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Why must very wealthy universities "choose between boosting their academic quality through better training, or paying them higher stipends and teaching wages to ease their immediate financial concerns"? Why is it an inherently zero sum situation? Why can't they do both? /2
You write, "I would merely note that many of my graduate students come from relatively well-to-do backgrounds and face favorable prospects after they graduate." First, anecdotes about your grad students is not the best basis for policy making. /3
Second, presumably you do not want to live in a world in which grad school is only feasible for the "well-to-do." Third, your students may face "favorable" job prospects, but there is a huge jobs crisis in the humanities that you may have read about. /4
Grad students may not be "employees in the traditional sense," but the category of "employees in in the traditional sense" is shrinking. There are many more Whole Foods employees than coal miners. Unions work just as well for the former as the latter. /5
Finally, you express concern that a grad student union might raise concerns about what you call "badly needed changes in higher education." You don't spell them out in great detail here or describe why such changes are necessary. /6
But why would it be a bad thing for a grad student union to weigh in on such questions. You worry about too many "veto points." Who gets to make decisions without those veto points--the Board of Trustees alone or in collaboration with the administration? /7
But shouldn't conversations about the future of higher education include as many stakeholders as possible, even if they are potential "veto points"? And shouldn't discussions of the future of graduate education include a collective, institutional voice of graduate students? /8
I've been in higher education long enough to know that "bringing about change" is not necessarily a good in itself. It depends on the nature of the change. Personally, I'd prefer a lot of "veto points" so that the ramifications of potential changes are fully considered. /9
Unions are collective bargaining units but they are (typically) also among the most democratic institutions in the country. /10
The Janus-like argument made here, that unions force people to support causes with which they disagree, is an old chestnut, now given sanction by the Supreme Court. But it is still a bad one. /11
You write: "Is the cause of freedom of expression really helped by forcing graduate students to financially support, with their union dues, political positions they may disagree with?" Couldn't one make the same argument about, say, a university endowment?/12
The closing lines, "I recognize that worker unions have done a great deal of good in American history. I just don’t think today’s private universities are the right place for them," are also familiar to anyone who has studied anti-unionism. /13
The argument goes: I'll concede that unions have worked in X industry, but Y industry is totally different and not suitable for unionization.
But as the democratic voice of workers, unions have proven to be flexible and beneficial in a variety of sectors. /14
But as the democratic voice of workers, unions have proven to be flexible and beneficial in a variety of sectors. /14
