Remember, you are *not* employees

Remember that, all you graduate teaching assistants. You are not employed by the university that gives you a small check every month. The check is something like a gift. As is, apparently, your labor.

And, following Bourdieu, we know that even gift exchange is subject to economic laws. So you withdraw your labor, they withdraw their small envelope of money.

If you want the news version, it's here.


What I actually find almost more distressing than the university's behavior (which is really pretty standard and unsurprising in these days of universities following the lead of corporations), is that the labor movement has yet to find a strategy to take the place of striking, which seems especially ineffective for contingent academic workers.