ROCS-UAW
RESEARCHERS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE AT SINAI
ROCS-UAW is an organization by, of, and for Mount Sinai Researchers who want to unionize in order to improve our research and employment experience at Sinai. Our work not only benefits this institution and the economy, but also has positive impacts worldwide through groundbreaking medical research. We work in many different fields and have varied experiences, but our dedication to research unites us all.
I am an Instructor in the Department of Environmental Medicine and Climate Science, and I study the impact of neurotoxicant exposure on the brain. I believe forming a union is crucial for promoting gender equity at Mount Sinai. Many parents, including myself, struggle to balance parenting responsibilities with our work as full-time researchers due to insufficient family-friendly policies. A union will allow us to negotiate with Sinai for much-needed changes like greater support for those with families and small children, closing the gender pay gap, and stronger protections against harassment and discrimination.
I was promoted from Postdoctoral Fellow to my current position as an Associate Scientist in 2021. Since then inflation has accelerated and the cost of living has surged in New York City, but my salary has remained unchanged. While Sinai increased the salary of postdocs to the highest in the country as a result of their unionization, there has not been a commensurate increase to the salary of senior researchers like myself. As a father of a one-year-old child and an international researcher, the vast majority of my salary goes to childcare, immigration, and housing. Not having a salary or benefits that account for these costs makes Mount Sinai less inclusive and distracts from senior researchers’ ability to do world-class biomedical research. I believe that forming a union will empower us to negotiate for improvements on these issues and fight for a more equitable, inclusive workplace that can attract and retain the very best researchers from around the world.
I am an associate scientist in the department of psychiatry at Mount Sinai studying mechanisms of gene regulation during human brain development. I believe that senior researchers in academia should have the right to unionize to collectively bargain for increases in salary, greater job security, and greater transparency and standardization in administrative policies, such as those regarding promotions and professional development. It is especially important for academic researchers living in expensive cities such as New York to be able to thrive economically and not worry about job stability while contributing to cutting edge biomedical research that advances science and our collective well-being.