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

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Everyone should be able to unionize, its their labor, they can do with it what they will.

Everyone should be allowed to hire and fire at will, it's their money, they can do with it what they will.

Sadly, if one is not allowed than there's more damage in allowing the other than in forbidding it.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Ramo
What the hell are you talking about?

I'm talking about starting from the bottom. You can't expect to have everything. The kids are greedy and want money. that's all it comes down to. You'd think its enough their rich parents are putting them through grad school.

All the generations before them had to do the same thing. Lab work for no pay. It's like an initiation.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Dissident
You'd think its enough their rich parents are putting them through grad school.
.

The reason the students have the TA jobs is because they aren't rich, they need the $$ to live. How clueless are you?

In fact, it seems a lot of people in here haven't a clue as to what they're talking about. Kuciwalker, I suggest you might actually wait until you've even gone to college before you weigh in on such matters, hmm?

[Ted Striker]

And AGAIN, there are plenty of other jobs you can do. You guys keep making it sound like it's the absolute only job available on the face of the earth.

TA job is a special job that is a privilege to have. I agree with Dissident that there is alot of primadonna attitude going on here. Pay your damn dues like the rest of the student body and stop expecting to be treated like kings. That's the way the world works, start at the bottom and work your way up the way the rest of the world does.

[Ramo]

My "rich parents" (my mom's so rich, that I have to help her out with paying her bills) aren't putting me through college or grad school or anything else. Work and loans are putting me through school. You might've had your parents prop you up, but I don't.

Generations of TA's and RA's have been paid. It's not a special privilege, it's the way the system works. And for damn good reason. Science would come to a grinding halt if there weren't any grad students for those in permanent positions to do all the work. The institution of a university would stop working without TA's to help teach classes.

And once again, you're not going to find anyone willing to volunteer 20 or 30 hours for "experience" in a field probably unrelated to what they want to study, unless they're wealthy enough to get by on their own. I guess Ted believes that teaching/research assistantships ought to be the exclusive province of the rich.

I'm not demanding anything special that the rest of the student body does not have. I'm not demanding to be treated like a "king" or any such bull**** (indeed, most of the working students at UT have the right to form a union). I just want to be treated like any other worker, and not have the state prohibit me from collectively bargaining. I don't see why I need your acceptance, as it ought to be the right of any person.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
And AGAIN, there are plenty of other jobs you can do.

Same goes for factory workers, too, right? I mean, they could always just go get a job elsewhere, can't they? So screw their right to unionize!

Please.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Dissident
The kids are greedy and want money. that's all it comes down to. You'd think its enough their rich parents are putting them through grad school.

Why would I have gotten a job as an RA (or any job, for that matter) if my parents were paying my tuition/rent/food bills?

If you say that I'm greedy for wanting to earn enough money to pay my tuition, pay my rent, and eat, then I admit that I'm greedy. If being spartan means being homeless and starving, then I'll pass on being spartan, as would most people IMO.

[Agathon]

And AGAIN, there are plenty of other jobs you can do. You guys keep making it sound like it's the absolute only job available on the face of the earth.

For many graduate students it is valuable work experience. You aren't going to get hired if you don't have any teaching experience.

TA job is a special job that is a privilege to have.

No. It's a job that exists because there is an economic need for it. TAs conduct tutorials and fill in for sick professors, meet with students and mark the vast majority of student work. Graduate Instructors teach courses which students want to take and for which there are no available faculty. Depending on the university, TAs may do an extremely high proportion of the actual teaching (as York University here discovered when the TAs walked out and their campus shut down).

If the tenured Professors and other university staff can unionize, I don't see why we can't.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
TA job is a special job that is a privilege to have.

How, in your mind, is being a TA/RA so much different from having any other job? Nobody in their right mind would claim that flipping burgers is a privilege, or that being an engineer is a privilege, or that being a carpenter is a privilege, and yet here you are claiming that being a TA/RA is a privilege. Why?

[Dis]

Originally posted by loinburger

Why would I have gotten a job as an RA (or any job, for that matter) if my parents were paying my tuition/rent/food bills?

If you say that I'm greedy for wanting to earn enough money to pay my tuition, pay my rent, and eat, then I admit that I'm greedy. If being spartan means being homeless and starving, then I'll pass on being spartan, as would most people IMO.

It seems I am mistaken. I thought we were talking about something else. Aren't these jobs related to the field you are studying?

[Agathon]

I'll remember that being a TA is a privilege in a couple of weeks when I sit down to read what 30 illiterates have to say about Aristotle.

I can't wait for September when I go back to being a GI.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Dissident
Aren't these jobs related to the field you are studying?

Yeah, that's pretty much a necessity for being hired -- I worked as an RA in a computer science lab because I was qualified to work as an RA in a computer science lab, but I wasn't qualified to work in, say, a chemical engineering lab.

I got job experience from being an RA (more than most people, since I actually landed one of the few non-academic research jobs to be had), but I also got job experience from working as a database programmer as an undergrad, and nobody has ever claimed that it was a privilege for me to work as a database programmer.

For some reason, I keep wanting to put a 'd' in privilege.

[Ramo]

It seems I am mistaken. I thought we were talking about something else. Aren't these jobs related to the field you are studying?

Pretty much, but only vaguely. For instance, I'm working for an experimentalist in fusion, while I want to study biophysics.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by loinburger

How, in your mind, is being a TA/RA so much different from having any other job? Nobody in their right mind would claim that flipping burgers is a privilege, or that being an engineer is a privilege, or that being a carpenter is a privilege, and yet here you are claiming that being a TA/RA is a privilege. Why?

Because it is directly related to your field. It is the equivalent of having an internship on your resume.

Works a hell of alot better than working at Mickey Dees....

Noticed that these positions are AWARDED.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Because it is directly related to your field. It is the equivalent of having an internship on your resume.

Works a hell of alot better than working at Mickey Dees....

So if a job is related to my field then it's a privilege, and if it isn't related to my field then it's a "real" job? My current job requires a MS in CS -- does that mean it's a privilege? My brother's job requires a BS in MatSE -- does that mean it's a privilege? The database programming job I had as an undergrad required a high school diploma -- does that mean it was a privilege?

Noticed that these positions are AWARDED.

What positions are you talking about? I got my position the same way I got any other job I've ever had -- I interviewed with my boss, and he hired me. Other people interviewed with him and didn't get hired. Where are you getting your information from?