I might be a strike-breaker.

Our union for graduate student teaching assistants might be going on strike. I'm not a member of the union so they had a union representative ask me whether I wanted to join and if I would cancel class next week if they decided to go ahead with the strike. I said no and no but she was too pushy to take no for an answer so I just said sorry and hung up on her. Unions try to guilt trip you because you'd benefit from higher wages but you're not participating in the process that would help get them. But I really don't care about the $50 per month that my salary might go up. I care a lot about doing a good job of teaching and the whole thing just doesn't seem fair to the students who are paying a lot of money to go to school here.

I don't think public employees like teachers and police officers should go on strike in the first place because it hurts the public. Strikes by private employees are fine with me because the only one being hurt is the company. For example, if I worked in a factory, I wouldn't break a strike.

Does anyone think there's anything wrong with me going to class and ignoring the union? I feel like 30 years ago people used to look down on strike-breakers a lot and call them names like "fink" but not so much anymore. But I've never been involved with this type of situations before so maybe I'm out of touch. Anyone else have any stories about going on strike from a job?

fuck em

why would TAs want to go on strike?? more details plz

More insurance, higher wages, that's about it.

I was the same way mcat. Most people TA for 2 years, what's the point of an extra $50? The school would have to be fucking something up for me to strike

yeah seems like lolcollegedramaments to me

when I was in college I was one of 5-10 managers at the dining hall. We had regular student employees who worked
for us along with a staff of cooks and main. guys who were full timer local types. They almost went on strike and I was going to support them. They worked long hours at a crappy job and had to deal with goofballs like me.

But if the students were going to strike I would have told them to STFU. No one has it better and complains more then college students.

If it's just for a $50 a month raise I think that's an awful reason to strike. I think you're doing the right thing.

I agree with you mcat. I grew up in Southwestern PA, the heart of the steel industry in this country. Most families had 3 generations that worked in the mills. I'd envy my friends going to work for $10+ per hour out of HS when the minimum wage was only $1.60 hr. Twenty years got you 13 weeks paid vacation, sick time, holidays, and double time and a half if you worked a holiday. It's no wonder the mills could no longer compete with steel imports. The mill towns just died and people moved out as mill after mill closed.

When I worked at the University of Pittsburgh in the early 1970's a union rep tried to organize the employees to unionize. As a kid I was all for it, I thought man now I'll be making some money. Then as I took it all in I realizied the pay wasn't great but, we got Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Major Medical, and if we wanted free dental we could go t o the Dental School. We got 2 weeks paid vacation after 1 year, 10 paid holidays, 10 sick days, not to mention all the perks of being on a major college campus. The vote was soundly defeated.

The bottom line is ,if employers treat their employees well there is no reason for a union.

I have had a small auto repair business in FL for 22 years. I have one technician who has been with me 20 years, another 10, and the third left after 15 years when he moved. This is unheard of in this industry.

Getting back to the OP, you're right unions were once needed but outlived their usefulness long ago.

you play well. nh.

You summed it up nicely. If you were a private employee things would be much different, but you're not.

I'd also think about how this shapes things long-term for you. Will this have any impact on your chances of landing a job in the future, considering you'll want to teach at the University you're at now? The consequences of taking part (or not taking part) in the strike could help/hurt you later on. Take that into consideration.

If it were me I wouldn't be apart of this, not for $50 extra per month for the next two years. The amount of extra money you'll make will not make up for the time your students miss from school. That said, your students definitely want you to be a part of this strike so they'll have their classes canceled, but that's neither here nor there.

" No one has it better and complains more then college students."

yea

I'm a grad student and a union member. I think there are very good reasons for TAs/RAs to unionize and once in a blue moon a good reason for them to strike. I think striking is a personal decision and no one should be trying to pressure you into it. I do think you should take the time to hear them out so that you can make an informed decision, but you don't even owe them that.

I don't have time to post a full defense of grad student unionization atm, but in many programs where funding isn't abundant (non-science and engineering) grad students are expected to be full-time employees and full-time students. Because the university considers them students first, they aren't guaranteed the pay or benefits that other university employees are. People like to argue, "well, they're getting a free education". That sounds nice, but it isn't much consolation when you're working full-time teaching/grading and another 30-40 hours/week on your research and still taking out loans just to get by. Without TAs/RAs most universities would shut down, so I think they should be paid a fair, living wage with benefits, or the roles of teacher and student should be separated completely.

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Originally Posted by Galapogos

If it's just for a $50 a month raise I think that's an awful reason to strike. I think you're doing the right thing.

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I don't have a clue what they're actually asking for, I just made that number up because I didn't feel like listening to the union representative tell me her story of woe. I'm getting such a sweet deal that it seems ungrateful to complain. Tuition is at a good university costs a lot of money and I'm getting $1600/month on top of that, just for ~15 hours a week of work. And yeah the Bay Area is expensive so that leaves us with hardly any disposable income (if it weren't for poker) but I don't see how the university owes me anything more than just enough money to get by.

Zook, how many different classes are you responsible for? Six? I can't imagine getting assigned so many classes that it feels like a full-time job to you.

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Originally Posted by mcatdog

Zook, how many different classes are you responsible for? Six? I can't imagine getting assigned so many classes that it feels like a full-time job to you.

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No, life is good in the health sciences. I'm an RA, not a TA and the research I'm doing for my thesis pays my stipend. I've had to teach one semester, total. But I dated a girl getting her English PhD and her life was miserable. TA positions are competitive in most humanities depts and if you're lucky enough to get one, they're a ton of work (full-time is probably an exaggeration though, maybe 30 hrs/week). You're teaching your own classes, not just TA'ing sections. She's the one who convinced me that unions have a place in grad school. Before our school unionized, TA's had no caps on workload, no guaranteed health benefits, no guaranteed pay increases to keep pace with inflation, the list goes on.

I don't know the specifics of the situation at your school, and I think strikes are very hard to justify, but it's worth considering that students in other programs likely have it much worse than you do.

mcat- i think u should trust urself to make sound moral choices. the crux of this matter is that you dont need the disposable income and so u r less receptive to the wants of the rest of the union.

does that mean you should/should not join? You have to make a distinction between the importance of ur work to the students or to ur peers....

great point zook. I forget that I was in a great setup because I was in engineering. Expecting more than 20 hours is unreasonable IMO.

What would you suggest teachers and other public employees do when none of their demands are met? These people play some of the most important roles in our society and they are way under appreciated. Its sad that it has to come to this, but what else can they do?

In your specific situation, yah it seems fine to just go on working, it also seems fine to join up and support the strike. I dont think theres really a wrong choice.

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Originally Posted by drmcboy

But if the students were going to strike I would have told them to STFU. No one has it better and complains more then college students.

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I have zero professors. I have researchers bringing in money and delegating all of their classes to unimaginative and over-worked TAs. I pay 10k per semester, make zero money for the 40 hrs/week of work that I do. My "work" is always just playing imagination with technical papers. Which are "graded" by graders who barely read 10% of my paper. I have mapped flow over a cylinder in an open-jet wind tunnel 5 times. How many cylinders do you see flying through the air?

I have 1 professor that fails (D or worse, all engineering pre-reqs require C-) half of his aero/hydrodynamics class. Which is a prereq for all of senior year. He holds this class in an auditorium with no desks. His two TAs are mechanical engineers who have never taken an in depth aero/hydrodynamics. Because of him, many student need to stay an extra semester. He is also the president of the AIAA. Professor Dr. Simpson. http://www.ratevtteachers.com/detail.asp?id=3223

Every aspect of every one of my classes insults me. None of my professors respect any of their students. Have you seen what happens when a professor makes a terrible test then defends it? One example was a question where theory suggested one answer, but because of the given dimensions the answer suggested another (to seven decimal point accuracy). Though our plug-and-chug answers were verified correct, none of us received credit.

I live in a world where I'm judged by people who don't know or care about me. They attach letter grades to me in ways so infuriating that I almost can't believe that I consider college to be the greatest thing to ever happen to me.

Just because all of my complaints aren't "real world" complaints doesn't make them any less. But my "world" is on the door step of the "real world" and I can't wait to get out.