January 19, 2022

CERSE Assistant Director Cara Margherio was interviewed by The Stranger about the ongoing effort by UW Research Staff to organize a union.

Dr. Margherio is on the union’s Organizing Committee, which aims to improve equity at UW through collective bargaining. Currently, academic researchers at UW are not part of a union. UW research staff do advanced work, often following years of training and experience, to address society’s most urgent issues: from Covid to climate change and more. Yet their compensation is not always commensurate with their contributions and they lack job stability and career development/advancement opportunities. In December 2021, a majority of UW’s 1,500 Research Scientist/Engineers (Assistant-4) filed a representation petition with the Public Employment Relations Commission seeking to be certified as a new bargaining unit with UAW Local 4121, which represents more than 6,000 Academic Student Employees and Postdocs at UW. Pandemic-induced labor shortages have inspired an increase in unionization throughout the U.S. and Dr. Margherio remarks that she is proud to be part of this nationwide movement.

Read the article here