*On July 17, 2025, Penn Postdocs and Research Associates won our union election with 95% voting yes! Sign your authorization card below in order to be eligible to vote in Bargaining Committee elections, run for Bargaining Committee, and continue to stay updated about the bargaining process.

We’re Joining Together for a better Penn

We are joining together as a union of postdocs and research associates so we can bargain collectively with our employer, the University of Pennsylvania. We also join tens of thousands of other UAW researchers and scholars across the country, building our political voice to increase science funding and protect the rights of international scholars in the United States.

Without collective bargaining, we have experienced substandard wages in relation to the cost of housing and living, visa and job insecurity, and a lack of transparency in administrative policies. With collective bargaining, we will negotiate a binding agreement so that Penn’s administration cannot change the terms of our employment without our democratic consent. When we are able to negotiate as equals with Penn to establish a fair contract, we will be able to live more securely, and as a result focus that much more on the first-rate research and teaching that we were hired to pursue at Penn.

Together, we are forming Research Associates and Postdocs United at Penn-UAW, a union of postdocs and research associates at the University of Pennsylvania, to ensure that we receive the benefits and respect we deserve as contributing scholars and scientists at a world-class institution.

Use the form to sign a union authorization card and be counted in the majority!

Without a union:

• Penn unilaterally determines our pay, benefits, and working conditions and can change them at any time without our consent.

With a union:

• We elect a bargaining committee that gathers input from postdocs and research associates across campus.
• Our democratically-elected bargaining committee negotiates on equal footing toward a fair agreement with Penn.
• We decide democratically, through a vote, whether to approve any contract.
• That contract secures the terms and conditions of our employment and is binding and enforceable, usually through appeal to a neutral arbitrator.