> Union favored the 8th year humanities students at the expense of the 1 and 2 year STEM students
Having been a one-time 1st or 2nd year STEM student, I think this is the proper decision.
Having been a one-time 1st or 2nd year STEM student, I think this is the proper decision.
Here's some free advice: leave until January 2025 and spend your newly free time learning a language or growing a garden.
Yes. Doesn't "a bunch of them went off and got private sector jobs instead, limiting the size of the undergrad population" sound extremely implausible to you? As if graduate students can control enrollment.
The comment sounds like a political hit piece, with no evidence provided. And Scott Walker was a major union buster who spurred massive protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011 and a recall election (which Walker unfortunately won).
The University of Wisconsin Teaching Assistants Association is one of the oldest student unions in the nation. It's hardly a "disaster".
As the economy recovered, STEM hiring picked up substantially and people with a masters degree were quite hirable.
https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2017/science-technology-engine...
> Employment in STEM occupations grew by 10.5 percent, or 817,260 jobs, between May 2009 and May 2015, compared with 5.2 percent net growth in non-STEM occupations. Computer occupations and engineers were among the types of STEM occupations with the highest job gains. Employment in computer occupations was nearly 3.2 million in May 2009 and nearly 3.9 million in May 2015. Employment of engineers was nearly 1.5 million in May 2009, compared with over 1.6 million in May 2015. Some STEM occupations lost jobs. In 2009, there were nearly 478,000 jobs in STEM-related sales occupations, compared with approximately 406,000 in 2015.
Anyway, I'm not disputing that grad students leave school for job opportunities. I am disputing whether they left because of some student union disagreement, and whether such a union disagreement could somehow limit undergraduate enrollment.
Moreover, the budget for the University of Wisconsin is set by the Governor and legislature, so if there's no enough money to pay TAs more, it's their fault.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Wisconsin_Act_10 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Wisconsin_protests
If you were a STEM major graduating in 2009 or 2010, you went to grad school for a year or two and got a masters to wait out the recession.
In 2011, grad school was made much worse as the union for grad students was severely curtailed and benefits for state employees (grad students being state employees) reduced.
As the economy was picking up and you've got a masters and hiring in STEM fields is outpacing all other hiring - it is time to put off procrastinating in grad school and get a job.
I'm confused about the nature of your reply. You're more or less repeating what I already said in an earlier comment: "Scott Walker was a major union buster who spurred massive protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011 and a recall election"
To be clear, I'm a Wisconsinite and a former member of the TAA.
You can't run a department without TAs. Who's going to grade homework and exams? Professors? Don't make me laugh.
If you don't have enough grad students to TA your department, you have to borrow some another department. But what if all the STEM departments don't have enough TAs? Do you hire adjuncts (at roughly 3x the rate)?
So the humanities folks' priority is sculpting a union program to their specific needs. That also doesn't sound very "fight for the allowance of your peers". That's democracy though. Doesn't mean the right choice is made but that the voters pull the strings.
What the GP said was that instead of taking a cash option that would benefit all members, they chose benefits that only benefitted parents. It's reasonable to be angry that an alternative that would benefit all members wasn't chosen.
> TAA activists in the Fall of 2008 also turned their eyes again toward attaining Domestic Partner Benefits for TAA members and UW employees. The TAA pushed on the issue, joining the LGBT Campus Center to table on Library Mall during their Coming Out Week, and creating a memorable Bascom Hill display. The TAA then networked into the University’s Domestic Partner Benefit Task Force, and arranged meetings with Governor Doyle’s Office and UW Chancellor Biddy Martin, while activists also spoke with nearly a thousand TAA members about the importance of winning Domestic Partner Benefits. The State Legislature, which in years past had meticulously denied state employees Domestic Partner Benefits, was poised for a sea change in the November elections. The TAA’s Political Education Committee launched an AFT COPE award-winning program, through a vibrant and ambitious series of phone banks and Labor Walks throughout south-central Wisconsin. Though Domestic Partner Benefits were not ultimately won in the 2007-2009 contract, the TAA was responsible in ensuring that the issue would be considered in the 2009-2011 budget.
https://etf.wi.gov/publications/et2166/download?inline=
> As of Sept. 23, 2017, the State of Wisconsin no longer allows the establishment of new domestic partnerships under Chapter 40 of the Wisconsin statutes.
> Carefully review this document if you are in a Chapter 40 domestic partnership established before September 23, 2017 because it contains important information about the benefit changes for established domestic partnerships.
> If you are currently in a domestic partnership that was established under Chapter 40 between Jan. 1, 2010 and Sept. 22, 2017, your domestic partnership remains in force for the Wisconsin Retirement System retirement benefit administered by the Department of Employee Trust Funds. Your domestic partner is also still eligible to be the beneficiary of your life insurance policy, either through retention of your validly established domestic partnership, or through the submission of a Beneficiary Designation (ET-2320 or ET-2321) form.
(note the date when domestic partnerships established would benefit from the benefits that spouses traditionally got - https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/40 )
It is a zero sum problem, unfortunately.
That was the opposite of my experience, actually.
They always pitch the union as a way for you to get better pay and benefits. But the talk can suddenly shift to how you are a greedy opportunist if you actually take steps to increase your value.
Solidarity, not freedom, is the opposite of tyranny.
Neutrality and running away implicitly supports the injustice you are running away from. Flight-ing instead of fighting leaves those left behind to the wolves.
Political change only happens once people are willing to put themselves at risk.
I've spent plenty of time tilting at windmills. But there are limits to how much effort I'll put in for collective good.
The mindset guarantees your exhaustion, loss, and ultimately your oppression.
You don't have to fight the battle, but you should at least support those who self sacrifice and hold it in high regard and equally you should feel shame for running away.
Your privilege let you run away, but others aren't so lucky.
Maybe it's been less.
But I sure don't stick around in every shitty situation hoping that I can turn it better with enough sweat of the brow and sufficient persuasion to others to play nice. Hopefully you don't, either.
The thread we're talking about is a classic tyranny of the majority situation: something that democracies handle poorly. If you're outnumbered by a large factor by people with drastically different interests than you, and it's going to be decided by voting, you're in for a bad time if you stick around.