“I was forced to choose between my baby and doing quality research that furthers science and my career. I chose my baby, but no one should have to make this choice. I had to give up my career as a scientist, my PI lost her leading researcher in the lab, and Sinai lost the discoveries I may have been able to make in my research project.” – Jessica Wang, former postdoc in the Department of Cardiology.
“Given Sinai’s policies, I had to use all my sick days (accumulated over the last four years) to cover my maternity leave. Not only is this kind of policy unfair to parents, it also reduces equity at Sinai by being disadvantageous to the health of those who choose to start families at Sinai.” – Jeromine Klingler, postdoc in the Department of Infectious Disease
Yesterday, we held our 32nd bargaining session. Sinai did not prepare any new economic counter proposals despite having had more than two weeks since our last session. Sinai also made very little movement on our non-economic proposals and has not responded to our proposed additional bargaining sessions in November. This lack of preparation from Sinai’s team is out of touch with the urgency postdocs at Sinai feel for reaching a fair agreement in a timely manner, after more than a year of negotiations.
We also heard powerful testimonials from postdocs who recently became parents, outlining their struggles related to Sinai’s lack of sufficient family-friendly policies. Sinai has continued to reject our proposals for fully paid parental leave and a childcare benefit.
These postdocs stressed how the current status quo harms Mount Sinai’s ability to retain the talented individuals who drive most of the research at this institution. These testimonials emphasized the need for paid parental leave and childcare subsidies to address the well-known issues of gender equity and the leaky pipeline of women leaving academia.
We then made counter proposals on all remaining economic articles on our side, including Leaves of Absence, where we reasserted our position on the importance of paid parental leave, and Childcare, in which we reasserted our demand for a childcare stipend. See our other counter proposals here.
In solidarity,
Pooja Viswanathan
SPOC-UAW Bargaining Committee