That research and undergraduate education are combined together is the real problem here.
The problem isn’t pairing the two but generations of overhead growth combined with a decline in the federal funding which used to support researchers, both of which mean compensation has fallen behind in real value.
And this skill has very little overlap with teaching undergraduate students.
And on the other end, a fairly small percentage of students end up doing any research in college.
In an ideal world, researchers would research, and people who specialize in teaching would teach.
You do NOT have to be some cutting edge leader in your field to teach undergrads. Simple skills, like being an engaged and interesting speaking are way way way more important than how many papers you've published.
Some of my worst teachers were teaching specialists.
And the most influential person in my undergraduate career? A researcher.
My point is the research and teaching are orthogonal skills.
It is certainly possible for someone to be both a good researcher and a good teacher.
I am just saying that I don't care how good of a researcher they are. The only thing I care about is how good of a teacher they are.
So let's judge the teachers based SOLELY on their teaching skills, and not have writing papers have anything at all to do with whether they are hired as a teacher.
Really more than students unionizing its adjunct faculty that are being severely exploited. Whereas PhDs at least get a degree for their troubles, adjuncts just get straight up robbed, and too many of them are living on public assistance and non-guaranteed contracts.
This is one thing I hope the unionization movement will genuinely change. There's not much room to move the needle on pay, but having students have a means of addressing abuse besides "Throw myself on the mercy of the department and hope they don't shred my career" would be a huge step.
Interestingly, one of the grad student union's arguments in a place I was at was, essentially, "You're flooding the university with cheap adjuncts, and it's devaluing our career path", which I thought was, at the very least, an interesting take.