BUILDING A CALTECH FOR EVERYONE
Better Together
As Postdocs and Graduate Student Workers at Caltech, we drive the research that makes Caltech a world-renowned institution. We are dedicated to and excited by our work at the frontiers of science and engineering. However, Caltech does not adequately support and protect its early-career researchers. We lack strong protections from discrimination and abusive conduct, while also struggling with the high cost of housing and healthcare.
Last January, a majority of us voted to form our union, allowing us to collectively bargain with the Caltech administration for improvements to our working conditions. We democratically elected a bargaining team of our peers and are currently negotiating with the administration. At the end of negotiations, all of us will vote to ratify our union contract. Crucially, the benefits and protections won through a union contract are legally enforceable.
Negotiations are still in progress. So far, we set a new standard in academia for protections against bullying, harassment, and discrimination. Caltech Postdocs also won industry-leading, two-year initial appointments (for international Postdocs, this guarantees two-year initial visas). With our new Health and Safety protections, all of us now have the right to refuse research in unsafe or unhealthy conditions, whether on campus or in the field. But before we can vote on a final contract, we need to come to an agreement with the administration on improved wages, benefits, and immigration-related protections. These economic issues are consistently ranked as top priorities in surveys of Graduate Student Workers and Postdocs, and we eagerly await the administration’s responses to our bargaining teams’ proposals. As we move forward, it’s up to all of us to stand together for a more just and equitable Caltech.
I was in an improperly planned field class and got valley fever fungus in my lungs due to lack of PPEs. It turned out that we were eligible for workers’ compensation, yet we were told that we were ‘not workers’ by Caltech in the first place, until we figured it out ourselves.
If Caltech were required to inform us about workers’ compensation, like what we won in our health and safety article, I would have saved a lot of time and energy from navigating by myself through the legal processes regarding work-related injuries. I’m also hopeful about the new transparency and accountability measures that guarantee GSW and Postdoc priorities are represented. Our new contract will allow us to protect ourselves and work with the administration as equals when things like these happen again.
As an international worker, I live far from family and lack a social support system. The absolute minimum cost for full-time childcare in the Pasadena area is $2,000 a month. In fact, Caltech’s childcare center charges $2,400 a month for infants. This expense amounts to more than a third of a postdoc’s income and more than half of a graduate student worker’s income. To effectively perform their jobs, parents need more support.