Hacker News Reader

> I get that a lot of people on HN probably see the current low wages as a natural function of supply and demand in different academic disciplines. But heck, just looking at this from the point of view of the university, which is allocating resources to fight this, the calculus is odd.

Note that I'm not making any _moral or normative claims_ about not striking vs striking vs wildcat striking, nor about the interplay of rights and obligations between individual workers, unions, and employers. I'm speaking purely strategically here, in the same frame as your comment.

You're only looking at first-order dynamics here, while second-order ones are often in play. In this case, the 54 students weren't just striking, they were wildcat-striking: striking in defiance of not just the university they work for, but the union that represents them, who had already agreed to a contract with the university.

When the union has already agreed to, ratified, and entered into a contract, capitulating to a wildcat strike a couple of years later is a significant departure from even relatively pro-labor norms. Again, from a purely strategic perspective, the costs of this specific incident are potentially a lot less significant than the future costs of the university signaling that they're okay with contracts becoming meaningless if the other party changes their mind in the middle of the term.

Which just underlies the problem with unions: not only they are compulsory institutions that force you into their ranks whether you want it or not, but even those who join them don't get a fair representation and have to strike on their own.

Define "fair representation"

And, tell me how not having any union is better for all than an imperfect union.

> tell me how not having any union is better for all than an imperfect union.

Obvious answer: No dues. Not commenting on whether that's a good tradeoff, mind, but it's an answer.

Is there a union of software developers? Would you like to start an imperfect one? Anyone?

Starting one is fairly risky. A better question might be, how many people would join an established one.

Yes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/technology/kickstarter-un...

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/game-dev-union-leader...

Both articles indicate that unionization has flopped. The broader question is - what is the purpose of unionization in the software industry? You want more money? You want ping pong tables at work?

Higher compensation, no protection for incompetent people, reward for productivity and innovation instead of seniority, etc.

Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. A union-negotiated contract that's better than the one you'd get without the union is, well, better. It might not be "fair" or flawless, but it's still better.

Unless it’s worse. The assumption that forming a union and entering into effectively hostile negotiations with the company will result in a better compensation is unfounded.

It varies by country and even in the US it varies by industry. A lot of European countries have a less adversarial relationship between organized labor and management and workers benefit greatly. Public sector unions in the US, and the teamsters, and Culinary in Las Vegas, etc. don't seem to leave their workers worse off either.

It's perfectly founded, because I have seen it happen. Back in the 80s was a Thatcher believer, still am really, but in the 90s I was a member of a moderate public sector union in the UK and saw it working from the inside. It was a real eye opener, the union had huge experience in health and safety (a significant issue in that organisation), the unintended side effects of various policies and procedures, all sorts of things and actually worked very well with management to represent legitimate concerns.

It doesn't always work, in some industries I can see the relationship is much more confrontational and damaging, but it doesn't have to be that way.

It can’t be “perfectly founded“ if it “doesn’t always work”.

> The assumption ... is unfounded.

Considering that many, many countries exist where this is the case (most of the time), this seems to be very well founded.

But they were in a country where the relationship has been bad since the beginning

I would say it's mostly better most of the time; they can go badly. Obligatory Futurama quote to illustrate the point:

> Hermes: So you're telling me I could fire my whole staff and hire Grunka Lunkas at half the cost?

> Glurmo: That's right. They think they have a good union but they don't. [whispering] They're basically slaves.

Says a guy who never bothered to learn labor history, but feels he must know better anyway because somebody pays him good money for something. HN in a nutshell.

I find it hard to believe anyone that knows anything about labor history in the US could assume that company/union relations can be assumed to go well.

> even those who join them don't get a fair representation and have to strike on their own.

Again without implying anything normative, what makes you claim that the students' representation by the union isn't "fair"? Simply because they want more than stipulated by the contract the union was able to negotiate? Is my (non-union) salary "unfair" because I'd much rather get paid 3x as much (or 30x, for that matter)?

Compulsory union membership has been illegal since the 1947 Taft-Hartey Act. Compulsory legal representation fees for public sector unions have been illegal since Janus v. AFSCME (2018).

Just like in a democracy, not everybody's interests can be fully satisfied in a union. So what? That doesn't necessarily mean we'd all be better off with autocracy or without any government whatsoever, not even the people getting the short end of the stick.

The fundamental problem in Santa Cruz, like many other universities in the state, is the cost of housing. UC Santa Cruz didn't build enough housing. Part of the problem is that most of UCSC's land is wildlife refuge, and part of the problem (like everywhere else in California) is the political and regulatory difficulty of building new housing. The cost of housing has been increasing far faster than UCSC's budget.

Unions still have many monopolistic legal rights. For example, one obvious question is why UCSC students can’t form their own union and get their own contract; the answer is that it would be illegal, because if there’s a duly authorized union employers can’t collectively bargain with any other group.

Why couldn't people call a new vote for the new union?

That would also be illegal right now, since it hasn't been 3 years since the union contract was signed.

ref: https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employees/i...

This is not entirely true. UCSC determines its own admission, they could have simply not increased the student body and their housing would have been sufficient.

I know the same thing is happening at UCSD, where the student body exploded in size and despite additional housing being built, it is insufficient and very expensive.

>not only they are compulsory institutions that force you into their ranks whether you want it or not, but even those who join them don't get a fair representation and have to strike on their own.

That is very definition of 'Unions'. As an individual you have limited resources to take on a big adversary (employer) hence few people come together and pool in money. If this process is voluntary it is entirely up-to them to come up with the terms of engagement. Once you agree to those terms going back on those terms must be seen as dishonesty. If the union membership is forces them obviously union leaders have zero incentives to actually offer better terms to members.

The only way this can be resolved is by having some kind of "enlightened" union leadership. The superhumans who will instantly know what is the right thing to do and will have 100% freedom to do so. Sadly, such humans are very very rare.

Maybe. Unions like democracy are a compromise. Though, I always wonder why do so many people here (despite not being in a tech union or majorly working in industries without them most likely) push for it so much?

Can anyone give me their actual experience being in a union that's not in the tech industry?

The AMA has done an amazing job at representing the interests of doctors

But that's a lobbying organization - and yes, a very successful one at all levels of government. They're not involved in pay and contract negotiations at your local hospital.

They've successfully limited the supply of doctors to artificially increase wages.

True, but as someone with a surgery looming I'd much have someone who had to go through a 6-year training process then a simple 4 year one.

Like, medical mistakes are already crazy common -- and that's with the strict barriers of entry.

I think your analysis is spot on.

This is all about what principle you are applying and whether it scales or not. It is a bit like restraining order. In some specific instances it might be safe to let the person in your house. However that kind of hurts the overall restraining order terms and sometime in future you can get into trouble.

The problem from the university's perspective is that while $13M is a low-ish amount of money (by university standards), the university has no reason to believe it would "put the problem to bed." If the university backs down, the strikers will be able to dictate any terms they want in the future, and any such strikes (i.e. illegal ones) would certainly have many more participants. The disruption to university operations could be severe.

And this is why unions exist in the first place and make binding contracts - no one wants to make a deal with another party when the other will arbitrarily decide the deal isn't good anymore and act like fools contrary to the terms of the contract.

Grad students at UCSC didn't arbitrarily think the deal they struck isn't good enough anymore, they never thought it was good enough in the first place. 83% of UCSC grad students felt the minimums outlined in the agreement, which was a UC wide agreement and not between UCSC and the UCSC grad students by the way, were insufficient for the growing rents in Santa Cruz.

This 13m number isn't arbitrary. In fact that $1400 per month bump is designed to put UCSC grad students in line with net compensation received by grad students at UC Riverside.

Weren't they the ones who had to vote in the union in the first place? Seems like they should have figured out what they want from the union before giving it the power to negotiate a contract on their behalf.

83% of these grad students voted against this deal that the UAW negotiated on their behalf.

Right, but they voted to give the union the power to negotiate on their behalf without any checks. It seems too late then to change your mind once they have that power. I guess I don't understand how union politics work, but it might make sense to allow a union, but require majority vote for any major decisions.

But at UCSC they do this every year.

Here's news on the strike from 2018: https://news.ucsc.edu/2018/05/strike-updates.html

Here's news on the strike from 2017: https://news.ucsc.edu/2017/01/strike-message.html

There's reason to believe that no matter what deal was reached, they would just strike again next year, to try to get more money. How much is enough?

I noticed your two links mention different unions striking; some further research might be important here. One of your links is not graduate students striking, but the union for skilled workers at UCSC. The other is a union-sanctioned strike during (I think) a contract negotiation year. Neither is representative of the assertion that graduate students strike every year.

Sure, not all strikes are officially in the name of the grad students, but (a) the unions act together, and (b) the grad students specifically have gone on strike 3 times since 2013.

Here's the strike from 2013, with grad students and service workers going on strike together: https://afscme3299.org/media/news/ucsc-service-workers-grad-...

The comments on this UCSC reddit thread discuss how the unions have been coordinating their strikes over the last 3 years: https://old.reddit.com/r/UCSC/comments/ese6sz/to_everyone_wh...

Did the students know this beforehand and despite knowing this joined UCSC ?

Haha. As a former grad student, let me tell you: 1. you're almost always eligible for subsidized power/water because your pay is that low (24k when I went) 2. some of these programs admit 10 ppl a year and no more. What you're getting paid isn't the first cut. Getting in is the first cut.

Working with the right professor to shape your research agenda and future as a result, is the second cut.

The UC System has been defunding their academic positions and putting billions of money into upper management positions for generations. [0]

"UAW local 2865, a labor union representing UC student workers and teaching assistants, recently estimated in over two decades about $1 billion dollars have been wasted in upper-level UC administrative costs. UC Berkeley Professor Charles Schwartz, who has conducted extensive research on this subject, estimated that the total cost of UC administrative bloat had been $600 million per year. He has also estimated that UCLA in particular squanders about $54 million per year, the most out of all the UC’s."

0. https://scaleatucla.weebly.com/ucla-senior-management-growth...

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2017/10/26/all...

The $500K Club: Here are the hundreds of U.C. employees who made more than $500,000 last year

They all seem to be medical doctors.

I think it doesn't include administrative type people? The chancellor makes about that much

It does include them. I saw the chief investment officer mixed in amongst the MDs.

Being cheap with your chief investment officer doesn't sound like a good idea. Besides, a proper CIO's pay is tied to getting good investment returns.

> Besides, a proper CIO's pay is tied to getting good investment returns [...]

Q: What happens to the typical CIO and his/her package when returns aren't "good" ?

Fired.

With a golden parachute.

Golden parachutes are not decided on after the fact. They are agreed upon in advance when they are hired. The only reason companies offer them is to get the best people they can.

The person running your investments can make or break you. You're going to hire the best you can, and that's going to cost. And someone with a track record of making it rain is going to know this and know what they're worth.

If you want a golden parachute yourself, you're going to need to build a track record of success first showing you're worth it.

> And someone with a track record of making it rain

I think you kind of summed it up there... There are better things for a university to be doing than paying rainmakers

>There are better things for a university to be doing than paying rainmakers

Dozens of university endowments are over a billion dollars, with significant returns when under good management. Ignoring the returns possible on that means the students and state has to pay more to continue the university. Endowments often consist of hundreds or more fund, usually set up by donors, to advance some part of the university, which very often is scholarships and other direct student benefits.

It's incredibly short-sighted to downplay them without understanding the benefits.

Good management is one thing. Rainmakers are another. I’m not sure why a university needs someone actively managing funds instead of using passive vehicles

> The person running your investments can make or break you

How would one propose to distinguish* someone who will deliver growth for - say - 25 consecutive years from someone who delivers growth for 5 years yet blows up your endowment in year 6 ?

* beforehand ;)

Their track record.

> Their track record

If you think that "25 years of not blowing up" is a sure-fire way to predict the risk of blowing up in year 26, I would recommend reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

I never said "sure-fire" or anything like it. Anyone who believes in "sure-fire" investments is a fool. The theory that people with lots of money to hire the best are fools doesn't seem credible to me.

Besides, Warren Buffet has a stellar track record much longer than 25 years. People paying him to manage their money has made him very, very rich and those people very happy with him.

Wait, but is that normal for medical doctors? I thought doctors were still in the 3-500k range?

"lot of people on HN probably see the current low wages as a natural function of supply and demand" - as a former grad student at one of UC's campuses - this is not as simple as you put it.

A lot of grad students are international students (like I was) and they simply can't work anywhere else due to their visa restrictions.

Sounds a lot like a mild version of indentured servitude. Cheap labor for the university.

The whole grad school equation is foobar. Universities import foreign labor and they under pay given their monopoly where paid positions exist. They also rely on students obtaining external funding.

Then they take half of said external grant funding as overhead.

Indirect funds on grants need to be eliminated in my opinion. The GOP is a disaster at the moment in my opinion but introducing bills to eliminate them is one of the things they've done right. Indirect funds distort the purpose of grants and give perverse incentives to university administration and other funding sources.

>Universities import foreign labor and they under pay given their monopoly

Given that there's hundreds of schools with thousands of grad programs to choose from, with none of them having more than a tiny percentage of the total market, this is not monopoly pricing.

It's simply supply and demand. People are willing to show up and work for the vast majority of these programs.

Are you sure about that?

Yes. This isn’t a monopoly, so it’s not monopoly pricing. That leaves competitive pricing.

Unfortunately you have no idea what you are talking about.

Vice seems to indicate that 22k is the minimum salary, not average: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxe45b/graduate-student-s...

I think you’re right, edited. As far as I can tell they’re using this number as a baseline for wage increases so the rest of the comment should still hold.

It probably also has by now spent quite a bit of money on managing this strike (security/campus police (some sources say $300k/day), lawyers, PR, ...)

The Sacremento Bee has a database of all the salaries of every state worker, including UCSC professors and admin here:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/databases/state-pay/

Chancellor Larvie made $364,754 last year at UCR.

> Chancellor Larvie made $364,754 last year at UCR

Was that the annual base salary?

What was the value of the rest of the package?

Go ahead and put her name in yourself! :P

The data set is fairly informative for it's size and publicity.

> Go ahead and put her name in yourself

My question was more or less rhetorical, since institutions don't always rush to put a figure on all the elements of a package.

Anecdotal data point: the person at the top of the tree at my old university gets a private 200 year-old house inside campus (so long as they're in post). What's that worth?

Your second reference also points out UCSC's operating budget for 2016 is $722 million. Revenue and expenditures have likely increased 4 years later, but the $13 mil represents a 1.8% increase in operational cost. The UCSC administration would have to cut other programs' budgets in order to make the difference.

I'm an UCSC alumnus, and I served as a student rep on UCSC's Academic Senate's Committee on Planning and Budget (CPB). I've sided with the graduate students in this case. If you follow the subreddit r/UCSC, you will see the student body is largely divided on the issue. Now, subreddit posts are a small sample of the student body, it does affect the perception as well as the notoriety of UCSC being a liberal school full of hippies that always fight for worker's rights. It is harder to rebuild that kind of reputation in the school's brand. And it also negatively affects alumni fundraising.

It puts the UCSC administration between a rock and a hard place. I've worked with the administration in the past. They are intelligent and caring faculty members trying to walk a tight rope every year with UCOP/Regents increasingly demanding in delivering in business objectives (increase enrollment/revenue) on one side and their academic mission on the other. I do not envy them.

UCOP miscalculated this entire affair. UCSC grads going on strike has also encouraged UC Berkeley's and Davis's grads to strike in solidarity. The administration has never been able to handle student protests with the best optics, and unfortunately, student protests historically do not succeed in getting their demands met. It is.. a teachable moment, well steeped in irony.

Whenever there's a truly toxic dispute like this, the money is less important to the managers than maintaining the status hierarchy.

This is not regional in scope. UCSC is part of UC. If the wall breaks here; wages go up everywhere else.

UC had to break the union before they got everyone involved.

Your calculus disregards the additional carry-on costs for parity when the 9 other UC campuses follow suit.

Parity to the existing is what UCSC grad students want. This $1400 per month isn't arbitrary, it would bring minimum net compensation in line with what an arbitrary grad student at UC Riverside receives in net compensation.

If you give one group of workers a raise, how long before all the others demand the same? And then some want more? And then the first group come back because they realise they can get even more...

1 person who you give a good deal to might, just might, keep their mouths shut. A whole segment? No way.

It’s about sending a message.

There are even more questions if all of those 1000 PhD students receive pay(not the money they receive to support their research, which is not the same thing) from UC. But I assume that is not the case, that ALL PhD students are employed by UC... or is it? And why only 54 of those students feel that they are special?

I am confused and a bit curious, because that is not why I went to uni(not in US) and not how I had to deal with my studies. Also - can a foreign student apply for this free cheese and is UC diploma any good(also - outside UC, to have a real job)? And how UC is getting money? Any tax money involved(if that is the case, then why?) or only donations - from former students, who... work at UC?

All graduate students are teaching?