What Led Us Here
This effort began when scientific and engineering staff at LBNL started talking together about how to improve our working conditions in the face of layoffs, funding cuts, reductions in project scope, and changes to visa policies that we are currently experiencing. We believe that one of the best ways of achieving this is by joining the UAW, which currently represents 60,000 Engineers, Analysts, Support Staff, Postdocs, Academic Researchers, and Academic Student Employees across LBNL and the wider University of California. UAW has historically been one of the largest and most diverse unions in North America. Workers in UAW at UC have negotiated for sweeping improvements to their workplaces that touch on a wide variety of issues that also affect STEPs. To read more about those improvements, you can visit:
Through hundreds of conversations between coworkers, we have noticed many overlapping issues facing Science, Technology, and Engineering Professionals (STEPs) and we are continuing to broaden our understanding as this effort progresses. In the past few months, STEP-UAW has been conducting surveys and having key conversations with our colleagues to identify areas of our workplace that could be protected and/or improved. Over a hundred STEPs participated in these conversations. Once our union is certified, STEPs will conduct extensive surveys, townhalls, and other tools to enable a comprehensive dialogue regarding our bargaining demands. Every STEP will have a voice in shaping our bargaining priorities. Below are some of the clearest issues experienced by STEPs across all divisions of the lab that have already been identified.
Job security
Many STEPs at the Lab work on contract, and the process of making it to the next renewal period is taxing. As workers who contribute to the research and public service mission of the Lab, we deserve protections such as opportunities for placement in comparable positions elsewhere at the Lab. You deserve a future where job security is yours to negotiate – not a unilateral decision by the whims of the market or grant funding. This is especially true now, as threats from the federal government create uncertainty and decision-makers decide how to respond while we lack an equal seat at the table.
Clear and equitable pathways for advancement and career development
Too often, promotion and reclassification processes are opaque, leaving us uncertain about our future opportunities. We believe in establishing specific timelines and transparent promotion criteria to ensure fairness and clarity for all. Additionally, we’re pushing for increased training and professional development opportunities. Many of us feel a lack of support in this area, and we know that investing in our skills benefits both us and the institution. Together, we can create a stronger, more supportive environment for all research professionals, who enable cutting-edge research throughout LBNL.
Fair Compensation Click Here for more.
Salary is one of the main considerations for any employee. LBNL is in a high cost of living area (HCoL) which makes pay even more of a concern. For some roles at LBNL, median pay can fall below low income thresholds, and many Lab employees worry about being able to maintain a comfortable standard of living despite working full time. Many of us have valuable skill sets that, in the private sector, could net us substantially more in pay, but most of us value the immensely meaningful work we do at the Lab. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that our passion and investment in our work is exploited to pay us less than our worth.
In the last several years, many of us have also been feeling the squeeze of inflation and increased cost of living. The Lab offers only meager raises to non-union employees like us that have failed to keep up with increasing CoL. If we’ve worked in a Lab role for more than a couple of years, our salaries are worth less than when we started. Unionized academic positions have been able to bargain in past years for substantial cost of living increases, but non-unionized positions have been lagging behind.
We want pay that is appropriate to our level of education and experience, that allows us to live without struggle in the area that we work, and the ability to have guaranteed raises that, at minimum, keep up with cost of living.
Protections from overwork (Work-Life balance)
Excessive working hours and overwork issues are widespread among research and public service professionals at LBNL. We often have little control over our schedules, and have to work against deadlines imposed by external sources. For many of us, the lines are blurred between work and personal time, and we are often expected to be “on” when we are supposed to be off (i.e. outside of working hours). We may find ourselves working routinely into the night hours and on weekends, without any compensation, under the assumption that it is expected as part of our job, and we lack the ability to say no.
We deserve the right to live a full life outside of our job and as such, our jobs should provide a good quality of life while also providing us with time for life outside of work. We deserve to set firm boundaries regarding the work we perform and to establish a mutually beneficial expectation that we are only required to work during our agreed upon working hours and cannot be expected to be “always on” and fully accessible.
Comprehensive Worker Health, Welfare, and Leave Benefits
Our proposed union includes a great diversity of workers whose employment benefits should be commensurate with our diverse needs. Our benefits as staff lag far behind international standards, many workers at LBNL and workers in several institutions throughout the state. We have similar commitments to family, but do not have sufficient parental leave. We have the same basic needs for health, but often have inadequate health care and have faced recent increases in premiums that further burden our families. We have needs for time off from work – for recreation and recharging – but many of us receive less than half of the paid time off of other Lab workers and one-fourth the time off of other workers around the globe.
UAW Academic Researchers at UC including LBNL Project Scientists won a contract with 24 days of vacation a year and so can we. We face long commutes because of the scarcity of reasonable housing near work, but have to pay daily costs for commuting and parking. Improving our benefits through better parental leave policies, lower health care premiums attached to better health care plans, a significant increase in paid vacation days, and access to transit subsidies are fundamental benefits that can benefit our community. Banding together as a union is not merely a step towards improving our individual lives; it’s a stride towards elevating the entirety of LBNL to meet and set international standards of employee welfare and institutional excellence.