Postdocs across the University of California system would receive raises of more than 20 percent — most of it by the end of next year — under a tentative five-year agreement reached this week between the university and the United Auto Workers. The agreement, announced during the third week of a strike of roughly 48,000 academic workers, also would raise salaries for academic researchers and includes a variety of other benefits, including eight weeks of paid parental leave, childcare subsidies, better job protections, and a commitment to respectful work environments.
The tentative settlement was viewed by many in the UC system as a major win for postdocs who have struggled to pay for basic living costs on their current salaries, which start at around $55,000. But it’s also raised questions about who should pay for the wage increases.
Asked who would foot the bill for those additional costs, a university spokesman said that postdocs’ salaries are paid largely out of federal and private money, suggesting that UC didn’t plan to cover much, if any, of the increase.
As colleges across the country respond to an increase in unionization efforts and strikes involving graduate students and postdocs, that funding issue will continue to be a challenge.
Some UC-system faculty members reacted to the news of the settlement by suggesting it could force them to cut the number of postdocs in their labs, which they said could hurt their research. Others countered that their labs could be more productive, and more humane, if they were staffed by people who didn’t have to worry about whether they could pay their rent or childcare costs.
United Auto Workers Local 5810, which represents about 11,000 of the 48,000 striking workers across the system’s 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, urged members to keep marching on the picket lines, alongside striking graduate students and teaching-assistant researchers, until the agreement is ratified. A vote is expected next week. The new contracts would be effective through Sept. 30, 2027.
Neal Sweeney, president of the local union which represents the two bargaining units involved, called the tentative agreement “historic,” and said he hoped it would provoke discussion nationally about how early-career researchers are treated.
Assuming it’s ratified, in April postdocs will receive average raises of 8 percent, the university reported. In each October over the five-year contract they’ll receive additional raises: 7.5 percent in the first year and 3.5 percent in each of the remaining years. On top of that, eligible postdocs will receive annual, experience-based pay increases of 3.7 percent. According to the union, the current lowest-paid postdoc would see a 57 percent salary increase over the five years of the agreement.
Academic researchers will receive raises of 4.5 percent in the first year, 3.5 percent in the second, third and fourth years, and 4 percent in the fifth year.
The university estimates that over the life of the agreement, total base salary costs for postdocs will increase between around $30 million to $40 million annually, Ryan King, a spokesman for the University of California Office of the President, wrote in an email to The Chronicle. They’ll increase from $13 million to $16 million annually for academic researchers.
For both groups, “funding is primarily provided by external grants from the federal government or private fellowships,” King wrote. Federal funding and private gifts make up about 70 percent of funding packages, while the state contributes less than 10 percent out of its general fund. The rest comes from sources such as appropriations from state agencies and self-supporting program student fees.
“As negotiations continue with the United Auto Workers, the university will continue to carefully cost the underlying proposals, review the budgetary implications of these agreements, and otherwise ensure the responsible stewardship of California taxpayer dollars in executing these agreements,” King wrote.
The University of California system’s provost, Michael T. Brown, acknowledged the issues principal investigators have raised in a letter to colleagues Wednesday. “We understand the concerns about the effect on grants and will work with our principal investigators in these regards,” he wrote. He also reminded faculty members who plan to stop teaching and grading in solidarity with the striking workers that their pay could be cut if they don’t meet their teaching and research responsibilities.
The money has to come from somewhere. I don’t see how they can just shove it off on the principal investigators.
The news of the tentative agreement provoked intense discussions on social media among researchers around the country, some of whom did graduate work in California and were familiar with its high housing costs.
Requiring principal investigators to pay for postdoc raises out of the money they bring in amounts to an “unfunded mandate” by the university system, Jason L. Rasgon, a professor of entomology and disease epidemiology at Pennsylvania State University, wrote on Twitter. Rasgon, who received his doctorate from the University of California at Davis, said he understands that postdocs can’t live on the salaries they’re earning. They deserve the raise, he said in an interview.
But he also said that principal investigators have limited budgets to work with, and without extra financial support — he’d like to see the university cover the cost for at least a few years — they’d have to cut the number of postdocs in their labs.
“We have a fixed amount of money and much of that goes toward personnel,” he said. “The money has to come from somewhere. I don’t see how they can just shove it off on the principal investigators.”
Michael Eisen, a professor of genetics, genomics, and development at the University of California at Berkeley, pushed back on that critique, tweeting that researchers are too dependent on a system of “exploitive labor practices.”
He elaborated on that point in an email to The Chronicle. “Right now, we should be focusing on helping research workers achieve their goal of earning a living wage, full stop,” he wrote. “We cannot have a fair system without that.”
Researchers will face challenges, Eisen added, but “it’s our responsibility as a community to address those after the strike is over.”
Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor scholar and research professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said in an interview Thursday that the postdoc raises are welcomed, but not enough. The university had already urged principal investigators to increase their grant requests, he said. “They were already planning to foist as much of this on to the feds as they could and that’s one reason they could give them a hefty pay increase,” he said.
The university continues to take a hard line, Lichtenstein said, on the teaching assistants and graduate students who are suffering most from the high cost of living and who “are at the heart of the strike.”
“I wish it were setting a pattern for the graduate students,” he said of the tentative agreement for postdocs. “As a faculty member at UC, this thing is not over.”
