Opiniatrety

I don't consider myself well-educated enough to have my own position on the issue, but I am at Brown and have been exposed to the rhetoric on both sides. The most pursuasive anti-unionization argument I've heard is that for graduate students at private universities, the interests of the students and the long-term interests of the university converge. The idea, I think, is that the employer-emmployee dynamic is not present, even though we obviously depend on the university for our support.

Jonathan--
I don't mean to come down hard on the pro-union side, only on the question of whether grad students count as employees. It may be that the interests of students and long-term interests of the university converge, but is that enough to subvert the employer-employee dynamic?

Also, there may be a risk that the university fails to act in its long-term interest....

At most factories the interests of the factory and the interest of the workers coincide on most issues. (E.g. demand for what's being produced staying high, the factory not being destroyed by terrorist attack, it being a happy workplace, etc.) But that's *no reason whatsoever* to keep unions out of factories. I'd be very surprised if the interests of the university and the interests of the students were a particularly closer match than our factory and its workers.

*our* factory? Are you trying to say something about Cornell? :-)

This has been somewhat of a problem at the U in terms of health benefits for grad students. It will only be next year that funded grad students get health insurance covered (80% covered, that is). Of course those grad students who will be on fellowships next year do not get this benefit...it's a lucky thing that some of us have our acting gigs to fall back on! :)

I wouldn't count on that either...

And--Clorinda? Who knew?

Everyone knows that--and you call yourself a fan... ;0

It's worth noting that even those who are in important ways "anti-union" can be strongly opposed to the NLRB's decision. (I think this is in the spirit of Matt's first response -- the second comment above.) I, for instance, was in some sense "anti-union" when the issue was being debated at Yale: I thought it was unwise for Yale graduate students to unionize. (This position had to do with details of the situation at Yale, and wouldn't necessarily hold for other universities.) But I thought it was their decision, and they should be given the right to decide (collectively, by an appropriate voting mechanism). Considerations about graduate students' interests seem like they could possibly make one "anti-union" in the sense that I was here at Yale. But that could leave you strongly opposed to the NLRB decision.

Keith, that's right--I wouldn't want to preempt any judgments about the merits of unionization in any particular case, but I think the rationale that graduate students shouldn't be able to unionize because they aren't employees is ridiculous.

What is the question? I thought it had something to do with whether graduate students work for a living.

Here's an interesting line Matt wrote: "it's a total non-starter to pretend that grad students aren't adults working at jobs that usually serve as their sole means of support."

First, the proposition presumes that grad students are adults. Are grad students adults? What is an adult? And, how do I (clearly)distinguish an adult from an adolescent?

Second, does a job that serves as the sole means of support translate into something that should be unionized? For instance, social security might be the sole means of support for some senior citizens. Senior citizens might argue that day-to-day living does (indeed) qualify as a job for them - and a high risk one at that. Should they be allowed to unionize? What about those whose sole means of support is welfare? Should they be allowed to unionize?

Finally, I am not clear about the "employer-employee" relationship in the university setting. Is the employer the "university?" Is it the Provost, Dean, Department Chair? Or, is it someone (or something) else? What's the product of the university? Also, being an employee means doing work. Many graduate students I know don't do the work they are assigned. We need only refer to the many "I"s on transcripts to show that the students don't work. If they were employees, then they would have been (and should have been) fired a long (long) time before accruing so many "I"s.