Don’t Strike

At the age of 17, my parents both joined a trade union when they began earning a monthly stipend of less than $2. This in the Soviet Union, where union membership was mandatory. The “union” was mostly an additional vehicle for communist propaganda and Soviet corruption: It fully cooperated with the government, and strikes were, of course, unheard of.

The Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU) seems different – its stated goal is to improve the conditions of graduate students like myself. SGWU recently announced that it would begin a strike tomorrow (November 13th, rescheduled from today), after its negotiations with the university didn’t lead to a compromise. Over the past few weeks, I’ve started receiving daily emails about what the union is up to. The emails are usually written with strong language, even seeming to pressure me to join the strike. (The union seems to be organizing a team of picket captains whose job is to convince non-striking graduate students to join.) 

Yet, despite the union’s valiant efforts to get me on board, I’m not. Here’s why: 

1. While the SGWU may claim that Stanford pays poverty wages, in reality, the university offers an incredibly robust TA and research assistant package, which is among the best in the country. These benefits already include a full tuition refund, fully funded Cardinal Care health insurance, extra support for international students and families, and a staggering salary of $12,000-$13,000 per quarter on top of that. At a minimum, these benefits sum to at least $33,000 per quarter when counting the tuition refund. PhD students have an even more generous package than the base-level benefits offered to master’s students. On top of what Stanford already offers, it proposed a sizable 12% raise in salaries over a 2-year period for graduate workers, as evidenced by the proposal published by the union. 
2. With no feedback on homework, no section time, and no office hours (all tasks performed overwhelmingly by graduate students) near the end of the quarter, the planned TA strike hurts undergrads the most. The union is effectively holding Stanford’s tuition-paying undergraduates hostage to put pressure on the administration. However, not only will undergrad tuition increase if the strike succeeds, but these undergraduates will have decreased chances of graduate admission when the number of graduate workers is cut to compensate for increased wages. Indeed in the UC system, out-of-state tuition at UC Berkeley increased by 10% over the past two years following the strike, compared to a 0.9% increase the previous year. Moreover, a graduate strike and artificially increased wages have resulted in a sharp reduction of graduate admissions. 
3. The SGWU also seems to play fast and loose with arithmetic in its propaganda. For an organization of academic workers at one of America’s top universities, it seems to miscalculate that Stanford’s food budget is $2,000 more than the cost of a graduate, 19 meal per week plan at $7,735 per year! Whether by malice or ignorance, this fallacy makes the SGWU appear greedy, rather than good-natured, in its demands. 
4. The UC strike drastically increased class sizes to compensate for increased expenses. While the union’s victory may have resulted in higher wages, the actual quality of work performed and, consequently, educational quality suffered, harming the vast majority of students who are undergrads for the benefit of a select few graduate workers. Moreover, it has harmed the graduate workers themselves, whose effective work hours have been quite substantially increased. This has led to significantly reduced time available for research and progress towards the degree, for all TAs.
5. Stanford has guaranteed housing for first-year graduate students, and priority housing throughout the expected duration of their stay at Stanford. The housing rates range mostly from $1,500-$2,000 per month (so $4,500-$6,000 per quarter), leaving even the lowest-paid CA workers with at least $5,000 per quarter after accounting for taxes. If cost of living is the main cause for striking, then Stanford’s subsidized housing makes this a non-issue.
6. We should not be comparing Stanford’s salaries with those of institutions in other regions. This does not account for differing housing costs, differing requirements for employment, and differing benefits. Nevertheless, as highlighted in the Stanford Report, Stanford’s employment package is, if not the best, among one of the best out of all peer institutions. It provides significantly more than a living wage, and allows for a comfortable several years of graduate study.
7. What the SGWU seems to most critically misinterpret, however, is not the value of its members’ benefits, but rather the fundamental purpose of graduate school. Being a Stanford graduate student is not a career, but rather an investment in one’s future which opens doors. Graduate students are not forced to become graduate students: it is a choice. The work of Stanford graduate students, through teaching or research, is a part of the investment they make in themselves, and their pay already reflects that. Stanford graduate students, the country’s future elite, should cease masquerading as exploited workers through their unionization efforts.

So then what is the true purpose of this strike, if not to acquire a decent standard of living? As is typical of the SGWU, known for its leftism and radical positions, it advocates the delusion that Stanford is a greedy corporation seeking to extort its graduate workers. Thus, any effort Stanford makes to meet the union halfway will not be seen as enough. 

Indeed, the SGWU’s extreme anti-Israel statements that have nothing to do with graduate workers’ conditions, coupled with unfair demands that can ultimately damage everyone’s education, show that this Soviet-style organization cares a lot more about being a leftist advocacy group rather than an organization devoted to the “workers’ rights and wellbeing”. It allies itself with some of the most extreme campus organizations in an attempt to feign an “interconnected struggle”. For example, one of SGWU’s Instagram posts is co-authored with the communist pro-Hamas Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine and the “anti-imperialist” (pro-Russia and China) Stanford Asian American Action Committee.

Graduate students cannot allow themselves to fall into SGWU’s politicized trap. Stanford provides fair pay and fair working conditions to its graduate workers, and while negotiations for better worker protections from abuse are justified, the union’s monetary claims are meritless and reek of entitlement.

Especially when compared to Stanford’s undergraduate workers (who receive minimum wage while doing the same job as the CAs), it is clear that graduate students receive more than fair treatment. Undergrads earn $2,000-$4,000 a quarter, spending up to 20 hours weekly of their time, which could have been spent on additional classes, working to pay off less than 20% of their total tuition of $65,127. Nevertheless, undergraduates do sign up for grading and research jobs voluntarily because they recognize that these roles are a privilege and an investment in their future, instead of embracing the SGWU’s delusion that they are a career in and of themselves.

This strike is against the interest of Stanford undergraduates paying for their education, and also the striking graduate students themselves. Stanford is not the USSR, where everyone was required to pay dues totalling 1% of their salary to a union which did not represent their interests. Here, you have a choice. Don’t cave to the union’s pressure tactics. Don’t sign the card. Don’t strike.