[PhDs] Unions

[Jack Atherton]

In general it's a collective bargaining organization that fights for the
welfare and rights of the students, including things like wage increases.
Here's the website for UC Berkeley's chapter of UAW: https://uaw2865.org/

Looking at Wikipedia, it seems like the stage has been set for unions for
Academic Student Employees only very recently, in the last few years. UAW
is also behind NYU's new union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_student_employee_unionization

Judging by the rhetoric "in the air" recently, one major area for
collective bargaining might be limiting graduate housing to 30% of a
graduate student's income, for example, or negotiating faster raises in the
income to keep up with the rising housing costs. We could also fight for
more oversight in making sure people aren't worked beyond their 20 hours
maximum per week, for another example.


On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 9:49 PM Vidya Rangasayee (வித்யா ரங்கசாயீ) <
vidya at ccrma.stanford.edu> wrote:

> That’s an interesting thought. Have never heard of it. What are the
> benefits of doing so. I was with faculty union over at SJSU but never
> really understood its workings
>
> Thanks
> Vidya
>
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 9:39 PM Jack Atherton <lja at ccrma.stanford.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi PhDs,
>>
>> I would send this to the grads listserve but I don’t know for sure which
>> faculty / staff have access to it. If someone knows better, feel free to
>> loop it in.
>>
>> Has anyone heard mutterings of the grad student TA/RAs finally
>> unionizing? This might be a good moment in time to put pressure on the
>> university while they are in a hard place and when they might make some
>> decisions which are upsetting to many of the grad students. I know that at
>> UC Berkeley it is mandatory to be a member of the union, even if you are an
>> undergraduate just doing grading for a class (I was in that situation
>> once). Maybe their precedent or some other could be used as a model.
>>
>> Let me know if you have any thoughts,
>> Jack
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>
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