Today, we had our second bargaining session with the UMass Chan Bargaining Committee. UMass presented two proposals, and we presented thirteen proposals to improve our working conditions. Our bargaining sessions are open to our members, and we were pleased to have several postdoc observers in this session. If you are interested in attending the next session on November 12th, click here to RSVP. Many thanks to our observers who showed up to support this process!
You can find all of the proposals on our bargaining tracker here and a short summary of the proposals we presented below:
- Job Posting: Ensures that potential postdocs are provided with information about job openings at UMass Chan, including the funding status of the lab, to make informed decisions about their career.
- Employment Offer Letters: Establishes guidelines on what must be included in an offer letter to streamline the onboarding process and make sure that new postdocs have clear expectations when starting work.
- Training: Ensures access to work-related training opportunities by providing time to complete training and coverage of costs.
- Workspace and Materials: Guarantees that postdocs have the materials and space they need to fulfill their duties.
- Workload: Defines the working week and the expectations that should be placed on the work of postdocs
- Employment Records: Establishes a fair process for providing postdocs with access to the information contained in their employment files and to regulate the maintenance, access, and alteration of employment records.
- Discipline and Dismissal: Protects postdocs from unfair disciplinary practices.
- Prohibition Against Discrimination and Harassment: Protects postdocs from discrimination and harassment and outlines steps for recourse if discrimination or harassment does occur; covers bathroom equity and lactation spaces.
- Intellectual Property: Ensures the role and rights of postdocs in intellectual property creation and commercialization, including eligibility for PI status on funding proposals and inventor status on intellectual property they have contributed to.
- Successorship: Ensures that in the event of a change in ownership or control of UMass Chan, the contract with the Union will continue to be recognized by any succeeding entity.
- Grievance and Arbitration: Provides a mechanism for postdocs and the Union to resolve grievances that arise when UMass has violated a provision of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. This article is necessary to enforce the Agreement. It establishes a process for resolving issues that culminates with arbitration by a neutral third party if need be.
- Union Access and Rights: Ensures our union’s ability to communicate with and represent all postdocs in their workplace and provides Union representatives and officers with access to areas where postdocs work.
- Dues and V-CAP Checkoff: Regulates the collection of union dues and voluntary contributions.
In our last bargaining session, we communicated to the UMass Chan administration that the withholding of our regularly scheduled raises is not legal, and UMass agreed to look into the issue. We were disappointed that UMass did not come prepared today with a response on the withholding of our regularly scheduled raises, because this is an urgent issue for all of us. We made it very clear that, unless our raises are restored, we are prepared to enforce our legal rights through the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations.
We were pleased that the Administration ended our session by asking questions about our proposals, and by indicating that they intend to bring counterproposals and formal responses in our next session, on November 12. We are optimistic that the current pace of bargaining will quickly lead to a fair contract—but we need to continue to show UMass that our demands are backed by our members. Tell us why winning strong protections in these articles is important to you by submitting a testimonial using this form!
In solidarity,
Courtney Price, Systems Biology, Shank Lab
Dan Bollen, Department of Medicine, Pukkila-Worley Lab
Ivano Mocavini, Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology, Rando Lab
Karthika Nagalekshmi, Program in Molecular Medicine, Luban Lab
Brittany Rosener, Systems Biology, Mitchell Lab
CORE-UAW Postdoc Bargaining Committee