Comment by lasky | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lasky | Hacker News Reader

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“This is not an identical situation to the delayed bonuses discussed in the article.”

Not even close my friend. I would trust that instinct. People working 6-7 days a week, doing labor, in a factory, in shit conditions. Desperately clinging to each paycheck that comes along.

Vs academic bureaucrats in one of the most Labor sensitive institutions in the world, who can’t afford the Bay Area…? The most expensive region of the US to live in. Not. Even. Close. Just a reminder, employees at UC Berkeley are entitled to a pension after five years.

Police violence against UC Berkeley staff? Seems highly doubtful.

As far as not being able to afford rent in the Bay Area, hard to disagree, that is a real problem that impacts quality of lives in a very negative way. Hopefully, with all the brain power at Berkeley, people begin to more honestly and openly contemplate the actual source and solution to this deep problem in the Bay Area’s housing supply not quite matching demands of UC Berkeley staff. Asking bold questions for a campus like Berkeley like.. what policies and stubborn attachment to specific world views might be contributing to the constriction of such supply and demand conditions?

> Not even close my friend. I would trust that instinct.

Not sure what instinct you are referring to here. And just a reminder that when there's a strike, the people who go out to support are those with the least pay, or those who are already in unions. Trying to split grad students off from the rest of the labor force is not something that I am trying to do, if that's what you are implying.

> Just a reminder, employees at UC Berkeley are entitled to a pension after five years.

This is false, grad students never earn a pension. Grad student researchers are who I'm talking about, the people who are currently on strike.

Even still, what good is a pension if you can't pay rent today?

I bring up grad student workers both because they are currently striking, but also because HN readers are probably more familiar with them, and can commiserate a bit more. It's not work that is as hard on the body as farm work, but desperately needing each paycheck in order to get enough food to eat, in order to pay rent and not end up homeless, living in terrible filthy conditions such as homes with mold, or in in insulated garages, or in sheds behind a primary house, with shared use of the kitchen and bathroom... those sorts of poor living conditions, barely able to be paid for are common.

Let me ask you an honest question.

If you had to wake up tomorrow, as either a foxconn iPhone factory worker, or a Berkeley graduate student, which would you pick? How different do you think those experiences are?

foxconn workers have jobs... try south sudan and living in a slum that was built because the people around you want to kill you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydnnRyPPLs4

You don’t have that option, because manufacturing and other roles was shipped to China.

That’s the leverage.

Almost of third of workers are on disability, another third have minimum wage jobs and the rest have prospects. The business model in college is taking advantage of pride of tenured professors who don’t want to teach and pushing adjunct and temporary faculty.

A lot of people don’t get it and get stuck in the academic funnel. That Berkeley grad student isn’t breaking her body, but is sacrificing core working years, mostly to support the $$ faculty and administration.

Long term, especially in humanities, you won’t have tenured professors, just some assistant professors on two year contracts grinding a meager living along with with sucker grad students who either don’t get it or need the work to keep a visa.

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