BY HANK REICHMAN

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences are painfully familiar with the widespread and baneful trend of converting teaching positions into contingent non-tenure-track, often part-time, “adjunct” jobs.  But some may not realize that a similar trend on the research side, especially in the physical and natural sciences, has emerged through the abuse of post-doctoral fellowships (post-docs) and temporary research appointments.  In 2010, an AAUP-award-winning essay, “The Real Science Gap,” documented how “becoming a scientist now entails a penurious decade or more of graduate school and postdoc positions before joining the multitude vainly vying for the few available faculty-level openings.”  That article explained how

Nearly every faculty member with a research grant — and that is just about every tenure-track or tenured member of a science department at any of several hundred universities — now uses postdocs to do the bench work for the project.  Paid out of the grant, these highly skilled employees might earn $40,000 a year for 60 or more hours a week in the lab.  A lucky few will eventually land faculty posts, but even most of those won’t get traditional permanent spots with the potential of tenure protection.  The majority of today’s new faculty hires are “soft money” jobs with titles like “research assistant professor” and an employment term lasting only as long as the specific grant that supports it.

In 2008, after a years-long struggle, post-docs at the ten-campus University of California won union recognition.  The new UAW-affiliated union gained significant benefits for its members, but under its contract post-docs are limited to five-year terms.  But it’s not like those people transition smoothly to tenure-track positions at the UC or elsewhere.  Many are simply rehired to academic staff positions without union representation.  So, when molecular biologist Christina Priest reached the limit she became an at-will employee in a research scientist job with no set end time.  Yet her work amounted simply to “continuing the project I initiated as a postdoc … not enormously different, [despite] more responsibility.”

“I was making more as a fifth-year postdoc than I am making as a project scientist,” she told the magazine Science, not to mention a “huge increase” in health insurance premiums “from about $40 a month to about $260 a month.”  Beyond that, she lost some of the important fringe benefits she enjoyed as a member of the union that represents the system’s roughly 6,000 postdocs.

For example, according to the Science report, UC postdocs “receive 12 sick days a year that become available at the start of work.  Academic researchers with full-time appointments, on the other hand, accrue 1 day of sick leave per month and may only use the sick days they have accrued. Those appointed for more than half time but less than full time accrue only at a prorated rate.”

There are significant academic freedom concerns.  “Postdocs, per their negotiated contract, can only be fired for ‘just cause’ and can only be laid off for lack of funds and with 30 days written notice.  Academic researchers, however, are at-will employees who can be fired or disciplined for a range of reasons and without notice.  As a result, academic researchers often feel ‘a lot of instability,’ Priest says.”  And, I should add, they are highly vulnerable to violations of their freedom in research.

But in 2017 the post-doc union launched a campaign to organize a new unit to represent people who, like Priest, are UC professional researchers but neither postdocs nor tenure-eligible faculty members. They hold a variety of titles, including project scientist, specialist, and researcher, and may work under still other designations at other institutions.  A number also bring in grant money as principal investigators on their own grants.

Last October the union, UAW Local 5810, Academic Researchers United (ARU), submitted to the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) petitions for union representation signed by more than 3000 of the nearly 5000 eligible individuals. Then in November, PERB determined that ARU has the majority of the relevant class of workers needed to establish a union.  The UC administration, however, objected, declaring that it “reasonably doubts the appropriateness of the proposed unit.”

According to Science, “in January, state Senator Nancy Skinner (D), majority whip of the California Senate, whose district includes UC Berkeley, sent a letter to UC President Janet Napolitano urging recognition of the union.  ARU has stated its hope that, through discussions with PERB and the administration, the dispute “can be resolved amicably and our union can be certified.” Otherwise, PERB can hold a hearing to decide the issue.

The University of California should drop its objections and recognize ARU as it has its post-doc union.  Union contracts for graduate student employees, non-tenure-track instructors, post-docs, and librarians have hardly weakened the system’s stellar reputation as one of the world’s great public universities.  Offering fair contracts to staff researchers will only strengthen the institution.  “We all feel that the best way to get really good research is to support researchers,” Priest told Science.  “It’s good for research and it’s also good for the UC.”

Academic researchers, along with existing union members, delivered union authorization cards to the California Public Employment Relations Board in September 2018.
Academic Researchers United