If bachelor degree holders were allowed to advance to the levels of PhD holders in industry through their work there (not academia) than there would be far fewer PhDs and unions would not be necessary. This is practiced in Japan, it’s called ronbun.

The academic pipeline is clogged because only one way is being given to students to advance their scientific careers, PhD research. We need another way!!

Ultimately, this is the outgrowth of the oversupply of biological science Ph.D.s. Forming postdoc unions is a solution for the symptom, not the underlying problem.

If multiple postdocs among chemistry PhDs becomes a trend, we are in real trouble.

(Then again, it could be that they’re trying to MAKE it impossible for academics to have too many postdocs (by raising the cost). But then where will the pushed-out postdocs go? The job market doesn’t seem to be soaking them up…)

It also doesn’t make sense to me to pay into a union when I only expect to be a postdoc for a very short time, and where the threat of a strike would hurt me more than my PI.

That said, I’d like to see a nation-wide graduate student bill of rights. Such a document could clearly define a student’s roles and responsibilities. In my experience, many profs treat their grad students like sub-human help and blatantly dismiss the fact that their “employees” have personal needs/responsibilities. I recall several instances where professors abused their “powers” to make grad students perform mundane, irrelevant tasks (seemingly because they could) that ultimately ended up wasting time. Wasn’t so much of a problem for me, but a co-worker friend of mine had a wife and kids at home who were more important than regrading 300 exams for a third time.