This study of U.S. postdocs and unions analyzes the public discourse of national entities, a national postdoc advocacy group, and of local postdoc unions and their collective bargaining agreements. The analytical focus and findings address: (a) postdocs’ identity as “professors-in-training” or exploited employees; (b) the professional jurisdictional issues and due process rights identified as problematic and on which postdocs’ bargaining is focused; and (c) broader ideologies and social justice issues that characterize postdocs’ working conditions and that inform their mobilizing. The findings offer insights into organizing professionals in a time when their status/work is being degraded.
AAU. 1998. Committee on Postdoctoral Education: Report and Recommendations. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Universities.
2.
AbbottAndrew. 1988. The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
3.
BauerLouise Birdsell. 2017. “Professors-in-Training or Precarious Workers?: Identity, Coalition Building, and Social Movement Unionism in the 2015 University of Toronto Graduate Employee Strike.” Labor Studies Journal42 (4): 273–94.
4.
BerryJoe. 2005. Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. New York: Monthly Review Press.
5.
BlackGrant C.StephanPaula E.. 2010. “The Economics of University Science and the Role of Foreign Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars.” In American Universities in a Global Market, edited by ClotfelterCharles, 129–62. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
6.
BrintSteven. 1994. In an Age of Experts: The Changing Role of Professionals in Politics, and Public Life. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
7.
CamachoSayilRhoadsRobert A.. 2015. “Breaking the Silence: The Unionization of Postdoctoral Workers at the University of California.” The Journal of Higher Education8 86 (2): 295–325.
8.
CantwellBrendanJennyLee. 2010. “Unseen Workers in the Academic Factory: Perceptions of Neo-racism among International Postdocs in the United States and the United Kingdom.” Harvard Educational Review80 (4): 490–517.
9.
CantwellBrendanTaylorBarrett J.. 2015. “Rise of the Science and Engineering Postdoctorate and the Restructuring of Academic Research.” The Journal of Higher Education86 (5): 667–96.
10.
COSEPUP. 2000. Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers: A Guide for Postdoctoral Scholars, Advisors, Institutions, Funding Organizations, and Disciplinary Societies. Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.
11.
DobbieDavidRobinsonIan. 2008. “Reorganizing Higher Education in the United States and Canada: The Erosion of Tenure and the Unionization of Contingent Faculty.” Labor Studies Journal33 (2): 117–40.
12.
FaircloughNorman. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Ltd.
13.
FergusonKrysteMcTigheMichaelAmlaniBhishmaCostelloTracy. 2017. Supporting the Needs of Postdocs: 2017 National Postdoctoral Association Institutional Policy Report. Rockville, MD: National Postdoctoral Association.
14.
FinkelsteinMartin J.ConleyValerie MartinSchusterJack H.. 2016. The Faculty Factor: Reassessing the American Academy in a Turbulent Era. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
15.
FlahertyColleen. 2018. “Best Practices for Supporting Postdocs.” InsideHigherEd, January 5, 2018.
16.
FlahertyColleen. 2019. “Fallout from Pregnancy Bias Claim.” InsideHigherEd June 11, 2019.
17.
GilbertDaniel A. 2013. “The Generation of Public Intellectuals: Corporate Universities, Graduate Employees and the Academic Labor Movement.” Labor Studies Journal38 (1): 32–46.
18.
HartJeni. 2008. “Mobilization Among Women Academics: The Interplay Between Feminism and Professionalization.” NWSA Journal20 (1): 184–208.
19.
HerbertWilliam A.ApkarianJacobvan der NaaldJoseph. 2020. Supplementary Directory of New Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Institutions of Higher Education, 2013–2019. New York, NY: National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions.
20.
JaffeSamParkPaula. 2003. “Postdocs: Pawing out of Purgatory.” The Scientist 17 (6): March 24, 2003.
21.
MaistoMaria. 2012. “Taking Heart, Taking Part: New Faculty Majority and the Praxis of Contingent Faculty Activism.” In Embracing Non-Tenure Track Faculty: Changing Campuses for the New Faculty Majority, edited by KezarAdriana, 190–204. New York: Routledge.
22.
MervisJeffrey. 1999. “Cheap Labor is Key to U.S. Research Productivity.” Science285 (5433): 1519–21.
23.
NAS. 2014. The Postdoctoral Experience Revisited. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. Washington, D.C: The National Academies Press.
24.
NIH. 2012. Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group Report. Washington, D.C.: National Institutes of Health.
25.
NRC. 2005. Bridges to Independence: Fostering the Independence of New Investigators in Biomedical Research. National Research Council. Washington D.C.: National Academies Press.
26.
NRC. 2012. Science and Engineering Indicators, 2012. Arlington, VA: National Research Council.
27.
NSF. 2017. National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.
28.
NSF. 2019. National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering, NSF, 21–318. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.
29.
OziasMoiraPasquePenny. 2019. “Critical Geography as Theory and Praxis: The Community-University Imperative for Social Change.” The Journal of Higher Education90 (1): 85–110.
30.
PattonLori Davis. 2014. “Preserving Respectability or Blatant Disrespect?: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Morehouse Appropriate Attire Policy and Implications for Intersectional Approaches to Examining Campus Policies.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education27 (6): 724–46.
31.
RhoadesGary. 1998. Managed Professionals: Unionized Faculty and Restructuring Academic Labor. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
32.
RhoadesGary. 2017. “Bread and Roses, and Quality Too?: A New Faculty Majority Negotiating a New Academy.” The Journal of Higher Education88 (5): 645–71.
33.
RhoadesGary. 2020. “Taking College Teachers’ Working Conditions Seriously: Adjunct Faculty and Negotiating a Labor-Based Conception of Quality.” The Journal of Higher Education91 (3): 327–52.
34.
RhoadesGaryRhoadsRobert A.. 2003. “The Public Discourse of U.S. Graduate Employee Unions: Social Movement Identities, Ideologies, and Strategies.” The Review of Higher Education26 (1): 163–86.
35.
RhoadesGaryTorres-OlaveBlanca M.. 2015. “Academic Capitalism and (Secondary) Academic Labor Markets: Negotiating a New Academy and Research Agenda.” In Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Volume 30, edited by PaulsenMichael B., 383–430. New York: Springer.
36.
RohnJennifer. 2011. “Give Postdocs a Career, not Empty Promises.” Nature471 (7): March 2.
37.
SlaughterSheilaRhoadesGary. 2004. Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
38.
SquireDianNicolazzoZ.PerezRosemary J.. 2019. “Institutional Response as Non-Performative: What University Communications (Don’t) Say About Movements Toward Justice.” Review of Higher Education42 (Supplement): 109–33.
39.
StephanPaula E. 2012. How Economics Shapes Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
40.
SuXuhong. 2011. “Postdoctoral Training, Departmental Prestige and Scientists’ Research Productivity.” Journal of Technology Transfer 36: 275–291.
41.
TattersallAmanda. 2009. “A Little Help from Our Friends Exploring and Understanding When Labor-Community Coalitions are Likely to Form.” Labor Studies Journal34 (4): 485–506.
42.
van DijkTeun A. 2003. “Introduction: What is Critical Discourse Analysis?” In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, edited by SchiffrinDeborahTannenDeborahHamiltonHeidi E., 352–71. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
43.
WoolstonChris. 2002. “Perpetual Postdocs.” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 20, 2002.
44.
ZumetaWilliam M. 1985. Extending the Educational Ladder: The Changing Quality and Value of Postdoctoral Study. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
