Twenty-one months ago, Northwestern postdoctoral students began the long road toward forming a union. Despite University administrators refusing to voluntarily recognize the unionization effort on Sept. 3, the group refuses to lose steam, postdoctoral researcher Neto Canton said.
For nearly two years, postdocs have worked toward better salaries and conditions. Currently, postdocs at NU are paid a minimum salary of $56,484.
“People are having a hard time making ends meet,” Canton said. “People have a hard time paying for expenses with a low postdoc salary here at Northwestern.”
Over the summer, postdocs gathered more than 670 signatures campaigning for salary increases, over 50% of their bargaining pool of 1,300 people.
This progress reflects their “ability to reach a lot of different postdocs here on both campuses,” Canton said.
“We’re very proud of the work we did, and we’re very excited to have other postdocs join this effort,” Canton said. “I know a lot of us are motivated. It’s a pretty universal sentiment that the working conditions and the pay we have right now are not adequate.”
Regardless of the demonstrated support, NU administration refused to consider their requests, according to Canton.
Many postdocs say while they were hopeful ahead of the decision because of the recent success of postdocs at Princeton University, they were not surprised by this response.
“I was still hoping that at least some sort of discussion would have been opened about this,” postdoctoral researcher Julia Fadjukov said. “I think many share the sentiment that it’s not surprising, but (are) still sad and feeling rejection from the University.”
This denial, Canton said, drove the postdocs to plan a card campaign for November. Their goal is to collect signatures of 30% of the potential bargaining unit on anonymous cards, indicating they would like to unionize.
The cards will then be sent to the National Labor Relations Board for approval. If NU does not voluntarily recognize the union, support obtained from the NLRB will trigger an election amongst NU postdocs to decide whether to unionize.
“This is important for the future of academia and for the future postdocs that are going to come here,” postdoctoral researcher Valentina Olivera-Pasilio said.
Although only 30% of the bargaining unit is needed, the NU postdocs aim to have 60% of the unit sign the cards.
The postdocs expect that approval from the NLRB will trigger an election and are hopeful that elections will take place early 2025.
This comes on the heels of the Northwestern University Graduate Workers union voting to ratify a three-year tentative contract with the University in March that raised its base stipends and brought new benefits for workers. That contract was the product of months of drawn-out negotiations with the University over the terms of a new contract.
“What is going to help with this is if we will actually get a seat at that table and force the University to even discuss this with us,” Fadjukov said.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that University administrators refused to voluntarily recognize the Northwestern postdoctoral students’ unionization effort on Sept. 3. Administrators rejected a salary raise petition. The Daily regrets this error.
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