Canadian postdocs seek better working conditions.
Issues such as low pay, long working hours and no holiday or sick pay have prompted postdocs at the University of Toronto and Queens University in Kingston, both in Ontario, and the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) to seek union representation. Some 800 postdocs in Toronto want to affiliate with the Canadian Union of Public Employees; around 200 at Queens and 150 at UQAM want to join the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). University of Toronto administrators maintain that postdocs are not university employees and so have no right to unionize. The Ontario Labour Relations Board will decide on that right in hearings for Queens this month and Toronto in 2011. The board is reviewing an application from UQAM postdocs.
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Postdoc unions. Nature 468, 723 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7324-723a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7324-723a