University of Chicago Graduate Students Vote to Unionize
In higher ED this seems like a long time coming.<p>Grad students essentially work as slaves for the Uni's & professors with triple-duty in lab time for professor + teaching + self-research.<p>Their reward comes in notoriety & bi-lines on research that helps them become professors in their own right in higher ed.<p>The cost is minimized rights to IP they've been crucial in inventing, outrageously low wages, and an average of $100k (1) in debt.<p>The brutality is sold as a right of passage, but the reality is the incentives are completely out of whack - uni's have an inverse incentive to admit Phd / grad students to benefit from the wage-slave / revenue generating aspect.<p>And it shows in the data - there are now a "glut" of PhD's that are far outpacing the very limited # of academic positions.<p>The system needs fixing and if unionization exerts some pressure on correcting the macro problem I am all for it.<p>(1) <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/03/25/how-much-outstanding-loan-debt-is-from-grad-students-more-than-you-think" rel="nofollow">https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/03/25/how-much-out...</a><p>(2) <a href="https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2016/10/academic-job-market-tottering-nobodys-telling-graduate-students/" rel="nofollow">https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2016/10/academic-job-market-...</a>