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$19,000 is NOT enough for grad students...
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<p>"Enough"? They are enrolled as students in a top university. They are getting free tuition AND a big stipend. It is a phenominal deal. Should they be making a financial profit out of this relationship?</p>
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it's an issue of rights and protection!
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<p>The government has determined that these graduate students do NOT have the "right" to unionise, and therefore that NYU is not obligated to recognise that union. Unionisation is not, and never has been, a fundamental "right".</p>
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he doesn't care about their rights. he was never a professor or a TA.
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<p>As much as I don't like John Sexton, once again the "rights" argument is completely flawed. "Rights" according to whom or what? Also, John Sexton was a professor for years and still continues to teach classes.</p>
<p>Where is it written that grad students deserve the protection of a union? And $19,000 not being enough? Give me a break. No one forced them to come to Manhattan to grad school. Tell your tale to undergrads who are going to be close to $200,000 in debt when they graduate. If a grad student can't afford to live in Manhattan, makes the decision to marry and have a family while still in school, those are choices THEY make and they should not expect that the university is going to subsidize them to a greater extent than they already do. For them to then go ahead and strike and affect thousands of undergrads is unconscionable.</p>
<p>Your 'rights and protection' argument doesn't sell. Why are their rights and protections any more valid than mine? No one is guaranteeing me a stipend to study at NYU. No one is providing me with health insurance. They're grad STUDENTS! They're not employees in an employment position. The teaching they do is part of their learning experience. And frankly, from the people I've discussed this with since the strike started, a large number of grad students who are TA's are pretty horrible at their job. So give us all a break, and take your arguments elsewhere. We're not buying.</p>
<p>I support anything Sexton does to get them back to work.</p>
<p>I think that when the TAs leave NYU and go out in the real world some of them (depending on profession) may well find they are making less than the combination of their $19,000 and free tuition (that's over $50,000, right) certailny while they are just out of school.
I am not completely against unions, by the way - they were started because workers were getting sc....d, working in unsafe conditions, child labor, etc. But grad students with families don't "have" to live in Manhattan - most people who work in Manhattan 10 and 12 hour days have to commute. That is life for almost everyone in the city.</p>