Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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>Arguments against unionization from already tenured faculty usually sound like:

An argument against a union at MIT came from un-tenured graduate student Kevin Wang : https://thetech.com/2021/10/21/why-we-do-not-need-a-gsu

TLDR: he didn't think paying the 1.44% annual union dues (~$620/year) is going to be worth it. He based this on comparing MIT salary increase history to other universities with and without unions.

Also, KW was previously in Germany & UK so he's presumably familiar with the stronger worker unions in Europe.

The MIT union vote was 66%-for and 34%-against. The 34% have various reasons to not join a union but I think we can guess that many of them think the $620/year salary deductions will not be worth whatever benefits the union can negotiate.

I'm not saying KW is right but I think it's more constructive to consider the opinions of MIT grad students who actually vote (e.g. Kevin Wang) rather than your synthesized quote from tenured professors. The collective bargaining unit will negotiate with university administrators (not the tenured professors) who set salaries etc.

Kevin's entire argument made zero sense. And thank God everyone worked so hard to convince people not to listen to him. Stipend increases are a function of places like NIH who set a lot of people's stipends. The union can and does get benefits in many other places. Like healthcare, better mental health services (which are bad at MIT), stipend increases for the lowest paid students, limits on how much you work as a TA, etc.

He gives Columbia as an example. The new Columbia contract is great! https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/07/columbia... $100 million in extra spending for students over the next 4 years.

> The 34% have various reasons to not join a union but I think we can guess that many of them think the $620/year salary deductions will not be worth whatever benefits the union can negotiate.

Well.. they are wrong.

If you look at unions like University of Michigan or University of Toronto the healthcare benefits they get compared to MIT are worth more than $620/year. The MIT grad student healthcare plan is very bad and expensive. And the working conditions as a TA are not good compared to other places. You have very few protections as a TA. For example, I know someone who was forced to teach an extra section for no additional pay, because another TA had to leave for medical reasons. That's totally unacceptable and would never fly at UMich or UofT.

It IS interesting to note that if most unions went dues-optional they'd starve from lack of money.

If their members were really convinced of the value that tragedy of the commons wouldn't occur.

If you made tolls on a toll road optional, the road owners would not be able to keep up with maintenance, yet I think most drivers value the road...

So what's this 'road' in your analogy that was installed by the union, that wasn't there before, and that introduced a lot of utility, comparable to a road?

It's actually a decent comparison, because a large percentage of the cost/benefit is building the road/union, and comparatively little is the maintenance. But the tolls/dues remain the same across.

The implication in the comment I was replying to was that if people see the value in something, they will voluntarily contribute to its maintenance.

The fact that many workers would not pay optional dues does not prove that the workers don't see value in the union.

Obviously the purported value of a union is in the ability to collectively bargain on behalf of its members (and to provide tangible support for workers participating in strikes or who are pursuing legal action against an employer). Unions may do this or not, but the argument that gp made is not a good one.

It's a hilarious tragedy that the person you're responding to has the definition of 'tragedy of the commons' backwards in their mind

No, it's because if dues were optional, the only game-theory-efficient outcome is that no one pays dues.

If dues are mandatory, The only game-theory-efficient outcome is that the union takes as much money as possible and provides as little benefit as possible.

So a business

> If their members were really convinced of the value that tragedy of the commons wouldn't occur.

It’s called a Tragedy for a reason.

The tragedy of the Commons is when there is a public good that, if most people contribute, everyone gets back more than they put in, but because it's rational for each person independently to not contribute (since it isn't strictly necessary for them in particular), it fails to happen.

You know, like not contributing your Union dues.

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