Letter to Dean Harrington Calling for a Fair and Neutral Process
Dear Dean Harrington,
We write on behalf of WCM Postdocs United-UAW, the union that an overwhelming majority of postdoctoral researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have chosen to form. We are proud to work at WCM and play a critical role driving its mission for cutting-edge research. With collective bargaining, we aim to negotiate for improvements that not only enhance our living and working conditions as postdocs but also enhance our ability to deliver quality research at WCM.
More than 80% of all postdoctoral researchers at WCM have now signed cards authorizing our union to represent us in collective bargaining, and we are excited to join a growing movement of academic workers forming unions and to become part of the UAW, which represents 100,000 academic workers across the US.
Based on this overwhelming mandate for collective bargaining, we intend to file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to initiate the process of establishing WCM Postdocs United-UAW as our union. We sincerely hope this process can proceed constructively and without delays. We strongly believe that a constructive relationship between WCM and WCM Postdocs United-UAW will benefit the overall quality and competitiveness of research at our institution.
To that end, we request that the WCM administration remains neutral and does not attempt to influence postdocs against unionizing. We would like to meet as soon as possible to discuss and agree on how best to ensure a fair and efficient process to verify majority support for WCM Postdocs United-UAW as our union.
Please let us know your availability by 15 September 2023. We can be reached at organizing@wcmpostdocunion.org.
Sincerely,
Jazmin Alarcon, Neuroscience
Shadi Azam, Population Health Science
Arka Banerjee, Microbiology & Immunology
Sara Bernardo, Medicine
Shubha Bevkal Subramanyaswamy, Medicine
Udayan Bhattacharya, Pathology & Lab Medicine
Jui-Lin Chen, Pediatrics
Eric Cortada Almar, Medicine
Mariela Cortés López, Medicine
Chelsea Crooks, Pediatrics
Valentina Dal Pozzo, Neurological Surgery
Matthew Deyell, Physiology and Biophysics
Nicolas Di Siervi, Hematology & Oncology
Zuhal Eraslan, Dermatology
Natalie Fuchs, Radiology
Claudia Galassi, Radiation Oncology
Saravanan Ganesan, Medicine
Caner Günaydin, Genetic Medicine
Ayan Hussein, Neuroscience
Sung-Min Hwang, Obstetrics and Gynecology
Sahar Jalal, Radiology
Mohammad Kamran, Pathology & Lab Medicine
Krithika Karthigeyan, Pediatrics
Emilie Khalfallah, Radiology
Alejandra Laguillo-Diego, Medicine
Brendon Lee, Medicine
Jonathan Ma, Biochemistry
Dagan Marx, Biochemistry
Shino Murakami, Pharmacology
Yangang Pan, Anesthesiology
Marie Parsons, Medicine
Roma Patel, Biochemistry
Tamara Prieto, Medicine
Devin Rocks, Psychiatry
Juan Rodriguez Alcazar, Pediatrics
Victor Ruthig, Urology
Debarya Saha, Cell and Developmental Biology
Elias Scheer, Psychiatry
Fernanda Subtil, Medicine
Prajna Tripathi, Microbiology & Immunology
Valerie Vinette, Microbiology & Immunology
Akshay Vishwanatha, Medicine
Caitlin Williams, Pediatrics
Hiroshi Yano, Medicine
Jiajun Zhu, Surgery