University Unions

Harvard has just seen the creation of unions for their Grad students as well as post-Docs. However this does not seem to be a universally accepted event. As the Crimson notes:

Some graduate students at Harvard Medical School say they feel wary of Harvard's newly formed union, with at least a few in Longwood—the location of the Medical School campus—expressing a desire to be excluded from the bargaining unit. Fifty-six percent of eligible student assistants voted on April 18 and 19 to authorize Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers to collectively bargain with Harvard on their behalf. National Labor Relations Board officials certified the tally on April 20, counting 1,931 ballots in favor of unionization and 1,523 against. Exit polling conducted by The Crimson suggested medical students were significantly less likely to vote in favor of unionization than were students attending other University schools. 

I would argue that the union issue is the millennial effect. Unions assume that everyone is equal, get the same pay, benefits, and that their employer is abusive and some form of oppressor.

Some fifty or sixty years ago to get a PhD at MIT and Harvard as well one competed. It was truly a zero sum game. There were so many slots, about a tenth of what there is today, and you had to be better than anyone around you. Your thesis had better be the best, your other work better, you had to be accepted by your Committee, you had to publish, and you better not waste time on such pursuits as family and fun. Then came the late sixties and the beginning of the end.

Careers are based all too often on achievement, success, doing better than others, namely excelling. One goes to Harvard, one assumes, to excel, not to become another molecule in a mass of identical molecules. You are not a telephone company union employee, doing the minimal amount as agreed to by the Union. One assumes to exceed everything. If not, then why would one hire you?

If a Union organizer at Harvard Grad Schools tries to get hired, perhaps an employer would look twice, do they want an over-achiever or a rabble inciter bringing every employee to the least common denominator?