Frequently Asked Questions

We are the Coalition Of Research Employees-UAW, we are postdoctoral researchers and graduate workers who have formed a union in order to improve our research and working conditions at UMass Chan. Our work as postdocs and graduate workers not only drives the research mission at UMass Chan, but also produces scientific and medical knowledge that can benefit the whole world. While we work across many subfields, our dedication to research unites us all.

By forming a union, we can build a stronger, democratic voice for researchers at UMass Chan, with more power to negotiate for improvements and to secure our rights and working conditions into a legally-binding contract.

Forming a union with the United Auto Workers (UAW) in particular means joining tens of thousands of researchers and other higher education employees who are already part of the UAW, including academic workers at other UMass campuses, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, University of Connecticut, University of Maine, University of Vermont, Mount Sinai, Harvard University, and Columbia University. By working together with these and other academic unions across the country, we can also build political power beyond UMass to impact funding, visa, and other policies at the national, state, and local levels that shape our experience in Academia and as scientists.

• Forming a union with collective bargaining rights is the only way we have the ability to negotiate on equal footing with the UMass Chan administration and secure agreements in a legally-binding contract. Being part of a union means setting our own priorities in a democratic way, and making sure all our fellow postdocs and graduate workers have the opportunity to participate in the process so that no one is left behind. 
• By joining with tens of thousands of other UAW academic workers, we can also build a stronger voice on key policy decisions made outside UMass Chan that affect us as researchers, such as federal funding for scientific research and federal rules affecting visa and immigrant issues. Working with unionized academic employees nationwide we hope to make changes that will create more positive work environments for future postdocs and improve career pathways for future scientists in the US and beyond.

1. (✓)Postdocs and graduate workers each form a representative organizing committee to gather information and make a plan to form a union.
2. (✓)A majority of all postdocs and of all graduate workers (50% + 1) sign authorization cards indicating they would like to join CORE-UAW. The majorities are separately counted for the two groups.
3. (✓)Postdocs and graduate workers deliver their authorization cards to the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations (DLR), which oversees public employee unionization efforts. DLR requests lists of postdocs and graduate workers from UMass Chan to verify that all cards are valid and represent a majority in each of the two groups.
4. (✓)Once majorities are established, DLR will certify CORE-UAW as the representative of two bargaining units: one of postdocs and a second one of graduate workers. Bargaining can then begin with the UMass Chan administration!
5. Postdocs elect a bargaining committee of postdocs, and graduate workers elect a bargaining committee of graduate workers.
6. Postdocs and graduate workers fill out comprehensive bargaining surveys, hold discussions, request information from UMass Chan administration, and gather feedback to allow our bargaining committees to draft initial bargaining priorities.
7. Postdocs and graduate workers review our initial bargaining demands, and postdocs and graduate workers vote on whether or not to approve them.
8. The bargaining committees negotiate as equals with the UMass Chan administration in pursuit of our bargaining goals.
9. Once the bargaining committees have reached tentative agreements that they feel they can recommend, postdocs and graduate student workers vote on whether or not to ratify their respective tentative agreements. 
10. The bargaining committees will be aided throughout by experienced negotiators and other UAW representatives.
11. After voting to ratify contracts, postdocs and graduate student workers will elect representatives who help run the Local Union and ensure that UMass Chan does not violate the terms of the contracts, and represent members with grievances and other workplace issues.

Collective bargaining is a process, protected by U.S. and Massachusetts state law, that equalizes the power relationship between employees and their employer. 

Under collective bargaining, UMass Chan postdocs and student researchers elect representatives to negotiate on equal footing with the UMass Chan administration and put the terms of our employment into legally binding contracts. Through collective bargaining, postdocs and student workers in the UAW have successfully negotiated improved wages and benefits, stronger protections against discrimination and harassment, expanded family-friendly benefits like paid leave and childcare subsidies, and other important provisions.

Postdocs and graduate student researchers began to organize in 2024 in response to a lack of sufficient support for some of the most vulnerable members of the researcher community, including parents and those of us on visas. In Spring 2024, a group of UMass Chan postdocs and graduate student workers reached out to the unionized postdocs in UAW Local 4100 at Mount Sinai’s medical school to learn from their experience forming their union and negotiating a first contract. 

The UAW represents more than 100,000 academic workers across the United States, including more postdocs and graduate student employees than any other union. In the last ten years alone over 75,000 academic workers around the country have chosen to become part of the UAW, including several hundred here in Worcester at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. UAW also represents thousands of academic workers across the UMass campuses, and thousands more throughout New England at UConn, University of Maine, University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont, Harvard, and Northeastern University.

Read more here about UAW success helping academic workers negotiate concrete improvements to wages, benefits and workplace rights.

The UAW has particular experience with helping to negotiate and enforce strong postdoc contracts. For example, postdocs and associate researchers at Columbia University in NYC voted by 68% to form their union with the UAW and ratified their first contract by 99% with a majority participating. UConn postdocs overwhelmingly approved their first contract in 2020.  Postdocs at the University of Washington (UW) voted by an overwhelming 89% percent to form their union with the UAW, and in June 2023 ratified their first union contract by 98.7%. In December 2023, postdocs at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai ratified their first contract by 98% after 12 days on strike, securing the highest postdoc salary minimums in the country. The 7,000 postdocs at the ten University of California campuses approved their first UAW contract in 2010, and those at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) approved their first contract in 2012.

The UAW also has a long history of winning and enforcing strong graduate student worker contracts. At UMass Amherst workers formed one of the first graduate unions in the country in 1991. In NYC, 3,000 Columbia graduate student employees voted by an overwhelming 72% to join the UAW and approved their first union contract by 97.6%. Harvard student workers approved their contract in 2021. In December 2021, the University of California recognized Student Researchers United-UAW as representative for more than 17,000 workers, after a supermajority of UC student researchers signed cards selecting SRU-UAW as their union. In the fall of 2022, 48,000 UC academic workers, including thousands of postdocs, academic researchers, student researchers, and other academic student employees, went on strike to win improvements on pay, benefits, and workplace rights, making historic gains. Postdocs and student workers voted to ratify their contract by 89.4% and 68% respectively. i Right here in Worcester  student workers at WPI voted by 97.5% to ratify their first contract in August 2023.Most recently, UAW graduate student workers and postdocs at Caltech voted to ratify their first union contract by 86%.

In addition to drawing on the UAW’s wide experience bargaining contracts with academic administrations, we can exercise a stronger political voice through the UAW. With active members at more than 45 major campuses across the U.S., the UAW has become a strong advocate on policy issues that matter to us as academics, such as federal support for science funding and enhancing the rights of international research scientists.

Both a strong union and a postdoc or graduate student organization can play a critical role in improving the lives of UMass academic workers. While UMPA and GSBC are University-sponsored and supported committees that provide important opportunities for postdocs and students to participate in numerous social and career development opportunities, as well as advocacy efforts, they are not alternatives to a union.

While UMPA and GSBC can make recommendations to the institution on behalf of postdocs and students, they cannot engage in collective bargaining. Unions and associations like UMPA or GSBC often work together at academic institutions where both types of organization exist.

Now that our unions have been recognized by UMass Chan, we have started  the process of negotiating a contract with the administration:

• We elected two bargaining committees from among UMass Chan postdocs and student workers respectively;
• Based on surveys a majority of us filled out, the committees developed initial bargaining goals; a majority of postdocs and graduate workers have voted to ratify these goals;
• To translate these goals into detailed proposals, our bargaining committees have established topic-oriented working groups to gather additional feedback from other members. This, together with examples from other existing union contracts, will instruct the draft of article proposals;
• The committees will meet with UMass Chan administration representatives to negotiate over those proposals, in pursuit of our bargaining goals;
• When these committees have negotiated tentative agreements with the UMass Chan administration they feel they can recommend, graduate workers and postdocs will vote whether to ratify these agreements as our first contracts;
• The bargaining committees will be aided throughout by experienced negotiators and other UAW representatives;
• After the contracts are ratified, the membership of each will elect representatives who help run the Local Union and ensure that UMass Chan does not violate the terms of the contract, and represent members with grievances and other workplace issues.

Before we formed a union, the administration could change policies and benefits unilaterally, without any obligation to consult those postdocs and student workers affected. A union guarantees us the right to negotiate over any changes that UMass Chan will want to propose to our working conditions.

Postdocs and student workers make up our union and will democratically prioritize which improvements to pursue in contract negotiations. With a union, Postdocs and graduate workers will negotiate as equals with the administration for the changes we want to make. A contract will legally secure those improvements against unilateral changes by the administration. With a union, we will vote on our contract. If we are unsatisfied with a contract, we can vote against it and go back to the negotiating table to work out a better agreement.

Postdocs and student workers have negotiated improvements to their salaries, benefits, family-friendly policies, and workspace and materials; have established fair processes for addressing sexual and other forms of discrimination and harassment; and have negotiated greater job stability and protections for international researchers. 

Read more about what postdocs and graduate workers have won at other universities:

• UMass Amherst Graduate Workers (UAW Local 2322)
• UMass Amherst Postdocs (UAW Local 2322)
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute Graduate Workers (UAW Local 2322)
• University of Connecticut Postdocs (UAW Local 6950)
• Columbia University Postdoctoral Researchers (UAW Local 4100)
• Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Postdocs (UAW Local 4100)

Across the country. academic workers in the UAW have been fighting back against the Trump administration’s attempts to slash funding for research and higher education. These unprecedented attacks could have serious and long-lasting negative impacts on US research and provide even more reason for postdocs and graduate workers to unionize. With collective bargaining, we have more power to negotiate for protections against the impact of these attacks on science funding. No matter what the institution’s financial situation, it’s better to have a seat at the table in decisions that affect our working conditions. 

By unionizing with the UAW we have joined with tens of thousands of other higher education workers across the country who have a long history of using collective action to fight back to protect our research and our fellow workers. During the first Trump administration, UAW members mounted a joint campaign to call for increased research funding in light of COVID-19, to support the ability of universities to emerge from the crisis and continue performing leading-edge research. UAW was also a national sponsor of the March for Science in 2017, and successfully fought to turn back the grad tax.

Postdocs and graduate workers will not pay dues until after negotiating and voting to ratify their first contract. Once a contract is ratified, each individual postdoc and grad worker can decide whether or not to become a dues-paying member. Dues provide the resources that enable fair and effective union representation. To learn how dues enable a strong and active union, read “Dues in Action” from the academic workers union at the University of Washington. UAW Local 2322, which includes graduate workers and postdocs at UMass Amherst and graduate workers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, has set dues at just 2% of gross income and can only be increased by membership action. UAW membership dues are just 1.44% of gross income and are automatically deducted and can only be increased by membership action (the membership in a few local unions, for example, have voted to increase dues above 1.44% to have more resources).

CORE-UAW represents anyone who holds a postdoctoral researcher position or a graduate student researcher position employed by UMass Chan. The union includes all UMass Chan employees in these positions. However, our union would have two separate bargaining units, one for postdocs, and one for grad workers.

With more than 100,000 academic workers, the UAW has become a powerful organization advocating  to improve conditions for international scholars and students. For years the UAW has fought hard to ensure that the contributions of guest workers are elevated and that the terms and conditions of their employment are improved. The UAW helped lead the fight against Executive Orders issued by former President Trump that targeted international scholars and students, and has more recently taken a strong stance against freezes affecting federal research funding.

In October of 2020, UAW Academic Workers mobilized against a proposed rule by ICE to shorten visa stays for international scholars; thousands of public comments were submitted, including by the President of the UAW International. In July of 2020, thanks to direct action by UAW Academic Workers across the country, in addition to efforts by allies at universities and in government, ICE backed down from its directive to deport international students taking online classes due to COVID-19. In 2017, the UAW International filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case challenging the Trump administration’s travel ban. The UAW also helped lead the fight to enhance the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program as an important path for international student workers to work in the US after completion of their PhD.

UAW academic unions also provide more resources for researchers on visas at the local level. Columbia University postdocs have used their union to fight for international researchers who could not return to the US during the COVID-19 pandemic to be able to work remotely and, more recently, put pressure on the Columbia administration and engaged allies in Congress to support researchers stranded abroad.

International postdocs and graduate student researchers have the same legal right to join a union as US citizens. International researchers have been instrumental in organizing and running every UAW academic workers’ union, including the WPI graduate student workers union, UMass Amherst postdocs (PRO) and graduate workers (GEO), University of California postdocs union (UAW Local 5810) and the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers (CPW-UAW Local 4100). Unionization can result in protections that are especially valuable for international academic employees.

The length of time necessary to negotiate a strong first contract has depended on the strength of the campaign and the willingness of the employer to bargain in good faith. UMass Chan could help ensure a timely process by agreeing on a fair and efficient timeframe with regularly scheduled bargaining sessions and a strong commitment to reaching a fair agreement. 

At other major research institutions where postdocs have formed unions, researchers have been able to negotiate significant improvements despite facing opposition from their employers. Postdocs at Columbia University, University of Connecticut, University of Washington, and University of California negotiated for 16 months, 13 months, 13 months, and 18 months respectively. But it is also possible to negotiate much more quickly. Most recently at Caltech, postdocs and graduate employees negotiating simultaneously reached full agreements in less than 8 months. At the University of Washington, with a serious commitment to reach a fair agreement by the administration, 4,000 student employees negotiated their first contract in just under two months.

Public sector workers in Massachusetts do not have the right to strike, despite the fact that striking is a very powerful tool that unionized postdocs and graduate student workers have used successfully at public institutions in other states.