at all.
I was aware of no ways that the presence of a graduate student union harmed the grad students involved -- to the contrary of some suppositions in this thread. Grad student unions exist in dozens of universities, some for years now, so it's possible to look at actual experiences, not just forecasting supposition. I was also aware of no ways the union harmed research or academics at the university (beyond of course costing them more money to treat the grad students right).
I wonder if a few years after I left, most grad students even realized what the union had won for them. The union was not very visible, once the fight for a contract was over.