Scenario. You decide to go to a well-known graduate school in Philadelphia. You are granted a graduate assistantship, which means you get a contract that pays your tuition, plus a $17,000 stipend per year for living expenses. In return, you work 20 hours per week for a professor in return for tuition and health care benefits. Background. The Taft-Hartley Act (1947) allows workers to be employed at a firm without joining the union at their workplace or paying membership fees to the union. This arrangement is known as an open shop. Right-to-work laws forbid unions and employers to enter into agreements requiring employees to join a union and pay dues and fees to it in order to get or keep a job. Twenty-one states, mostly in the South and West, have right-to-work laws. Before your first paycheck arrives, two graduate student union members knock on your office door to explain to you that you are a free rider. That is, you have been hired to teach 20 hours per week at a salary of $17,000 per year plus health benefits. For this salary, you are not paying union dues, yet the union offers you protection, in the event that you should find yourself needing representation regarding your contract with the university. They are asking that you join the union for $27 per month.
A. What argument did the graduate student union present to you? That is, please explain what part of the union repays argument might possibly convince you that you should join the union. That is, why would you want to avoid being a free rider? (A free rider is a person who benefits from a good, but doesn't pay for the good).
B. Please decide whether or not you will pay the union dues. It is $27 per month for 10 months. Give an explanation for your decision.
Scenario. You decide to go to a well-known graduate school in Philadelphia. You are granted a graduate assistantship, which means you get a contract that pays your tuition, plus a $17,000 stipend per year for living expenses. In return, you work 20 hours per week for a professor in return for tuition and health care benefits. Background. The Taft-Hartley Act (1947) allows workers to be employed at a firm without joining the union at their workplace or paying membership fees to the union. This arrangement is known as an open shop. Right-to-work laws forbid unions and employers to enter into agreements requiring employees to join a union and pay dues and fees to it in order to get or keep a job. Twenty-one states, mostly in the South and West, have right-to-work laws. Before your first paycheck arrives, two graduate student union members knock on your office door to explain to you that you are a free rider. That is, you have been hired to teach 20 hours per week at a salary of $17,000 per year plus health benefits. For this salary, you are not paying union dues, yet the union offers you protection, in the event that you should find yourself needing representation regarding your contract with the university. They are asking that you join the union for $27 per month.
A. What argument did the graduate student union present to you? That is, please explain what part of the union repays argument might possibly convince you that you should join the union. That is, why would you want to avoid being a free rider? (A free rider is a person who benefits from a good, but doesn't pay for the good).
B. Please decide whether or not you will pay the union dues. It is $27 per month for 10 months. Give an explanation for your decision.
