Do not support the GEO

First of all, I would like to know what anyone's interests have to do with their level of education and understanding of a concept they have, apparently, been studying for a while. What does having read Mein Kampf (which is a very interesting read, by the way-if you haven't read it, why don't you before you make maligning comments about someone who did), or the fact that someone enjoys deer hunting and is proud of where they came from matter? I would task those that mentioned these things, among others, with explaining to all that didn't go that (dare I say petty?) route to enlighten us.
That aside, there are many well thought out arguments on both sides of the equation. However, I must agree with the original opinion on this. I am also a graduate student. I own a car, am married, pay all of my own bills (not my parents, who sure as hell can't afford to support me), and even did so while my spouse was unemployed for almost a year. Was it hard? Yes. Was it doable? Yes (not fun by any means, but we did manage). Do I have to pay for a portion of my tuition every semester? Yes. However, that small fee (less than $600 in my case) is infinitesimal when it comes to the larger picture of NOT having to pay full tuition (over $14,000 - the "base rate" for a non-resident). Think of it that way - my pay PLUS almost $13,000 in benefits...not to mention the fact that I am receiving a great education which is boosting my potential future earnings. The current opportunity cost (lower wages, difficult hours, etc.) of being a graduate student is not only counted in wages, but also in education I am receiving, and in the ability to achieve my career goals.
The last thing I have to say about this is: I don't know about all of you, but when I applied to grad school, I applied to multiple places (all on par with UIUC in terms of rank of my program). The biggest factor in my decision was who was going to fund me, and how "good" that funding was. Guess what? I do think there is a little bit of the invisible hand market operations taking place. Most grad students (or at least those worried about funding) apply to multiple places and accept an offer that meets their specifications, and usually this includes funding options. Not only did I get multiple funding offers, but this was just about equal to my offer from another Big Ten university a little less than two hours East, and better than offers from other colleges. Which was the reason this university stayed in the running when the final decision was being made.

Mr. Claborn,

My problem with the GEO, is that i do not have the "freedom to support or not support." I am forced to pay 'Fair Share' dues to the GEO. They are automatically withdrawn from my paycheck (as they are of all TA's).

TAs/GAs are selling a commodity and the should be compensated. I have no disagreement with that. The thing that is so conveniently left out of all the debate is the fact that while at the university, graduate students are accumulating human capital for which the university should be fairly compensated. If you do the full accounting, than you MUST include this when examining TA's wages. If you want to argue that TA's are not fairly compensated for their teaching responsibilities, then you should separate the two parts. TA's should fairly compensate the university for the human capital they are accumulating in one contract, and in a separate contract the TA's can negotiate a wage that is fair for their teaching services.

You also assert that "in a truly free market the seller has the right to *negotiate* his/her price with the buyer." When sellers collude in an attempt to achieve market power and influence the market price this is a market failure and must be corrected by government involvement. However unions, who do this very thing routinely, are not stopped because they have generated political clout. The right to collude and artificially inflate market rates is certainly not an "expression of basic rights within a free market system."

You ask me to compare TA/GA salaries with other Big Ten Universities. Why would you choose a sample that only includes unionized graduate labor? To make a fair comparison you must look further than the Big Ten.

Take a look at the definition of coercion maybe brush up on a little economics (I know it can be a little boring sometimes, but I think there are some wonderful Econ TAs that will be able to help you while everyone else is on strike) then let me know if you still think my argument is anti-capitalist, anti-free market and anti-American

Sincerely,
Brooks Schaffer
Deer Huntin' NASCAR Watchin' Southerner

There has been much said recently about allowing market forces determine the stipend size and rate for Graduate and Teaching Assistants here at the University as a way to counteract GEO “rabble-rousing” and “coercion.” I only wanted to remind readers that such market forces are the same ones which pushed consumers to buy houses that they could not afford. They are the same forces created companies with so many toxic liabilities that the government had to bail them out. They are also the same forces that have fostered so much corruption in Illinois state government that the legislators are unable to pass any meaningful campaign finance reform. It was also market forces that pushed the university to accept applicants with connections to the rich and powerful in order to assure continued state and donor funding. What most advocates for the free market will not tell you is that markets run on greed and self-interest. There is no invisible hand governing the markets, only different vectors of self-interest. Unfortunately, certain institutions have much more power and influence in this game of greed. Size does matter when it comes to the market. It is not free and never has been. By the way, Fellowship stipends for exceptional candidates have actually risen 18% in the last two years which means the University tacitly acknowledges the need for more money to remain competitive. TA’s are actually somewhat outside the competitive part of the market because they are already here and have to work in order to survive. If you ask me, forcing these marginalized workers to accept subsistence wages is coercion in its meanest and most sinister sense.

HA! Is this what they teach you in Agricultural and Consumer Economics? All GEO members are VOLUNTEERS, no one gets rich off being a grad student or least of all off volunteering for the GEO. With the job market the way it is for PhDs, we are MUCH better served by creating fewer PhDs and paying people a living wage along the way than by creating gobs of PhDs, each one of whom is sitting on massive student loan debt, and then can't find a job in their field.

Oh, by the way, competing institutions already pay more than Illinois, but the admin is funneling off money here to line THEIR pockets, so how does that work into your model? What a load of crap.

The letter had to be edited to satisfy the DI's length restriction. Below is the full version:

The repeated threat of a strike by the GEO is unnecessary coercion against the university that jeopardizes the quality of education for all students and could further erode the reputation of this institution.

The argument can be made that unions may provide useful services to an economy in its industrialization infancy to prevent harsh treatment of the labor force and to increase the supply of labor capital by providing training. However, once the economy matures, unions have outlived their usefulness and are viruses that only serve to line the pockets of those in power and weaken the industries they infect.

The GEO cites increases in health coverage, minimum salaries, and annual raises as examples of its usefulness. These are all great talking points for a booth set up at graduate student orientation to convince people to support the cause, but the GEO literature fails to mention the costs that we all incur in the long run that far outweigh these benefits. When labor achieves market power, they are free to drive the cost of labor above the market rate through coercion (e.g. the threat of a strike). The benefits come to those people who are already in the industry (e.g. students). Those who benefit carry political clout because they are able to make their voices heard.

For the people who actually bear the costs, it is more difficult to garner political sympathy because they may not even know they have been harmed. These are the people who will not get assistantships or funding because the GEO has made it more expensive to fund each person. If the GEO had not existed and wages stayed at the market rates, more students could be funded for the same cost.

There is no better example of the destructive power of unions than the American automobile industry. I do not presume to hypothesize that unions alone brought two of the three the American carmakers to bankruptcy, but one would be hard-pressed to argue that they did not play a substantial role. It is very difficult to maintain a comparative advantage when, by the United Autoworkers Union’s own estimation, companies have to pay union employees 38.7% more than their non-union counterparts (http://www.uaw.org/facts/09/unionadvantage0309.pdf).

Without the GEO, the university would pay graduate employees the market rate for the field of study in which they were enrolled. If they paid below the market rate for that field of study, potential students would choose to enroll in another university, which in turn would force the university to raise the wage (over the long-run). There may be greater disparities in income across different fields of study, but this is simply the market’s way of assigning priorities to those disciplines that offer the greatest potential for growth and advancement of our economy and society.

In closing, a strike would only put the quality of education at risk for all current students, undergraduate as well as graduate, and further damage the reputation of this great institution. Please do not support the GEO’s attempt to bully the university and inflate the union coffers.

Hi Mr. Brooks Schaffer.

I looked you up on Facebook. Apparently you hunt deer, you're a fan of Victoria's Secret PINK, and you belong to the facebook groups "Nascar" and "Southern and Proud of it," which has the confederate flag as its picture.

How cute.

I'm sure other people will have some excellent points about how flawed your argument is. I just wanted to make you feel insecure. Have a great day.

--The Internet

I believe that in addition to unions being market obstructions, so too are PhD thesis committees. In the end, skill is all that matters. Smart, resourceful people should be able to be professors and apply for grants regardless of their so-called "degrees". The marketplace should easily cull the herd, by dismissing those that do not measure up to the rest of the ivory tower elites.

In the end, graduate students are paid what they deserve, and not a penny less or more. If they really were worth anything they would have been maximizing their money/time parameter already and working for a For-Profit Company, perhaps in the insurance or banking sectors of the economy.

It sounds like someone is just upset that they could not get a TAing position. They hire the number of TA's based on the number of classes that they need them to work, so your argument does not make complete sense.

You also argue contradictory points, first that having a union which works for higher pay will damage our school's reputation through a strike and then you also say that it will be good if our TA's should leave to other schools because of the low pay to reach equilibrium . You forget to take into account that many top graduate students may attend other schools if they are unable to make a living wage through serving as TAs and GAs thus lowering the quality and reputation of our school much more than any strike could.

How can the GEO be the virus if it's asking for a living wage for every worker on campus? What is parasitic about that? Doesn't asking people to do more work for less money sound more diseased to any sensible person?

Who has power at the bargaining table? The university administration. What's coercive? The administration's proposal to the GEO Bargaining Team last Wednesday requesting a furlough clause in the contract. Why is this coercive? TAs don't "clock in" MF 9-5 like an admin might, so they can't "furlough" themselves for a day and just not do work. They teach classes, lead discussions, and have to attend to all of the paperwork connected to those. So what's coercive? The university says "furlough", but for TAs it actually means "8% pay cut for the same work" [or else be a worse/bad TA to your students - which none of us want to do].

I'm not going to respond to much of what you say here because it is so vague, paranoid, highly critical, and at the same time naively trusting to think "the market rate" - and the market's blind forces I guess?- work out salary and compensation rates that are fair for the field/discipline anyone is in.

There are people - administrators, managers - active agents who set salaries. The Graduate Employee Union is here to say: everyone should be at the table to talk about salary and compensation rates.

You say I'm a member of an organization that's nothing but a virus that has outlived its use? That insults me and disrespects the hard volunteer labor that every active GEO member has put toward asking the university for a living wage (WE ARE ONLY ASKING FOR THE AMOUNT THE UNIVERSITY GRAD COLLEGE SETS AS NEEDED FOR A GRADUATE STUDENT TO LIVE HERE). Can you tell I'm irritated?

I ask you again - how can the GEO be the virus if it's asking for a living wage for every worker on campus?

As we have repeatedly stated (perhaps you should come out to a few meetings, Brooks), this strike is NOT just about wages.
If the GEO were to sign the contract today as proposed by the University, not only would our wages be frozen in place for a period of 3 years, the university would also gain the right to revoke graduate student tuition waivers at will (which they have already begun doing for undergraduate TA's not covered under our contract) and also would gain the right enact mandatory furloughs of graduate employees for a period of up to 30 days.

You may be ok with such things (perhaps you are independently wealthy and can afford not having a tuition waiver and losing a month's salary, in which case, more power to you), but I and, as proven by last week's strike authorization vote, hundreds of my colleagues are not. We love this institution just as much as anyone else and do not wish to see harm come to it, there comes a time when one must make a stand and speak out in order to maintain that which one holds dear.