[eli_gottlieb]

No. We don't need a consumer review website, because PhD students (I am one) are not the consumers of doctoral programs. We're the workers. We need a union.

If we're in a good program, we're receiving valuable training both in our coursework (or before PhD in an MS/MA if your country does it that way) and in our research work. Ideally, we're building up a network of collaborations and acquaintances in the scientific community that gives us an "in" for the next stage of our career, while also being mentored by world-class experts in our fields.

In a not so good program, we're used as TAs for a few years and then rapidly encouraged to drop out.

Either way, most of what we do is not like most of what an undergraduate student does. It is like what an entry-level professional does.

[mattkrause]

A union might be part of the solution, but I doubt it can be all of it.

Collective bargaining could certainly help negotiate stipends and (lack of) benefits. Standardized degree requirements and access to funding could be agreed upon. Working conditions, especially related to non-research duties like teaching, could be on the table as well. These are certainly a source of misery for some PhD students in some fields.

However, I’m not seeing how a union could rein in an individual’s advisor, which is often the major source of stress. A union could certainly set working hours, but that will just move the debate to “expected productivity/quality per hour.” Moreover, a lot of things that are essential to building an academic career are technically optional. A union cannot force someone to write a positive recommendation letter, expand their scientific network, or anything like that.

[musicale]

> PhD students (I am one) are not the consumers of doctoral programs. We're the workers

I wish I had the reference, but I remember reading about a study which showed (unsurprisingly) that the high research productivity per dollar in the US is primarily due to the below-market salaries of graduate research assistants and postdocs.

Not so much capitalism - more like a guild system with a lengthy (and perhaps semi-permanent for many postdocs and adjuncts) period of apprenticeship and indenture.

[chrisseaton]

On a PhD you work for yourself - you shouldn’t need a union against yourself!

[orbifold]

At least in experimental physics a significant chunk of your time is taken up by menial duties. This might be babysitting the gas-detector or anything from server maintenance, PCB-design, ASIC development. Some of it can turn into your PhD thesis, a lot of it is just uninspired grunt-work you are expected to do. Of course you are also typically only paid ~65% of a full salary, so a significant chunk of your work is unpaid, because of course people expect you to work full-time. An alternative way of stating this is that you are expected to do your PhD research in the 35% of the unpaid time.

This is in principle illegal, but because the institutes don't have any automatic time-tracking, you are instead expected to lie on your time-sheets and to underreport the time you've worked.

[eli_gottlieb]

>On a PhD you work for yourself

What field do you work in? Modern science is team science. I think the paper I have under review right now has... six authors? That's pretty average for the particular interdisciplinary collaboration I happen to work in right now.

It would just be silly to claim that every other junior author on the paper is working for me, as the first author, rather than admit that I work for my adviser (who I haven't complained about here because I lucked out and got a very good one).

[chrisseaton]

> What field do you work in?

Computer science.

> It would just be silly to claim that every other junior author on the paper is working for me

Exactly - the all work for themselves. I'm sure they all have their own research goals and they come together on papers along the way.

But what you need to focus on is the publications you achieve. You achieve them for yourself not your advisor.

[kayaeb]

Really depends on your mentor. I've seen some gross abuses where the union was absolutely essential.

Also the union hooked up like BBQs and whatever so like, that's nice.

[chrisseaton]

What bargaining power do you bring in this situation?

Give us what we want or... we'll quit our degrees and throw away years of our lives?

[eli_gottlieb]

>Give us what we want or... we'll quit our degrees and throw away years of our lives?

Give us what we want or you have no teachers and your research output drops to near-zero. Most of the actual work of scientific research is done by what we politely euphemize as "early career researchers" or "junior authors": grad-students and postdocs. Tenured and tenure-track professors don't do the bulk of the bench-work, even when they really enjoy it.

[chrisseaton]

But if they don't do any research they will kill their own careers as well.

[eli_gottlieb]

Kinda like how when you're a worker, not doing any work kills your career. Every strike is a risk.

[Donthatme]

Here is a link to University of Michigan's grad student union: https://www.geo3550.org/

The membership is based of being a GSI, but a lot of the negotiations apply to all PhD students.

[chrisseaton]

I'm just reading the page and maybe you know more than me, but it seems like this is really a union of instructors and assistants, rather than students. If you aren't instructing, you probably don't need this union.

[mxcrossb]

Yeah what we really need is a glassdoor equivalent.