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'Fed Up With Being Exploited,' Unionized Cornell Workers Strike as Students Arrive
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
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- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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So I work in HR. There are lots of problems with the function as it's setup in many companies, some reasons are the same and other times it's industry or company practices or norms that create problems.
I've thought for a good 15 years on and off as I've gone through my career about going back for a master's and Cornell has the most respected, highest-rate Labor/Industrial Relations(IR) program in the country. That they doubtless have teachers that could explain and fix simple issues like the one mentioned in the article, but pretend they aren't in a position to do so while finance and accounting MBAs that have taken over corporations for 4 decades and colleges going on a couple of decades, says everything you need to know about the state of US higher education, HR, and organizations and it's this;
Organizations in the US don't want to fix most problems. As a society the US has a culture of avoiding pain and never wanting those in power to be uncomfortable since those people wrote most rules. Fixing problems is hard, there is pain, and of course losers in any change process. Corporations that say they can't hire enough talent but haven't tried drastically increasing wages, when they say they can't retain but offer no real career path or mentorship allocated time as part of your work...there are hundreds of examples that all boil down to one word that is constantly and inaccurately used: disingenuousness.
Back to Cornell, and my masters. Each year, like many thinking of higher Ed or an advanced degree, the number looks worse when you consider the ROI and C/B analysis. Each year, also the more I work, the more it's clear to me that there is no point in abstract knowledge without the power to implement it...especially given the cost. That Cornell is so poorly run that they have the Jordan of programs on the same campus they're systematically underpaying and disenfranchising the next generation of those they bless with a degree ..holy hell is it time to pull the plug on these gatekeeping, privilege-enforcing institutions run by short-sighted people who care nothing for the founding mission. The mothballing of free speech on campus by tuition-paying students when the subject was something that challenged US military hegemony and made wealthy donors upset, again, tells you everything you need to know.
The sad part is I am scared about what corporate, for-profit, AI-driven, 1984-seems-docile-by-comparison replacement will rise from the ashes when higher Ed implodes. Projections put probably half of private schools closing in the next 10-20 years, any private school that isn't top rated will be gone, and that's not all bad. Line can't always go up.