Post Doctoral Fellows at Memorial unionize

ST. JOHN’S, NL - Almost sixty Post Doctoral Fellows who work at MemorialUniversitywill form a separate bargaining unit of Lecturers’ Union of MUN (LUMUN), a Directly Chartered Local of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.  Yesterday, the Newfoundlandand Labrador Labour Relations Board counted ballots from a certification vote.

Post Doctoral Fellows are academic workers who hold PhDs, hired to carry out research on a contract basis. At MemorialUniversitythey work across all disciplines and campuses. In 2009 the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars estimated that there were approximately 6,000 post doctoral fellows working in Canada.  Post doctoral bargaining units have previously been certified at McMasterUniversity, the Universityof Western Ontario, Queen’s University, and the Universityof Quebec.

“This victory opens the door for another group of academic workers at Memorial to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment,” says Jeannie Baldwin, Regional Executive Vice-President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

LUMUN looks forward to maintaining good labour relations with the university administration as it enters the next phase of the organizing process.

“We are confident that the sense of solidarity and justice that animated the organizing drive and the successful vote will continue in collective bargaining,” says LUMUN President Robert Lewis.

The Lecturers’ Union of MUN represents part-time academics who teach credit-courses on a per-course basis. The Public Service Alliance of Canada represents over 18,500 academic workers across the country and has a membership of over 180,000.

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Lesley Thompson, PSAC Communications, 902-471-6201