I don’t know about you but I didn’t come to graduate school for the dental care. I came to study, to learn, and sometimes to teach. I applied wanting and expecting precisely this. Apparently I’m in the minority.
Apparently the majority of graduate students want to form a union in order to better represent their interests in the face of the brutal and domineering Boston College administration.
Did you hear their latest chant? They say they are advocates for the newest class of oppressed: graduate students. Did you know that graduate students are an oppressed class? Just as the auto worker on the shop floor daily risks the safety of his life and limbs, so too the graduate student risks … what exactly? Is there any class of people more pampered than graduate students?
To those agitating for the union I say the following: Please, check your privilege.
Better yet, use your privilege to advocate for those less fortunate than you: the undergraduates. Indeed undergraduates deserve a union far more than graduate students. Not only do undergraduates have to pay for their tuition, they often have to take five or six classes per semester and work a part-time job, for which they are no doubt inadequately compensated.
I miss the days when these do-gooder types were collecting lunch money to send to Africa. (But really, guys, Africa could use the help).
In truth, I do not blame those that favor the union. They are innocents deceived by the extortion racket which is the United Auto Workers (UAW), an extortion racket looking for its next victim: universities.
Here’s how it works: the UAW has been sending its representatives out to each of the big-time private universities. These representatives scour the campus for the frustrated idealist-types. They hire these students to work part time ($25 per hour, 20 hours per week—it’s true, I’m not making this up). They canvas the school, collect the signature cards, petition the National Labor Relations Board, and the NLRB sanctions the election.
It sounds like a lot of work, but, remember, the payoff is huge: $1 million annually (2,000 students multiplied by $500 in dues). Establish a local union at 10 new universities per year and you’ve got yourself quite the racket.
I feel pity for the tender souls suckered in by the scheming of the UAW reps. And yet, I can’t help but admire the attachment they display to the principle of justice. By and large, these unwitting mercenaries are moved by a pure and unselfish philanthropy.
But we must not allow our noble feelings to get the best of our reason. The truth of the matter is that our indignation is far too great and our grievances far too small. We are bringing a cannon to a knife-fight.
If we were wise, we would have used the prospect of a union as a threat to bring the administration to the negotiating table. But we were not, and now we are facing the prospect of a perpetual tribute to the union bosses in the hope that they might negotiate on our behalf.
We revolted against a mild, generally beneficent administration in order to curry favor with treacherous tyrants. Thankfully, we still have time to mend our ways.
BC will receive us with gratitude for the good sense we display when we VOTE NO on Sept. 12 and 13.