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Sunday, December 20, 2009

University World News - US: Universities should prepare for postdoc unions


University World News - US: Universities should prepare for postdoc unions:

"Research universities should prepare for the possibility that postdoctoral researchers will work to form unions by developing consistent policies on how postdocs are treated and establishing student support groups as alternatives to unions, a panel of deans said on Thursday at the annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools, writes Josh Keller for The Chronicle of Higher Education's Wired Campus blog.

Postdocs have only recently started to organise into unions at American public universities, starting in Connecticut, California and New Jersey. The push for postdoctoral unions may extend elsewhere, forcing universities to deal with a variety of academic and workplace issues at the bargaining table, the panelists said."