“A Graduate Student Union?
Michigan’s employment commission is exploring whether graduate students at state schools have the right to unionize.”
Indeed, many administrators and faculty have pushed back against the possibility of a graduate researcher union, worrying that the change could harm research at the university and invite mediocrity. “The vast majority of peer schools that we compare ourselves with at Michigan don’t [unionize]—MIT doesn’t, Stanford doesn’t, neither does Berkeley,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, an aerospace engineering professor at the University. “Today’s university is a battle for quality talent,” and a unionized Michigan may struggle to stay competitive with these top-flight schools, he said.