Why Senior Research Associates Like Me Are Fighting for a Union at U of T

Speaking as a 12-year Senior Research Associate at the University of Toronto, who was previously a Research Associate (Limited Term), I have many years of experience in these roles. I have witnessed firsthand the indispensable role RAs and SRAs play in advancing research at the University.

RA’s and SRA’s play a unique and essential role in the University of Toronto research enterprise. We are the backbone of many research groups, especially large groups or groups where the PI has many other administrative roles in the University. We embody “research memory” – students and postdocs come and go, but RA’s often work for many years in the same group and know all the important aspects of how the group functions. We train those students and postdocs. We help our PI’s write grants and provide essential highly qualified expertise in the funding application and administration process. We communicate with collaborators, funding agencies, and industry partners. We do research at a high level, and we are often the best resource in the group for getting important research projects completed.

With such a central place in the University of Toronto research ecosystem, one would expect that we would be highly valued and coveted by the University’s administration. That would be an incorrect expectation in many situations. Our jobs are tenuous and tied to grant or industry funding, which often is time-limited, hard to achieve, and can rapidly change. We must negotiate foundational aspects of our employment directly with our PI’s, like salary, benefits, vacation time, work hours and responsibilities, without any formalized consistency, advice, or feedback from other RA/SRA’s in similar roles. We often have good relationships with our PI’s, but relying on that connection itself is tenuous; PI’s roles change, they move, funding changes, and this trickles down to our employment stability. Labs cycle through good times and bad times, and often it is the RAs and SRAs that lose their employment first.

We have responsibilities beyond those of grad students and postdocs, like families to support, housing and transportation costs. Toronto is an expensive city; this affects all of us living here, but as RA/SRA’s, with our added responsibilities, this creates even more stress.

Unionization would be a powerful way to improve our working conditions. Collective bargaining would harness the strengths and capabilities that we have as highly skilled and experienced workers towards negotiating with the University for all of us, together. We could improve job stability. We could create employment guarantees with the University administration itself, rather than tenuous employment tied to an individual PI, while maintaining our positive and healthy connections to our PI. We could gain stability in the tenure of our employment, rather than working on yearly contracts as a Limited Term RA. We could create discrete descriptions of our roles and responsibilities and our rights not to be overburdened.

We could achieve all of this and so much more by banding together in our own union. It's time for us to unite and demand the respect and security we deserve. Join us in our campaign for unionization and help shape a better future for all RAs and SRAs at the University of Toronto.