Graduate students at the University of Southern California have won a union

I don&#x27;t think I understood how poor graduate student wages were until years after I was employed as one.<p>I had worked at a natural foods co-op for a few years between undergrad and grad school, and although my marketing role paid more than some floor jobs, I was blown away when I started as a teaching assistant and made essentially the same wage. I could make the same money grading papers as I had in the real world? No way! Then I entered the private sector again where my starting wage was twice what I made in academia. And I thought I was rich. Until a few years later when I was making multiples of my former hourly rate.<p>Lots of folks in these roles have no idea what their time is worth. I kick myself for being so naïve at the time.

&gt; No. of Eligible Voters:2861<p>&gt; Total Ballots Counted:1721<p>&gt; Votes for Labor Union:1599<p>&gt; Votes Against:122<p>93% for, with 60% turnout. Wow!<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nlrb.gov&#x2F;case&#x2F;31-RC-308858" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nlrb.gov&#x2F;case&#x2F;31-RC-308858</a>

The University of Calgary has a graduate student union, and it worked pretty well. Our minimum salary for teaching assistantship was pretty good. Health benefits were good. We were told quite clearly by the union that if we were asked to work more, to just tell them, and they would take care of it.<p>So the department never gave us more work than the maximum allowed by the agreement between the union and the university - in fact, usually they put 10-15 hours of leeway every semester, because they didn&#x27;t want to be in breach of the contract.

The terrible employment conditions put me off post-grad. I was considered a rising star in my field and published in undergrad. I had offers of PhD places.<p>But I just looked at the career path and thought &quot;I don&#x27;t want to be poor long into my 40s in the vague hope I will eventually be able to get a job with actual pay and have nice things&quot;.<p>People act like there is a nobility to this. But there isn&#x27;t. It&#x27;s just a way of reserving certain professions for people with wealthy parents. And it means instead of having the most motivated, the brightest etc, you just get well-off kids who can&#x27;t be bothered to make the jump to other careers. Not that I am bitter... :)<p>You see something similar in Medicine here in the UK: terrible pay and crazy hours for the first 10 years, then you get a pay-off. That&#x27;s great if mum and dad will cover your rent until you&#x27;re ~34, but otherwise you can kiss goodbye to being a doctor and having a family.

&gt; SARA WEXLER Will the union make any demands in the contract or bargaining process about USC and its relationship to the Los Angeles community at large — concerning rents, inequality, gentrification?<p>&gt; YONI HIRSHBERG I think those types of things fall outside of the scope of labor negotiations. So the contract will include things like our wages and working conditions.<p>I think this is the way forward if we want widespread unionization. Unions have to focus on making the lives of their members better. Wading into culture wars, even if you think you are doing good, will in the long run cause division and weaken the unionization effort.

On one hand, given the inherent scarcity of &quot;good schools&quot; any concession will likely be paid for by students at large in the form of tuition increases.<p>On the other hand, tuition increases were going to happen anyway, so you might as well get something from it.<p>In any case, it&#x27;s good to see people standing up for themselves. Your move, USC.

That&#x27;s what grad programs need, a healthy dose of bureaucracy!<p>One of my first thoughts was about how &#x27;tenure&#x27; works. I once had a <i>horrible</i> professor that provided next to zero value for his classes. (He would literally just sit at the head of the class and repeat &quot;Read your books! What you need is in there!&quot; With nothing else added, ever.) Yet he remained on the payroll, thanks to his tenure.<p>I fear a union will bring similar inefficiencies here.

Good for them, but the cynic in me is telling me that tuition will continue to significantly outpace inflation, in part bc of this. $100K&#x2F;year to attend a prestigious college isn’t far off imo.

I don&#x27;t really understand what leverage they have here. The school controls the issuance of their degree and if they strike they will just be delaying that. A strike would be a headache for the university, but from what I understand about grad school, pissing off the professor you work for is a near death sentence.<p>Good to see them pushing back but I guess I don&#x27;t see the system as fixable without a complete overhaul.