Penn’s official position: Postdocs and Research Associates aren’t real workers, cont.

Yesterday, we received Penn’s official response to our petition for a union election. We had hoped Penn would respect the will of a supermajority of postdocs and research associates and agree to an election without delay. Instead, Penn admin has chosen to challenge our right to unionize, making it clear they don’t respect us as researchers.

It is incredibly disappointing that Penn is choosing to fight their own workers rather than work together with us to fight back against the Trump administration’s attacks on scientific research.

We will go over Penn’s position in more detail and answer all your questions about unionization at our virtual town hall tomorrow, May 7, at 5:30pm. In the meantime, here are the main takeaways from Penn’s official response:

1. Penn views postdocs and research associates as “temporary employees” and thus not eligible to form a union. However, many term-limited workers such as graduate student workers and medical residents are unionized, including at Penn. Moreover, across the country, tens of thousands of postdocs and research associates have already unionized. Furthermore, none of Penn’s resources defining postdocs states nor implies that postdocs are classified as “temporary employees.”

2. Penn claims that postdocs funded by internal fellowships and faculty grants do not do the same work as research associates or NRSA-funded postdocs, and thus we shouldn’t all be in the same union. They further claim that NRSA fellows “do not perform service for the University” and are not “employees.” However, we know from talking to each other that our job duties — research, teaching, grant-writing, mentorship, clinical practice, etc. — don’t differ based on our job titles. In fact, it’s very common for the same researcher to be classified as a Postdoctoral Researcher, a Postdoctoral Fellow, and a Research Associate at different times during their employment at Penn, with the exact same work duties. Penn itself acknowledges that these are different titles distinguished primarily by funding source, not duties.

3. Penn wants to exclude 4th and 5th year postdocs, and postdocs whose contracts aren’t being renewed, from our union. To our knowledge, this arbitrary division has never been applied to any other postdoc union, and it’s not clear why it would apply here. There is no reason to deny union protections to one group of workers based solely on their length of employment. 

Penn’s goal in taking such an aggressive stance against its own workers is to force a long delay before we can have our union election. Penn knows that a supermajority of postdocs and research associates support unionization, and they are taking advantage of Trump’s attacks on scientific funding and the National Labor Relations Board by betting that union-supportive workers will leave or be let go while we wait for our election.

Penn is fighting tooth and nail against thousands of their own employees who just want a say in our working conditions. They have chosen to spend exorbitant amounts of money on an anti-union law firm instead of investing in their workers. They are denying our legal right to a democratic vote on whether to form a union. 

Today, the National Labor Relations Board is holding a hearing to decide whether we can hold a union election. Both sides will present legal arguments and evidence, and we will continue to update postdocs and research associates as things proceed. What we do know is this: postdocs and research associates deserve protections and benefits reflecting our enormous academic, financial, and reputational contributions to this world-class, multi-billion-dollar institution. With a union, we will win them.

If you have other questions, or want to learn more, please make sure to attend our Town Hall tomorrow, Wednesday May 7, at 5:30PM on Zoom. We look forward to connecting there!