Johns Hopkins University research staff announced plans this week to start a union in an effort to get higher pay, transparent career paths and more job security.
Research staff began their union card collection campaign on Tuesday. More than 1,000 staff members would be eligible to sign up, according to Allie Wainer, spokesperson for Research and Lab Labor Empowered, which is organizing with United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America. After the union card campaign, the group, known as RALLE-UE, will try to seek union recognition from the university.
Wainer said hundreds of workers had already signed union cards as of Wednesday. Though research workers can do lab work, they can also support research projects by analyzing data, conducting literature reviews, and performing other project management tasks, Wainer said.
“Hopkins would not be the world-renowned research institution that it is without its research staff,” Wainer said. Part of the union’s platform is to demand clearer opportunities for advancement for research staff like herself, which she said can be unclear.
“If career paths for research staff were transparent and included promotions, we could better actually contribute to Hopkins research,” Wainer said. “Our hope is to make being a research staff[er] a dignified and meaningful career.”
Likewise, RALLE’s platform says lab tech salaries at JHU start $15,000 lower than those at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. A university spokesperson did not respond to questions about those salaries or the compensation range for research staff.
Since President Donald Trump took office last year, research universities like Hopkins have sustained massive funding cuts, resulting in the cancellation of projects. That insecurity affects research workers, leading RALLE’s platform to include “transitional funding, severance pay, and just cause protections.”
Unionizing is becoming more common on college campuses. Hopkins’ graduate worker union, Teachers and Researchers United (TRU-UE 197), and postdoctoral researchers’ union, PRO-UAW, both won recognition in recent years. Graduate workers at the state’s flagship research school, the University of Maryland, College Park, are similarly seeking recognition from the school.
RALLE organizers have held conversations with more than 1,500 research staff members to identify the issues that matter most to them, according to the group’s website. That process began in September 2024, Wainer said. Research staff held a rally on campus Tuesday afternoon.
“Johns Hopkins University believes the choice of whether or not to join a union is a personal decision that is entirely up to each individual. As always, we encourage employees to seek out facts and information, to listen and engage with the diverse perspectives that enrich our academic community, and come to an informed decision,” a university spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday.
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