After Oregon university offers paltry wages, postdocs authorize a strike

[Omaha Steve]

https://www.afscme.org/blog/after-oregon-university-offers-paltry-wages-postdocs-authorize-a-strike

By Oregon AFSCME · Wednesday, August 07, 2024

PORTLAND, Ore. – After nearly a year at the bargaining table and seeing zero progress toward receiving a fair contract, roughly 250 Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) postdoctoral researchers represented by Oregon AFSCME are ready to go on strike.

On Aug. 5, they provided OHSU with the necessary 10-day strike notice. That means unless OHSU comes up with a realistic wage proposal, the postdocs will go on strike on Thursday, Aug. 15.

The postdocs voted overwhelmingly last week to authorize a strike if OHSU executives continue to offer scrimpy wages and benefits. That move came after nine months of OHSU refusing to offer a contract with fair wages, benefits and improved working conditions.

“We are standing together for better pay, better benefits and better working conditions. Our work helped OHSU get a record $600 million in research grants last year, but they refuse to offer us a penny above a nationally set minimum wage that doesn’t recognize the cost of living in Portland,” said Paige Arneson-Wissink, Ph.D., a postdoc who studies pancreatic cancer.

FULL story at link above.

[Hekate]

1. Postdocs are the next thing to slave labor. Go get'em AFSCME!

The last job I had at UCSB was as a secretary for a grant funded biochemist with a lab full of postdocs. He had the power of life and death over their futures.