National labor board says certain postdocs cannot join Brown union

After the National Labor Relations Board rejected a bid by approximately 50 postdoctoral fellows to join Brown’s postdoc union, the fellows are now asking Brown to ensure they receive the same pay and benefits as their unionized colleagues. 

In a Dec. 20 ruling, the NLRB said these postdocs cannot join the larger Brown University Postdoc Labor Organization because they do not meet the legal criteria to be classified as Brown employees.

Unlike other postdocs appointed through Brown’s programs, the petitioning postdocs fellows are not paid by the University, NLRB Boston Regional Director Laura Sacks stated in the ruling. Instead, they receive federally-funded clinical placements in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior or are recipients of external grants and fellowships. 

The group originally petitioned with other postdocs to form BPLO in December 2023. Before the union recognition was granted, a group of about 50 postdocs split off from the larger group, according to BPLO organizer Sarah Neville, a DPHB postdoctoral fellow with a clinical placement at Rhode Island Hospital. 

“The union initially sought to represent all postdocs associated with Brown, but Brown agreed to voluntarily recognize a unit consisting of only some of those postdocs,” the ruling reads.

The NLRB ruling means that a future BPLO contract will not apply to these postdocs. This could result in pay and benefit disparities among employees who largely perform the same work, Neville said. Contract negotiations between BPLO and the University are ongoing. 

The postdocs argue that they should be considered Brown employees because many of them perform similar tasks, receive the same compensation, attend the same training and follow the same grievance procedures as their University-funded colleagues, Neville explained. 

The NLRB said that Brown has little to no influence over the 50 postdocs’ employment or funding terms, and are thus not considered Brown employees.

Neville is part of the specialized Postdoctoral Research Training Fellowship and works in an HIV research group, receiving federal funding that is dispersed through her employer, Rhode Island Hospital. The ruling specifies that her funding comes from a T-32 grant, which classifies her as a Postdoctoral Fellow-NRSA — individuals who are not considered Brown employees, according to the University website.

Postdocs like Neville in clinical placements are employed by Care New England, Brown University Health and the Providence VA Medical Center — all of which are separate entities from the University.

The NLRB ruling says the petitioning fellows argued that “the postdocs’ work discovering knowledge advances Brown’s stated mission, and that all postdocs are therefore employed by Brown.”

In filings with the NLRB, lawyers for the University argued the postdocs are not Brown employees because Brown does not direct their work. The NLRB did not directly consider Brown’s argument because the University missed a procedural filing deadline by 17 minutes. But the NLRB’s ruling ultimately aligned with the University’s position separately. 

The NLRB’s ruling means the postdocs would instead have to unionize through their respective employers rather than with BPLO. Neville was noncommittal on whether they would do so, telling The Herald that “our exact next steps are still in discussion.”

Spokespeople for Care New England, Providence VA Medical Center and Brown University Health did not respond to requests for comment. 

In a meeting following the NLRB ruling, the University expressed willingness to voluntarily extend BPLO’s employment contract towards the 50 postdocs, according to Neville, adding that the talks between the 50 postdocs and the University are ongoing.

In an email to The Herald, University Spokesperson Brian Clark did not directly address details of ongoing discussions about voluntarily extending benefits. 

“Our focus is on sustaining productive, good-faith conversations with union representatives directly at the table,” Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. 

BPLO and the University reached an interim compensation agreement this September that raised compensation to federally-recommended minimums. The agreement will remain in place until this June. 

“We will continue to explore these and many other questions with the union as we expand on the number of tentative agreements already in place with the goal of reaching the first long-term collectively bargained agreement for Brown postdocs as quickly as possible,” Clark wrote. 

Half of the BPLO bargaining committee are Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior postdocs, according to Neville, meaning they would not be covered by the contract they are currently negotiating.

She said it’s up to Brown to “make sure there’s no salary differential between members of the same training program and members of the same postdoc community.”