@kimberlyhirsh This one reason I’m glad the community college I teach at is a union shop. We have a very strong contract, one of the strongest in the nation, in some ways, though it is right now a contract under siege. One issue we’re struggling with now is that newer faculty don’t always realize how hard previous generations fought for the contract and so they are not as diligent and/or they don’t always understand the implications of some of the seemingly benign or neutral moves the administration makes. It’s a real challenge.
@richnewman I just joined the California postdoc union. It's the first union I've ever been able to join, because North Carolina is a right-to-work state and I've always been a state employee. I'm so grateful for the things the union has changed for postdocs.
@kimberlyhirsh language is powerful - funny how we use the term ‘right to work’ state - rather than ‘union busting’ state ….
It’s like how we used to have data warehouses - but now we have data ‘lakes’ and ‘mountains’ that we keep in ‘farms’ - so that we can ‘harvest’ information … it’s all so wonderfully natural - and nothing to worry about …
And don’t get be started on ‘content’ - a nasty homogenous word that is designed by corporates to make us think that our IP, essays, photographs, articles … et al are just interchangeable fodder that gets stored in silos - no need to pay for that … is there … and still we call it ‘content’.
It is truly sad.
@JohnPhilpin wow great points there. There's definitely much to discuss and some to worry about data. I'd love to start a conversation about some of these points
@kimberlyhirsh Good for you! I stepped down as one of the VPs of my union this year to pursue a writing opportunity I couldn’t let pass, but when I was a union officer I ran and wrote our blog. This post has a video of West Virginia governor Jim Justice admitting right-to-work (for less) didn’t work in his state. It’s been inspiring to watch unions strengthen in response to the Janus decision, rather than crumble the way it’s proponents had hoped. I hope we are able to keep that up.
@kimberlyhirsh That’s really cool! You might be interested in a book called The Gig Academy, by Kezar et al. It talks a lot about contingency in higher ed, addresses post docs specifically in some places, but also talks about how gigification has spread to the entire university community, including staff. It’s a powerful book.