We have a clear choice in this election.

We have a clear choice in this election. Voting “YES” means Penn administrators would have a legal obligation to bargain with our elected postdoctoral representatives over pay, benefits and workplace rights, and to secure any agreements on improvements or maintaining current benefits in a legally binding and enforceable contract. We will be joining over 100,000 UAW academic employees in working together to make research workplaces more just, fair, and equitable.

After hundreds and hundreds of conversations with our fellow postdoctoral researchers at Penn over the past few years, we’ve seen that we share many of the same challenges regardless of our department or school. These include increasing bureaucratic hurdles and insecurity for international workers, unpredictable salary increases that don’t match the increased cost of living in Philadelphia, scattered help and no reimbursement in the visa application or renewal process, lack of health coverage for dependents for those of us who are parents or taking care of loved ones, and insufficient recourse for discrimination and bullying. These challenges add unnecessary stress to the postdoc experience and make it more difficult to focus on doing quality research.

Joining Together to Improve Our Working Conditions & Protect Research Funding

Right now, Penn administrators decide unilaterally if, how, and when to address problems affecting postdoctoral researchers. Additionally, the NIH funding cuts announced on February 7, 2025, are an unprecedented attack on biomedical research in the United States, and could have serious and long-lasting negative impacts on US research. These attacks on science provide even more reason for us to unionize. 

With collective bargaining, we will be able to meet Penn at the bargaining table as equals. With strong participation and support in our vote we can negotiate a contract that not only improves our pay, benefits, and workplace rights, but also ensures the security and stability that enables us to do quality research. Through a union, we would be able to build a more secure and connected community of researchers at Penn and also be able to project our voices beyond our immediate workplace. 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 are also joining with tens of thousands of other higher education workers across the country who are fighting against cuts to public research funding. 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.

In hundreds of conversations, town halls, happy hours, and other meetings, postdoctoral researchers have already identified some of the common priorities that we could address through a collectively bargained contract. Consider the thoughts of our colleagues and these basic reasons to vote “union yes” on July 16th and 17th.

Postdocs and Research Associates march outside the Penn Board of Trustees meeting to demand the university Respect Our Voice and Respect Our Vote

Fair workplace standards enable researchers to prioritize our research

As Postdoctoral Researchers, our work powers Penn’s research mission — we make valuable contributions that have earned the University of Pennsylvania international renown and bring in the funding that supports day-to-day operations. We do it with salaries that have not kept pace with generationally-high inflation and do not reflect the expertise we bring to Penn every year.

In 2020, postdocs at Columbia approved their first union contract and the highest minimum salaries for postdocs in New York City, building on these gains when they renegotiated their contract in 2023, with postdocs winning up to 24% raises over the life of the contract. Also in 2023, postdocs at Mount Sinai won the highest minimum salaries in the country for postdoctoral researchers, and were followed in 2024 by postdocs at Caltech. These gains have helped raise the standard for other major research institutions across the country, leading to successful efforts to unionize by postdocs at institutions like Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. It is now time for us to come together and demand salaries and other benefits that reflect the value of our contributions, and secure them in a contract, so we can focus on the quality of our research instead of how to make ends meet.

How have other researchers used a union contract to improve compensation?

Sinai Postdocs celebrate 24% pay boost in one of the world’s most expensive cities

“How Unionization Improves the Mount Sinai Postdoc Experience”

Contract Gains for Columbia Associate Research Scientists and Postdocs

University of California academic researchers and scientists won significant gains in pay and benefits

Postdocs and Graduate Student Workers at Caltech Won Major Improvements

See what other unionized researchers have won in their contracts

Continuing to Build a Movement at Penn

More than 100,000 academic employees across the U.S. have already chosen to join UAW. This includes researchers at Columbia University, The Rockefeller University, Weill Cornell Medicine, Johns Hopkins, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Harvard University, Caltech, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts, University of California, and University of Washington, among others. By uniting together, academic employees are driving up standards in higher education and building a powerful voice for research scientists, postdocs, graduate workers, and non-tenure track faculty.

In June 2022, Postdoctoral Fellows at Mount Sinai voted by an overwhelming 90% in favor of unionizing with UAW, despite significant efforts by Mount Sinai to convince them to vote “no”. They went on to negotiate a historic first contract, which they ratified by 98%, raising standards for postdocs across the US. Since then, our colleagues have rigorously enforced their contractual rights, while continuing to organize around important issues for researchers.

Together, we drive the vast majority of the research at Penn, and by forming our own union, we can more effectively coordinate in order to build a stronger voice for all of us working in labs at the University.

Penn Postdocs and Research Associates launching our card drive

Joining a National Movement

At a moment when the scientific enterprise is under unprecedented attack, it is even more urgent that we have a say in decisions affecting our working conditions, the security of a union contract, and a bigger voice alongside other researchers to advocate for our collective interests at the national level. The UAW has provided a critical platform for advocacy around these issues.

Unpredictability around federal research funding and visa processes affect all of us at Penn, but causes particular stress to members of our workforce who are international scholars. This stress negatively impacts our ability to do quality work, and threatens to make it more difficult to attract and retain highly-trained and specialized researchers. By bargaining collectively with Penn, we can make our work more stable, while having a stronger platform with other UAW researchers nation-wide to advocate for policies that support researchers and the majority of our workforce who are on visas.

UAW academic workers have already been at the forefront of the national response to funding cuts, including speaking up at rallies, calling our elected representatives, sending letters, and organizing as part of a National Day of Action. At the national level, academic workers in the United Auto Workers (UAW) have engaged in lobbying members of Congress and the senate to protect research, and the UAW was a national co-sponsor of the Stand Up for Science actions that took place in thirty two cities in early March, 2025.

With more than 100,000 academic workers across the US, including postdocs, RAs and TAs, and non-tenure-track faculty, the UAW nationally and locally has become a leading voice advocating for expanded opportunities for international students to transition to early-career research positions in the US after graduation and for robust federal investment in science research. UAW academic workers’ advocacy work also played a key role, alongside others like NIH director Francis Collins, ensuring the inclusion of postdocs in the 2016 federal overtime rules that established significant improvements to postdoctoral salaries.

The UAW’s commitment to international researchers and scholars stems from the leadership of international researchers and scholars themselves. Researcher and graduate employee unions affiliated with UAW are often led by international students and scholars, who serve in top leadership positions in local unions nationwide.

“It’s Sad We Have to Do This”: Academic Unions Are Rallying to Defend Science

2023 Op-Ed: “As International Postdocs at Mount Sinai we are voting Yes for our Union”

UAW 4121 stands up against Trump ruling that limits the visas of international students and scholars

UAW Local 4811 leaders meet to fight National Institutes of Health funding cuts

Read about UC postdoc and UAW efforts to support federal science funding

Letter to the editor: UAW is a strong ally for international students and postdocs

UAW 5810 Resolution To Mt. Sinai Postdocs on International Researcher Rights

Our research is stronger when everyone can contribute.

Pregnancy, childbirth and adoption should be occasions for celebration – without unnecessary stress caused by having to return to work too soon after giving birth, or concerns about unstable benefits, housing, or visa status. Unfortunately, this kind of stress is all too prevalent for Penn researchers raising children. More women are obtaining Ph.D.s in science than ever before, but those women — often due to discrimination and unequal pressures on early-career researchers choosing to have a family — are far more likely than men to leave academia before obtaining tenure at a college or university.

This is especially true at Penn, where postdocs have no access to paid parental leave. Under-representation of women in senior roles has been a longstanding problem within academia, and that’s why winning significant improvements in this area in a union contract is so important.

Read how other researchers have unionized and made their employers more family friendly.

Why Mount Sinai postdoc parents voted “YES” for a more family-friendly research community

Columbia graduate workers win fully-paid dependent health insurance

Sinai postdocs won an emergency support fund that can be used for childcare expenses

UW postdocs won the creation of a new caregiver fund

Columbia postdocs protected and improved a childcare benefit upt o $5,000 per year

UC Postdocs won a dedicated childcare subsidy after years of opposition from the UC administration

Together we can make Penn more equitable and inclusive.

Inequalities — including those based on gender, race, sexual orientation and immigration status — continue to create barriers for many of the most talented to enter the academic and scientific workforce. And existing systems of recourse for problems like discrimination, harassment, and bullying too often fail and can take years. A recent survey conducted by Nature found that 1 in 5 grad students faced gender or racial-based discrimination, and another study found that early-career researchers from abroad are more likely to be threatened with termination.

Though much work remains to be done, researchers, postdocs, graduate students, and faculty in the UAW have helped make progress on many of these issues, both at the bargaining table and in policy advocacy through the UAW. At the University of Connecticut, for example, a graduate assistant worked with her union to successfully resolve a major sexual assault and harassment complaint in three months, whereas complaints of gender and race-based discrimination against Sinai leadership have remained unresolved years later. By forming a union, we can negotiate for strong, survivor-centered protections and hold Penn accountable. 

At other major research institutions like Columbia, NYU, the University of Washington, the University of California, and WPI, unionized researchers have won strong protections like enforceable timelines, union representation, protection from retaliation, and the option to appeal to a neutral third-party arbitrator for cases of harassment, discrimination, and abusive conduct. With a union, we have more power to be heard, to determine our right to a safe and healthy workplace, and to ensure that our rights are enforced.

UConn Graduate Student Union Helps Handle Sexual Harassment 

“Workplace Bullying in Higher Education is Rampant. We’re Fighting Back”

UC International Postdoc Takes on Pregnancy Discrimination and Wins