More on Postdoc Unionization

"I can post some other quotes if you would like, but do we really want to feel that miserable?"

Yes please. Paste the whole thing. If you don't mind.

OK then the Nature article:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6984/full/428690a.html

At the turn of the millennium, the US National Academies put the spotlight on the miserable pay and conditions experienced by most US postdocs. Things are now starting to change, but slowly. Betsy Mason reports.

Low pay, a lack of benefits, inadequate recognition and poor career guidance. This, according to an influential report1 released in 2000 by the US National Academies, is the lot of postdocs working in the United States. Across the country, more than 50,000 scientists and engineers make up this part of the workforce, existing at that indefinite stage of continued training between earning a PhD and gaining a permanent academic position.

These young researchers represent the engine room of US science, responsible for most of the hands-on work that underpins papers published each week in leading journals. And if the most talented of them are forced to quit academia for greener pastures, they will take with them the vibrancy that drives US scientific enterprise.

This week in Washington DC, the academies' Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP), which produced the report, is holding a conference to review progress since it thrust the problems faced by postdocs into the limelight. In some respects, the news is good. A National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) has been set up to represent postdocs' interests. Local associations have sprung up at academic institutions across the country. And for some postdocs, salaries and benefits have improved.

But problems still abound. Some universities are conspicuously lagging behind in improving pay and conditions for their postdoctoral researchers. And for those postdocs -- more than half of the total -- who are visitors from abroad, visa restrictions imposed under the new focus on homeland security are causing serious difficulties2.

"It's a mixed bag," says Timothy Coetzee, director of research training programmes at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, a charity that has won plaudits for its enlightened attitude towards career development for the postdocs supported by its grants. "We've made some progress, but we still have a long way to go."

SOURCE: NIH
On the rise
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds more postdocs than any other agency or institution in the country, has also taken notice of the situation. "It's an issue of considerable importance to us," says Walter Schaffer, acting director of the agency's Office of Extramural Programs.

Since 2000, the NIH has increased the minimum stipend for first-year postdocs receiving its National Research Service Awards, of which some 1,800 are given out each year, by almost one-third (see Graph, left). Those funded under the scheme are also guaranteed a salary rise of about 5% with each year of experience. This is good news for other postdocs as well, because many institutions, including major research universities, are adopting the NIH pay scale3.

Another positive sign is the birth of the NPA, founded in January 2003 by a group of postdocs in the biological sciences looking for an organized voice at the national level. The group tackles issues such as the need for better salaries and benefits, and is trying to gather data on current institutional postdoc policies. The NPA is already being taken seriously by agencies such as the NIH, which invited the group's representatives to take part in a meeting on postdoc training and opportunities in October last year.

"This is a good time to deal with postdoc issues because everybody is interested right now, and they're listening," says Claudina Stevenson, a founding member of the NPA who works at Harvard Medical School's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts.

The NPA is also helping postdocs to form local associations, and encouraging institutions to create offices that specifically deal with policies concerning postdocs. It estimates there are now more than 50 institutions with postdoc associations or offices, most of which came into existence in the past few years.

Stanford University in California was one of the pioneers, creating a postdoc office in 1989. Ten years later, its postdocs also formed their own association. Stanford's 1,300-plus postdocs enjoy salaries that are higher than the NIH minimum and have benefits that include health insurance and maternity leave. Other success stories include the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where postdocs have dental insurance and get a supplement of $2,000 per year to help them plan for their retirement. And at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the local postdoc association worked with the postdoc office to establish a minimum salary and a five-year cap on the time a researcher can be employed as a postdoc -- if they are kept on longer, they must be given a permanent position.

At the University of Connecticut, meanwhile, postdocs have formed a fully fledged labour union that bargains with the administration on salary and benefits. Last month, it negotiated a rise in the minimum postdoc salary from $27,000 to $34,200, and won annual rises, health insurance, paid sick leave and holidays, plus a standardized grievance procedure. If the Connecticut legislature doesn't object, these policies will become official next month.

But at many institutions, postdocs still toil without a guaranteed salary minimum. "Awareness of postdoc issues has definitely improved," says Helen McBride, a fifth-year postdoc in developmental biology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where the high cost of living means that the minimum salary of $32,000 doesn't go far. "But there's still a lack of this awareness translating into change."

Second-class citizens
Recipients of postdoctoral fellowships are often classified as 'trainees' at their host institutions, which can leave them ineligible for benefits such as healthcare. For instance, Cornelia Bentley and her husband Jeffrey Pitman, now both postdocs in molecular biology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, were paying $680 per month to insure their family of three because Pitman's fellowship from the American Cancer Society left them without health coverage. When they couldn't make ends meet, the principal investigator of Pitman's lab stepped in temporarily to cover the insurance costs until Bentley managed to secure a postdoc with benefits. "I don't know what we would have done otherwise," Bentley says.

Such problems are becoming more acute because of a congested job market that leaves too many PhDs chasing too few permanent academic positions. As a result, many researchers have to eke out a living as postdocs into their late thirties or early forties, or just give up and look for opportunities elsewhere.

More and more postdocs are switching to careers in industry, and some are leaving science altogether. After spending six years as a postdoc in genetics at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York, and having no luck landing a faculty position, Derek Scholes is now applying for fellowships in bioethics. "I typify many postdocs who were keen to enter a research career and for whatever reason, didn't get enough publications to be competitive," he says.

Some researchers fear that the grim job outlook, combined with poor pay and conditions, may discourage the very best students from entering science in the first place. William Zumeta, who studies education policy at the University of Washington in Seattle, has found some evidence that the best physical-sciences graduate students are opting to go to business school instead4. "If you buy the idea that the best and the brightest drive scientific innovation, this could be a real problem," he says.

A foreign affair
Until recently, US researchers could count on a boundless supply of high-quality foreign scientists to fill positions in their labs. But tighter security has made it tougher for such researchers, particularly those in fields deemed sensitive by the US government, to get visas. This topic is likely to be hotly debated at this week's COSEPUP meeting.

Another live issue is the tendency of some principal investigators to view their postdocs as little more than hired hands. "There is a lack of understanding of what a postdoc is," says one evolutionary biologist, who left her first postdoc after a year when she realized her adviser was treating her like a technician.

What's needed, say postdoc activists, are policies to ensure that postdocs receive proper training and career guidance designed to aid their transition into independent researchers supervising their own students and fellows.

Some funding bodies are now providing a small number of grants with this express aim. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society awards three 'career transition fellowships' each year, which are worth about $550,000 and consist of two years of postdoctoral funding followed by salary and research support for the first three years in a faculty position. Another research foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, has awarded 15 similar career grants since 2002. But these schemes are a drop in the ocean -- many more such grants will be needed to make a difference to the academic job market. "The big problem is that policy-makers don't want to take responsibility for career development," says Zumeta.

As this week's COSEPUP meeting assesses progress, the grades it marks on its report card are likely to range from A to F. Postdocs still have a long list of grievances, but at least things are moving in the right direction. "I think we've done most of the easy stuff," says Coetzee. "Now comes the hard part of deciding where to put our priorities."

COSEPUP meeting

http://www7.nationalacademies.org/postdoc

National Postdoctoral Association

http://www.nationalpostdoc.org

Top of pageReferences
Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers (National Academies Press, Washington DC, 2000).
Brumfiel, G. et al. Nature 427, 190−195 (2004). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
Kreeger, K. Nature 427, 178−179 (2004). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
Zumeta, W. & Raveling, J. S. The Best and Brightest for Science: Is There a Problem Here? (Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology, Washington DC, 2002).

and the Science article:

link

The State of the Union
Beryl Lieff Benderly
United States
3 March 2006

Two years ago this month, the nation's first postdoc union, University Health Professionals (UHP) at the University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC) in Farmington, overwhelmingly ratified its first contract. The pact provided higher pay, improved benefits, and a robust grievance procedure. Supporters of postdoc unions hoped it would launch a national movement. Detractors, meanwhile, feared it would damage postdocs' relations with their advisers and their career prospects.

To date, neither prediction has come true. The contract quickly became the new normal in UCHC labs, where postdocs are only one category of workers in the long-established union, Local 3837 of the AFL-CIO-affiliated American Federation of Teachers. Right now, UHP and UCHC are conducting their regular quadrennial negotiations to renew the contract that covers postdocs and more than 1000 other UHP members. The talks are proceeding amicably, says UHP president Jean Morningstar, who foresees "no problems" and expects a new agreement to be ratified in the spring.

Back when UCHC postdoc activists were feeling the euphoria of victory over university opposition, some saw their struggle as the beginning of a movement for change throughout American science. But rather than the anticipated groundswell of support for postdoc unionization, Morningstar told Next Wave, UHP has received inquiries from postdocs interested in unionization at "a couple of other campuses," including Stony Brook University in New York state, where a drive to organize postdocs is part of a larger unionization effort on the campus.

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The West Coast has also seen scattered interest. Last fall, people identifying themselves as organizers for the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) entered labs at the University of California (UC), San Francisco, allegedly in violation of security regulations, and asked postdocs to sign cards indicating a desire to be represented by an entity called Postdoctoral Researcher Organize/UAW (PRO/UAW). More recently, PRO/UAW organizers have appeared at UCLA and UC Berkeley. An international union mostly concentrated in the manufacturing sector, UAW has 640,000 active members who produce products as diverse as Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler cars, Revlon cosmetics, and Land O'Lakes butter. The union also has half a million retired members.

Through its Technical, Office, and Professional division, UAW represents white collar workers across the country, including journalists, computer specialists, social-service workers, librarians, museum staffers, and employees of state governments and of more than 20 colleges and universities, many of them graduate student employees. Under California law, an election to determine whether postdocs want union representation would take place when 30% sign those cards. Should 50% plus one postdoc sign, the union would become the postdocs' bargaining representative without an election.

As required by law, "the university is maintaining a neutral stance" toward postdoc unionization, says Christine Des Jarlais, UCSF's assistant dean for graduate outreach and postdoctoral affairs. The UCSF Postdoctoral Scholars Association (PSA), too, remains neutral. "Our organization is neither pro- nor antiunion. We were not even informed" of the organizing activities, says PSA president Christina Lewis.

Asked about UAW intentions for postdocs at UCSF and elsewhere in California, spokesperson Maureen Boyd would say only that "the UAW already represents 22,000 academics on the West Coast, including 12,000 teaching assistants, readers, and tutors at the University of California; 6000 research assistants, teaching assistants, readers, and tutors at the California State University; and 4000 research assistants, teaching assists readers, and tutors at the University of Washington. We can confirm that we have been contacted by postdocs at the University of California."

A number of other unions also represent various categories of workers on UC campuses. These include University Professional and Technical Employees, also known as Local 9119 of the Communications Workers of America, and locals of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and of the American Federation of Teachers, all three of which are AFL-CIO affiliates.

Things Start in California

In California, dueling Web sites are already promoting and anonymously condemning the PRO/UAW campaign. Thanks to an initiative dubbed the California Plan, UC postdocs already have a better deal than many postdocs elsewhere in the country, including many of the services and benefits won by the UCHC postdoc union. It could be argued that UC-system postdocs have less need for a postdoc union than their counterparts on many other campuses, including pre-union UCHC. Yet the UC system offers the single largest and (thanks in part to the UC administration) best organized group of postdocs in the country, so UC postdocs are obvious targets for unions that want to build national momentum, even if they have less to complain about than their national peers.

A Good Idea?

Only UC postdocs--and those at other universities across the country--can decide whether unionization is right for them. So far, there has been only one experiment that postdocs can look to for guidance: the one at UCHC. So did UCHC postdocs make the right decision when they decided to join the union? Despite claims that higher salaries would mean fewer postdoc positions, Morningstar says that the number of postdocs at UCHC has remained "pretty static" since the union contract was ratified.

The union contract has also worked out well in other respects, says John Wagner, one of the early UCHC activists and a member of the team that negotiated the first union contract. "You want to look at the tangibles: money, benefits. We were very successful. We brought up the minimum salary, which really helped lift a large fraction of postdocs. We got annual adjustments for cost of living and so forth."

But "there's a second way of evaluating this, in terms of the intangibles, things that you get out of it that don't fill your stomach but that fill your soul: respect, which I think is number one; the ability to go to work and not have to put up with being treated like a second-class citizen. It was also about working conditions and wages, but most people are willing to tolerate pretty crappy pay if they've got a job that fulfills them."

"I think that along those lines we were very successful. Not being treated like second-class citizens. Seeing postdocs walk with a little bit more snap." Postdocs felt more respected in "a lot of little ways" and some big ones, Wagner says. Annual evaluations, for example, were pro forma and "took 30 seconds" preunion, but once written into the contract, they are "taken much more seriously now."

Nor did the union damage Wagner's relationship with his principal investigator. "When we were organizing, my PI was quite adamant, quite against it. He had a long laundry list of problems that it was going to cause. He foresaw a lot of potential problems. After it was all said and done, we got the contract inked, and none of these problems came to pass."

It was this same PI, Wagner says, who took the initiative to recommend him to a recruiter at a meeting. "I wouldn't be where I am now," in a research position with a major international corporation at a salary far above his postdoc pay, had his PI not done so. To clinch the deal, "my PI wrote a very strong letter."

Respect

Munirathinam Subramani, another original UHP activist, agrees that the contract brought "better respect from PIs" and raises of "close to $10,000" for some individuals. "There is no negative aspect until this moment. There was not a single incident I could give you. I don't think it's affected any grants or relations with faculty." In fact, he "came out with some significant findings in my research work while I was involved in union activities. Although my boss was not so happy about my union activities, we always enjoyed doing science together." During that same period, Subramani even found time to do some mentoring of his own, of a local high school student working in his lab, an effort that won him Glastonbury High School's best mentor award.

"I have nothing negative to say that I saw or experienced," Subramani says. Nor did his activism prevent him from receiving "three different final [job] offers including a tenure track." Before accepting his present post as an associate research scientist with faculty status in the Yale medical school, "I didn't even give a talk," he says.

Have you seen this http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2006/8/17/5015

He's got a pretty dim view of the UAW.

This thread is a bit old, but the question of unionization came back in 2008-2009. More and more UC postdocs are complaining about UAW and a group wants them decertified. All the details and latest plans on decertification is here: http://ucpostdocs.wordpress.com/