Inside Higher Ed has a story today on the continuing battle at NYU over the unionization of grad students.

The piece makes it sound as though union representation were tantamount to a decent living and being treated like a human being rather than a beast of burden. What you don’t hear in it — and rarely hear whenever the subject of unionization comes up — is that there are costs involved. Union don’t have tooth-fairy powers to make good things happen at no cost.

For one thing, union dues must be paid, and quite a lot of that money is used for political purposes having nothing to do with the individuals who pay. That’s the point Prof. Mitchell Langbert makes in this NAS Blog post.

NYU should be just as free to refuse to negotiate with a union as anyone is free to refuse to negotiate with a guy who comes to your front door and says, “I’d like to do your lawn work.”