Local 4100 Researchers Fight for Funding for the Future of Science

UAW Local 4100 members Paola Bianchimano and Andrew Little wrote an op-ed for The Chief Leader about how union members are fighting for the future of science—now with increasing support from local and state elected officials:

Thousands of researchers have chosen collective bargaining not only to improve our pay, benefits and rights, but as a way to invest in the future of science. Now that movement has a growing number of political allies.

The newly-elected leaders who have chosen to stand publicly with research workers understand something that too many university administrators have overlooked: defending science means defending scientists. It means recognizing that discoveries do not emerge from institutions alone. They emerge from people who deserve fair pay, parental leave, protection from discrimination and harassment and security regardless of where they were born.

The attacks on American science are not only coming from Washington. If New York's research institutions truly want to protect their scientific missions, they should stop treating their workers as costs to be managed, and start treating us as powerful allies in the fight to defend science itself. But in order for that to happen, they need to treat their workers fairly.

Read more in The Chief Leader.