NLRB: Grad students in private universities lose the right to unionize!

[KrazyHorse]

Hey, Jimmy: I don't know what the **** your girlfriend has a degree in, but why don't you explain to me how it is that a TA makes good money when somebody who gets a job in industry with an equivalent education in physics makes 3 times as much?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ok, lets do a compromise. TA's get the right to unionize fully and completely, IF the employers are allowed to fire them for any reason they can think of (well except for Constitutionally prohibited ones, of course).

Good? No? Oh well, I tried .

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
So is your argument simply against all unions? If the guy sweeping up at a warehouse doesn't find his job special then why'd he apply? Why should him and the other floor-sweepers have a union? If he doesn't want to sweep floors then there are other people who would be willing to.

That's nice. But here is the point.

Legally if they say you can form a union, then fine, form a union. Shoot yourselves in the foot.

Practically unions these days are no good and even to the point of being counterproductive and harmful to the very people they are trying to protect.

Secondly the formation of union should only be considered when working conditions have become so terrible that they become abusive. Low pay and long hours, give me a break! Every worker in America should form a union given those (relative in the eye of the beholder) conditions! A cushy teaching assistant job does not meet these conditions especially considering there are many other alternatives available to "pay for food and rent."

And finally I have seen cases where union abuse and corruption runs so rampant and especially when workers are practically FORCED to join the damn thing and have no control over their own fate.

Like I said, trading one pimp for another.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Haha, TAing is a joke job if there ever was one. You don't deserve to unionize, you probably don't even deserve your job.

My girlfriend is a TA, and MAN what a joke. She does NOTHING, and gets paid good money for it. You grade papers, MAYBE sit over a discussion group a couple times a month. Give me a break, you're students who got a break by a Prof letting you help them out AND you get paid for it. Its the equivalent of mowing your neighbors lawn. If you want to unionize, go bag groceries.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Hey, Jimmy: I don't know what the **** your girlfriend has a degree in, but why don't you explain to me how it is that a TA makes good money when somebody who gets a job in industry with an equivalent education in physics makes 3 times as much?

She has a degree in nothing, she's still undergrad, but got the TAship anyways because of her grades. She's getting something like 600 twice a month for like 5 hours of actual TA work per work. Plus all these grad students have loans and scholarships too.

Its good money if you're a student, if you want a better job, drop out of school and get one.

[Ted Striker]

And regarding the immigration thing, that's a separate issue. If students are being abused because of their immigration status then that needs to be dealt with but not through a union.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

I hate TAs, and they shouldn't be unionized. At my uni they are unionized and at least every year they threaten to go on strike because they demand more pay, and yet they are amongst the highest paid employees in the university, making more than librarians and technicians and custodial and construction staff... ie, people with real jobs, not lame ass students.

Cry me a river.

[Ted Striker]

That is the exact situation of why I find the unions harmful. Meanwhile the rest of the university is harmed by their actions.

Primadonnas for sure.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn


She has a degree in nothing, she's still undergrad, but got the TAship anyways because of her grades. She's getting something like 600 twice a month for like 5 hours of actual TA work per work. Plus all these grad students have loans and scholarships too.

Its good money if you're a student, if you want a better job, drop out of school and get one.

Then your girlfriend has no right to complain because she's making as much as a grad student without having the same qualifications as a grad student.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
That is the exact situation of why I find the unions harmful. Meanwhile the rest of the university is harmed by their actions.

Primadonnas for sure.

Yeah, and they force us all to cross picket lines just to get to class, and the buses won't go over them so we have to walk an extra couple miles to get to campus in the first place. All so some other students can afford to go drinking more often and buy lates for 15 hours of work per week.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
yet they are amongst the highest paid employees in the university, making more than librarians and technicians and custodial and construction staff

BS. You have any figures to back this up or are you talking out of your ass?

[Ted Striker]

Who said she was complaining?

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Then your girlfriend has no right to complain because she's making as much as a grad student without having the same qualifications as a grad student.

She doesn't complain. She is now anti-TA and hates them all, now that she realizes how little they actually do and how much they get paid to (not) do it. Her getting the job was what filled us both in to the ugly world of TAing.

[KrazyHorse]

I was pointing out the difference between somebody who's gotten their degree and somebody who hasn't.

And as to the actual topic, you've basically conceded that grad students have as much right to form a union as any other employee does?

[Ted Striker]

No they don't.

They are still considered students.

So there!