On Friday, October 17th, we held our 16th bargaining session with the University. The tone of this conversation was markedly more constructive than usual, and this likely stems from the greater number of postdocs who attended the session. The single-most important factor in winning a strong contract is the visible support and participation of all UPROR members. Next week, we will see if that constructive tone will translate into movement in the positions the University takes in its proposals. Register to join us at that session, or any of those scheduled through the end of December, by clicking here.
We presented our latest position on six articles at the table:
Each of these articles deals with guarantees of job security and fair and equitable treatment, ensures we continue to build a strong union that is able to represent all postdocs effectively, and provides us with access to a fair and timely process for resolving any complaints arising from the University violating our contract. In our proposals, we’ve narrowed our areas of disagreement in an effort to concentrate on the major issues we’ve heard are important to postdocs and come to a fair agreement with the University. These include concerns such as reasonable access to the type of visa a researcher might need, minimum multi-year appointment terms that last at least as long as our research projects and fellowship awards, full just cause standard for discipline, which includes but is not limited to fair notice and progressive discipline, and the right to a timely process that ensures that all of these protections and benefits are provided by the University. The University’s last proposals impose aggressive limitations on postdocs, such as cutting the notice of non-reappointment from our current six-month timeline to only three months, and adding language to insist on the termination of researchers if a lab experiences a loss of funding, all of which we continue to fight against.
In response, the University provided counterproposals on three of the six articles we presented to them at our previous session on September 29th:
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Training; and
Our subsequent conversations on these three articles put a few remaining disagreements into focus that we’ll need to continue discussing, while also opening up some potential paths to mutual agreement. These articles guarantee important rights, such as access to and copies of all documents pertaining to our employment at the University, which will provide us with knowledge of any discipline, work evaluations, and appointment letters that have been added to our file (to name a few), paid time for required or approved work-related training at no cost to us, and limitations on the weekly workload hours that can be demanded of us.
Let’s keep up this pace — observe a session, join an action, or help organize with your labmates. Our next in-person session is scheduled for Friday, October 31, 2025, from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM ET. Click here to RSVP if you’d like to attend this or a future session and see the process firsthand!
You can access the full text of these (and all past) proposals using our online bargaining tracker.
In solidarity,
Stephen Thornquist
On behalf of the UPROR-UAW Bargaining Committee
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UPROR-UAW Proposals:
Appointment Security: Appointments and Reappointments
Discipline and Dismissal
Grievance and Arbitration
International Researcher Rights
Union Rights and Access
Union Security
University Proposals: