{"id":4424,"date":"2020-09-08T20:08:40","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T00:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/?p=4424"},"modified":"2020-09-17T11:43:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T15:43:57","slug":"detroit-free-press-why-1700-medical-researchers-scientists-joined-uaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/detroit-free-press-why-1700-medical-researchers-scientists-joined-uaw\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Free Press: Why 1,700 medical researchers, scientists joined UAW"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\n

By Phoebe Wall Howard – September 3, 2020<\/em><\/p>\n

The UAW is aggressively pushing beyond the auto industry, now breaking new ground to include postdoctoral researchers from a top private university \u2014 the brightest minds from medicine, climate science, chemistry, engineering and computation.<\/p>\n

This is not your father’s labor union.<\/p>\n

All the new UAW members are Ph.D.s or medical doctors, and more than 400 of these researchers volunteered at\u00a0Columbia University Medical Center\u00a0during peak periods of COVID-19 in New York.<\/p>\n

These new members of the UAW\u00a0are not students or professors, as is often misunderstood. They have completed their undergraduate and graduate training in their areas of expertise, and will eventually run their own public or industry labs\u00a0working to transform health, science and technology.<\/p>\n

“We organized, fought for and established a more just workplace,” said Melissa McKenzie, 36, a\u00a0research scientist\u00a0who specializes in RNA splicing and how brain cell development is linked to autism.<\/p>\n

“After going\u00a0years with the lowest starting salaries in New York City, Columbia postdocs will now have the highest minimum salaries in the city,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Melissa McKenzie, a research scientist who specializes in RNA splicing and how brain cell development is linked to autism, is among 1,700 new UAW members at Columbia University.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Detroit-based\u00a0union known\u00a0for fighting to protect pay and benefits of hourly factory workers employed by Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles just added 1,700 new researchers from\u00a0Columbia University<\/a>, most of them working to eradicate cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes and other diseases.<\/p>\n

All the new UAW members are Ph.D.s or medical doctors, and more than 400 of these researchers volunteered at\u00a0Columbia University Medical Center\u00a0during peak periods of COVID-19 in New York.<\/p>\n

These new members of the UAW\u00a0are not students or professors, as is often misunderstood. They have completed their undergraduate and graduate training in their areas of expertise, and will eventually run their own public or industry labs\u00a0working to transform health, science and technology.<\/p>\n

“We organized, fought for and established a more just workplace,” said Melissa McKenzie, 36, a\u00a0research scientist\u00a0who specializes in RNA splicing and how brain cell development is linked to autism.<\/p>\n

“After going\u00a0years with the lowest starting salaries in New York City, Columbia postdocs will now have the highest minimum salaries in the city,” she said.<\/p>\n

Protecting benefits that are already intended for researchers is as important as getting new benefits, McKenzie\u00a0explained.<\/p>\n

After a June agreement with the university, researchers voted\u00a0859-7 to ratify\u00a0the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers-UAW on July 16, bringing minimum pay to $60,000 while establishing six weeks of paid parental leave and\u00a0rights for international researchers.<\/p>\n

‘Denied vacation’<\/h2>\n

A primary issue of concern, these workers say,\u00a0are protections against sexual harassment and a stable work environment.<\/p>\n

“Working conditions for a young researcher are quite unstable and inconsistent,” said Tulsi Patel, 32, a\u00a0research scientist who studies brain control of motor function and its application to\u00a0diseases including Lou Gehrig’s.<\/p>\n

“How you’re treated and how your future career goes is dependent on one professor you work for. Some situations are excellent and people are treated well and paid well and others are struggling,” she said. “This is about having consistent rules. Some people will be working all the time and denied vacation. Now they can take vacation days\u00a0without fearing a professor” will punish them.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Tulsi Patel, a research scientist who studies brain control of motor function and its link to diseases like Lou Gherig’s, just joined the UAW.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Patel, who relocated\u00a0to Manhattan from Acworth, Georgia,\u00a0said scientists are so focused on being in the\u00a0lab\u00a0that people rarely think\u00a0about protecting pay and benefits until there’s a problem \u2014\u00a0then challenges disrupt the ability to work.<\/p>\n

“When we tell people we’re unionizing with the UAW, it comes\u00a0up as strange,” she said. “But the UAW has really been leading the charge, especially when it comes to sexual harassment protection.”<\/p>\n

Factory inspiration<\/h2>\n

McKenzie, who is from\u00a0Duxbury, Massachusetts, looked to her uncle\u00a0for advice and inspiration when she organized Local 4100. He had been a union voice at\u00a0Ford and a management voice at GM.<\/p>\n

Ken McKenzie, 75, came home from\u00a0Vietnam after serving in the U.S. Army and\u00a0enrolled in an\u00a0electrical apprentice program that landed him at a Ford plant in New Jersey. As a UAW member, he authored\u00a0local rules on how overtime hours were allocated.<\/p>\n

“I know that any unrepresented group has problems, especially if the people above in management … do not understand the problems you have,” Ken McKenzie said. “Unions are necessary and management is necessary. They really have to work together.”<\/p>\n

When the Ford plant closed, McKenzie went on to work as a plant engineer for Becton Dickinson Pharmaceuticals, where he managed a maintenance group of skilled workers and handled contract\u00a0negotiations. It’s there that he learned the importance of explaining how union demands would benefit the company.<\/p>\n

And he shared this wisdom with his niece.<\/p>\n

Winters in Michigan<\/h2>\n

McKenzie ended up at a GM assembly plant in\u00a0Tarrytown, New York, after earning a bachelor’s degree, and supervised\u00a0UAW skilled trades. Finally, he would move to the GM Warren Tech Center to work with the\u00a0UAW management\u00a0team\u00a0responsible for standardizing and modernizing maintenance practices, he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Ken McKenzie, a former UAW electrician, worked first at a Ford assembly plant and later in management at GM in Warren, Michigan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That effort, McKenzie said, may be the most successful and effective partnership between\u00a0the union and management “ever in the automotive industry.”<\/p>\n

“The effort proved that together the company and union could effect change that benefited the company financially while improving health, safety\u00a0and job security for the union,” said the man who winters in Oxford, Michigan, to avoid the harsh Eaton,\u00a0New Hampshire, climate.<\/p>\n

McKenzie said he’s proud of his niece for creating UAW protections for researchers.\u00a0“Unions still have a fight on their hands. But there are a lot more enlightened management people.”<\/p>\n

Working in the auto industry shapes people forever, he\u00a0said. “And the UAW has expertise in how to organize.”<\/p>\n

Beer and poker<\/h2>\n

Higher education is one of the fastest-growing membership groups fueling the\u00a0United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW).<\/p>\n

Monthly total UAW membership hovers around 400,000\u00a0with academic workers making up\u00a0an estimated 80,000, including the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, the University of California, Harvard University, Brown University, Boston College and others.<\/p>\n

This push to diversify is intended to create additional financial protection for all members, as everyone pays into the strike fund. New members say UAW lawyers work hard to create strong contracts, and that’s why higher education membership is spreading.<\/p>\n

Academic workers cite the need for structural recourse to sexual harassment as a main reason to unionize,\u00a0UAW officials said.<\/p>\n

“Academic workers across the country are organizing because the challenges they face … are best addressed by standing together,” said Beverley Brakeman, UAW Region 9A director based in West Hartford, Connecticut.<\/p>\n

‘Rigorous, respectful’<\/h2>\n

Columbia credited union negotiators for their constructive approach to “complex matters” and praised the priorities outlined by union organizers\u00a0as good for the whole school.<\/p>\n

Ira Katznelson, interim provost at Columbia, praised ratification of the union agreement.<\/p>\n

“In the midst of a wrenching period for higher education, it is good to catch up on positive news,” he said in a letter to the university community. “This contract marks a significant milestone in the university’s relationships with postdoctoral researchers, associate research scientists and scholars. The agreement’s provisions reflect rigorous, respectful and mutually successful negotiations.”<\/p>\n

Few may realize that the UAW represents\u00a0members who work in everything from casino gaming to beer production to farm equipment.<\/p>\n

The UAW, which has members in the U.S. and Canada,\u00a0also has established a foothold at the Brooklyn\u00a0Academy of Music in New York, McLaren Central Hospital in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, Vegas casino workers from Paris, Wynn, Bally’s, Harrah’s and Caesar’s Palace,\u00a0aerospace company Triumph Aerostructures in Florida and\u00a0auto parts suppliers Euclid Manufacturing in Detroit, Faurecia in Missouri and Volvo Parts in Nevada.<\/p>\n

These are the members\u00a0whose dues paid autoworkers during the 40-day strike against GM in 2019. An academic UAW member in California said at the time he was honored to support his brothers and sisters in Michigan.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Melissa McKenzie, left, and Tulsi Patel are two medical researchers who fought to organize the UAW, which will now represent 1,700 PhD members.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“We believe in the power of collective bargaining to make change,” Melissa McKenzie told the Free Press on Tuesday.\u00a0“We\u00a0are on the front lines of solving disease. It’s becoming increasingly hard to be a scientist. This empowers us to pursue our dreams, advance medicine and make life better for all of us.”<\/p>\n

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-222-6512\u00a0or phoward@freepress.com<\/a>. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] By Phoebe Wall Howard – September 3, 2020 The UAW is aggressively pushing beyond the auto industry, now breaking new ground to include postdoctoral researchers from a top private university \u2014 the brightest minds from medicine, climate science, chemistry,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4424"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4437,"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424\/revisions\/4437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/columbiapostdocunion.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}