Forum Post
It was discussed today at faculty meeting that there are rumors that WSU HR is negotiating unionization of postdoctoral scientists. Unlike TA’s in the grad student union, postdocs are 100% funded by faculty grants, and grant funding availability and size of grants greatly differs between research fields. For example, NIH grants are typically much larger than USDA grants. This greatly affects the salaries that can be offered. Likewise, contract lengths in 1 year renewable segments is being discussed. This does not work with many funding situations. For example, a common situation is that a lab member leaves a project (e.g. student graduation/ postdoc new job) and the faculty member has ~1.5 years of funding left on that grant. If postdocs can only be hired in 1 year segments then the only situation is 1 year of funding, with the last 0.5 year wasted. All of this is currently rumors, however if the university is negotiating a postdoctoral union it would be useful to have broader discussions with research faculty on how the items being negotiated may impact their research and the availability of grant funds for postdocs.
Response
The postdoctoral fellows at WSU have formed a union. There have not been any contracts established with WSU and this new union. Information on this union formation is available on the WSU Human Resources web site.
https://hrs.wsu.edu/employees/labor-relations/collective-bargaining/wsu-uaw-pde/
We will bring this development to the attention of the full faculty senate at our next meeting.
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