The University’s postdoctoral researchers and Dean’s Faculty Fellows announced their plans to unionize Friday afternoon, according to a press release shared with The Herald. If successful, the Brown Postdoc Labor Organization would become the third group to unionize on Brown’s campus this year, following the Teaching Assistant Labor Organization and the Labor Organization of Community Coordinators.
According to the press release, postdoctoral researchers and fellows are unionizing to secure “wage increases, support for international postdoctoral researchers, expanded benefits for postdoctoral researchers who are parents or becoming parents and more equitable provisions for all.” Approximately 300 postdoctoral researchers and 12 fellows currently work for the University.
BPLO is seeking to join the Graduate Labor Organization, TALO and LOCC as affiliates of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals/American Federation of Teachers Local 6516. BPLO would also join a number of universities which have seen successful postdoctoral unionization efforts, including Columbia University, University of California and University of Washington.
Postdoctoral scholars at Princeton also announced their intention to unionize earlier this month.
BPLO has yet to request voluntary recognition from the University, according to Caroline Keroack, a postdoctoral research associate and organizer for the group.
According to University Spokesperson Brian Clark, “Organizers have not yet provided formal notice to Brown” as of Tuesday.
“Should the process move forward, organizers would formally present a petition and/or union authorization cards,” Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. “If that happens, the University would review any materials presented, determine the best next steps and respond directly to the organizers.”
According to Keroack, the group submitted a petition for salary increases signed by over 175 postdocs to the University during the spring. The efforts to unionize followed the University’s failure to meet their demands.
“No further action ever came out of that,” Keroack said. “We realized that we needed to form a union to have more power in collective bargaining (and) to get the university to actually give us the benefits that we deserve.”
Clark did not comment on the University’s response to BPLO’s petition.
“We need our grievance policies and our procedures … to be laid out in stone,” said Sarah Neville, postdoctoral research fellow and organizer for BPLO, “so that we actually have something concrete protecting us.”
Keroack, a former member of the Harvard Graduate Student Union, noted how unionization had benefited graduate students at Harvard. “We got better stipend increases, better health insurance, better protections for harassment,” she said.
“We can't continue to allow institutions to profit off of the labor of undercompensated students, trainees and postdocs,” Neville said. “We need to come into a new equilibrium of how our labor is valued, and I think organizing and unionizing is how we're going to attempt to fix the system a little bit.”
Jennifer Shim is a University News editor overseeing the staff and student labor beat. She is a sophomore studying Applied Math-Economics. Outside of The Herald, you can find her playing NYT Connections.
Sam Levine is a University News editor from Brooklyn, New York covering on-campus activism. He is a senior concentrating in International and Public Affairs.
