We are voting YES for our union, United Postdoctoral Researchers of Rockefeller-UAW (UPROR-UAW)!

On September 18 and 19th, we will have the opportunity to vote “yes” for a union at Rockefeller.  In doing so, we would join tens of thousands of unionized academic workers across the US, including thousands of postdoctoral researchers who have already come together to improve the postdoc experience and create a more equitable, inclusive, and fair scientific community.

As postdocs, we play a critical role in driving the world-class research conducted at Rockefeller. However, without collective bargaining, Rockefeller postdocs have faced a lack of transparency in decisions affecting our salaries, benefits and working conditions, uneven and unenforceable raises that do not track our experience and keep many researchers close to the university-set minimum, a lack of clear recourse in cases of mistreatment, and insufficient support for international researchers and parents, including unpredictable changes in access to quality childcare services without advance notice to parents, among other challenges. This uncertainty unnecessarily hinders our ability to focus on quality research.

If a majority of us vote “yes” for UPROR-UAW as our union, the Rockefeller administration would be legally obliged to bargain with postdocs as equals. over salaries, benefits, workplace rights, and protection from harassment or inappropriate behavior and to commit any agreements into a binding contract. Having a union will also allow us to protect our current benefits, because Rockefeller will no longer be able to change them unilaterally, but would instead have to negotiate with us.

We therefore urge our colleagues to vote ‘yes’ for UPROR-UAW as our union, so that we have the strongest possible mandate to bargain a fair union contract with the Rockefeller administration that improves our working conditions and our lives.

Signed,

Wenzhi Song

Katie Stewart

Tomoki Suzuki

Han Tan

Michael Tartell

Stephen Thornquist

Lucas Tian

Matt Tierney

Yao Wang

Ian Windham

Charles Xu

King Yambire

Chao Yang

Ethan Yeh

Le Zhang

Sicong Zhang

Zhaoyue Zhang