University of Chicago Graduate Students Vote to Unionize
In higher ED this seems like a long time coming.Grad students essentially work as slaves for the Uni's & professors with triple-duty in lab time for professor + teaching + self-research.Their reward comes in notoriety & bi-lines on research that helps them become professors in their own right in higher ed.The cost is minimized rights to IP they've been crucial in inventing, outrageously low wages, and an average of $100k (1) in debt.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.And it shows in the data - there are now a "glut" of PhD's that are far outpacing the very limited # of academic positions.The system needs fixing and if unionization exerts some pressure on correcting the macro problem I am all for it.(1) https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/03/25/how-much-out...(2) https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2016/10/academic-job-market-...