@2 oldwhiteguy The letter linked in the article gives a little more detail on that: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15uykMHR2bRyDBcbF19fZ628o_IccMZeG/view

I'd prefer to be in academia too, but I instead used my degree to obtain a high paying job in the private sector. That same career path is of course open to any of the UW postdocs who are disappointed with their current earning potential.

@2 As the linked letter explains, postdocs are apparently not capable of performing simple timekeeping tasks (which even the dumbest UW Law 1L will be expected to do at any internship or summer position):

Tracking hours would increase the administrative burden for postdocs, PIs, and departments, as postdocs typically spend many hours reading and thinking about their work “on their own time,” and they are often on-call outside typical work hours for consultation with other lab personnel, such as students. Tracking hours would further exacerbate the power imbalance between postdocs and PIs, who may pressure Postdocs to work overtime without reporting extra hours.

For someone who is a professional researcher this editorial is woefully lacking in any real data and instead falls back to relying on nebulous measures like a “living wage” and emotional appeals. If you can’t make a coherent case as to what you are seeking why should anyone support you?

@7 The first paragraph of @6 contains my comments, the second paragraph is a quotation from the letter linked in the article. Sorry if that was unclear.

@6 As a former postdoc myself (now in an industry job), I’d say it’s not that researchers aren’t able to log hours, but that hour-tracking is inconsistent with how the work of a postdoc actually happens: most postdocs work well over 40 hours a week (and most postdoc advisors explicitly or implicitly expect this), but in a pretty unpredictable way that blends with their non-work time.

If they accurately logged their hours with 1.5x OT pay, they’d make well more than either negotiating party is proposing, but that won’t actually happen—they’ll be pressured to under-report their hours with things like “sure, you needed to collect a sample at 9 pm, but you could have left and come back” or “I don’t think that reading that paper from 10 pm to midnight last night counted as work” or other complaints. And on their own, each such complaint will have some validity, but they’ll add up to an employee with a basically all-consuming job instead claiming they work 40 hours a week and having the rest of their wages stolen.

Best of luck! I did a BSME in UW Seattle and later found my way to Germany and did a PhD and some unsuccessful post doc time there. In Germany Phd candidates are generally full time temporary Uni employees and earn a living wage (+/–50k€) and it is similar in other west EU countries. You don’t get rich but get full benefits (30 days vacation, parental leave, etc). No reason US shouldn’t do similar, research is important and skilled staff expensive. To misquote Joe Hill, „don’t mope, organize“.

@6 hbb

I don't agree that the quote supports your assertion that "postdocs are apparently not capable of performing simple timekeeping tasks". The point made in the quote is that there will be natural pressures on the postdocs to perform unreported work, because they will have authorization to preform the work, but due to the time-sensitive nature of some experiments they have to do it immediately or not at all. And, because they are passionate scientists who believe in the value of their work, they will go ahead and do it. It is true that in this scenario they are proactively deciding to take on that work, but the purpose of an administrative regime is to create a structure that suits the work it administrates in order to facilitate efficient and effective operations. Adopting rules which create incentives contrary to the natural incentives of the work is an administrative failure.

Wait, they want minimum wage but not to be paid on hourly basis? WHAT exactly would avert a strike?? I’m confused!

But how will we pay for a new sportsball stadium that 99 percent of all students don't care about?

@13 The state has rules for overtime pay for salaried workers. Basically, if a salary is below a certain threshold, then salaried workers are also entitled to overtime pay. The UW workers want to be paid at or above the threshold so that concerns about overtime pay do not prevent them from doing research at the time it needs to be done, because some research activities must be performed urgently and require working overtime.

The Department of Labor and Industries has some information about the rules on their website: https://lni.wa.gov/workers-rights/wages/overtime/changes-to-overtime-rules