Be part of the labour movement by joining the union that represents the most postdoctoral and research employees across Canada.
Postdoctoral Fellows (PDF) & contractual Non-Union Research Staff (NR) are practically the only employees at uOttawa who do not currently have any form of union representation.
Why an organizing campaign?
Over the last decade, thousands of university employees paid from research grants from all across Canada have joined PSAC to improve their working conditions.
The majority of PDFs and more than half of professional research staff at most research-intensive Canadian universities are now unionized, including your colleagues at McGill, Laval, Université de Montréal, Queen’s, Western Ontario, Dalhousie, and the University of Saskatchewan to name a few.
uOttawa is planning to accelerate the pace of medical research with the future Advanced Medical Research Centre, the Ottawa Health Innovation Hub, and the expansion of partnerships outside the University walls.
PDFs and NR employees play a key role in achieving those goals by increasing the University research capacity.
***NEW RECENT PSAC GAINS***
Minimum PDFs annual salary of 50K in 2025 at Dalhousie (currently 34K at uOttawa).
45K available for Professional Development Fund for PDFs at CarletonU.
Concordia Research Associates: Transfer to indeterminate after 5 years.
What is a union?
Non-unionized workers are covered by the Ontario Employment Standards Act which sets minimum working conditions. They individually have to enforce their rights.
A union is an organization of employees that regulates labour relations between employees and the employer.
Unionized workers gain the right to bargaining collectively and to union representation when issues arise.
Unions negotiate improvements to pay and benefits, but also non-monetary items such as hours of work, enhanced leave entitlements for family responsibilities, and Intellectual Property provisions that are also important to maintain a heathy work-life balance and feel respected at work.
Unions help reduce isolation. When working together, workers are stronger and achieve more.
Even professors benefit from union representation.
Workers organize their workplaces for fairness, dignity, protection and respect.
You should be fairly recognized for your contribution and enjoy benefits comparable to other full-time employees on campus.
What about research funds?
Universities receive provincial operating grants to cover the costs associated with running the university, including salary and benefits for faculty employees and others.
Research funding, or sponsored research income refers to funds which support research, and which are received in the form of a grant, contribution or a contract external to the institution.
The funding for hiring PDFs and NR employees usually comes from research grants or research trust funds.
The variability of academic research funding and the rules of granting agencies do not prevent collective bargaining.
Are you a postdoctoral fellow?
In the last 15 years the status of Postdoctoral Fellows was challenged several times.
The legal dispute revolved on whether you were only trainees furthering your education or employees who should be compensated for your work.
Canadian universities began recognizing an employment relationship for PDFs. In 2019, the University of Ottawa introduced Policy 123 confirming employee status to all PDFs paid in whole or in part by sources of funding administered by the University.
With employment status comes labour rights, including the right to unionize.
Are you a contract research employee?
Under the current conditions of employment for non-unionized contractual research staff paid from trust funds and research funds as described in Policy 47, you find yourself in a perpetual probation since the University is never under any obligation to renew a given contract.
From NR1 to NR8, you are all hired on contract by individual professors as part of their research activities, but your Employer is the University.
There are many similarities between the PDF group and the contractual research employees group. The most significant difference between PDFs and NRs is that the latter can indefinitely be on a renewable contract position while PDFs are limited to a maximum period of five years of employment as a PDF.
Together, their work makes a vital contribution to the research activities output of the University.
While the issues at the bargaining table may be different for both groups, they work side-by-side and are paid from the same funding sources.
