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Comment by spaceseaman | Hacker News Reader

These are precisely the kinds of things that unions will fight for though.

Just assuming that the university (out of its goodwill?) will do any of those things is kind of ludicrous. At my university, we had to fight tooth and nail (we had a union) to get the university to improve our health insurance and full waive our tuition (They did a tricky thing where they would waive all people with 50% TA-ships, and then they gave everyone a 49% one. Universities are not noble, altruistic actors. Far far from it)

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These things come at a cost. If the cost of grad students goes up, we'll see some combination of the following:

1 - Less grad students.

2 - More undergrads doing the work of grad students.

3 - More adjuncts doing the work of grad students.

4 - Grad students being asked to do more.

The irony is this is happening at the great home of Price Theory!

The cost could be offset by administrators not taking a huge cut. Quite literally these administrators do nothing of worth; it's the work of grad students and not-yet-tenured professors that keeps universities rhnning., Not the endless circles of bureaucrats

Won't unionizing ultimately increase that bureaucracy with union reps, compliance officers, and frequent renegotiations?

Then they can simply be fairer to their employees and they wouldn't need a union.

Will we?

Grad students are major drivers of funding and research for universities. Cutting them will reduce that funding further and make them look worse nationally as an institution.

Perhaps undergraduates SHOULD be welcome to do more of the work? I see no problem with offering cheap workstudies to help grad students and professors getting the little things done while they research and learn.

Adjunct professors might be a good thing-many tenured professors disdain teaching and it shows.

Grad students won't be asked to do more than they agree to because they have a union.

Grad students are already the cheapest, and universities are flushed with cash and can't outsource so while they may cut a bit on the numbers mostly they will have to suck it up.

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