Bargaining for Stronger Protections for International Scholars at Caltech
By Ruolin Deng, Tessa Rusch, Anna Stielau, Sam Ponnada
For international scholars, life at Caltech is challenging beyond all expectations. When we arrive in the U.S, many of us have few ties to lean on to support families and for help navigating housing, healthcare, taxes, and more. The burdens all Grad Student Workers (GSWs) and Postdocs face related to our working conditions are compounded by our visa requirements, distance from home, and precarity of our positions. As we bargain our first contract, Caltech GSWs and Postdocs are united and seek changes to our working conditions that will improve our lives and our research. We are committed to winning better protections and more rights for international scholars, as we’ve seen our colleagues at peer institutions secure through their union contracts.
International scholars make up a majority of Grad Workers and Postdocs at Caltech. Our dedication to research powers the university, but Caltech administration turns a blind eye to many of the realities we face. For example, though the majority of Postdocs work at Caltech for more than 1 year, most international Postdocs start with an initial 1-year appointment letter. As a result, they only receive 1-year J visas and need subsequent visa renewals when their contracts are extended. An international Postdoc described the uncertainty and stress surrounding visa renewal as “always happening at the last minute” and “feeling like you are begging for your survival,” while noting that there is an even shorter 90-day grace period for people on H1B visas. The worker said, “it was hard to even commit to friendships with people because I didn’t know if we were [still] going to be here.”
Renewing visas is a financial burden and time commitment — sometimes days or weeks of travel are required to renew paperwork outside the US; time off is not guaranteed and the travel is almost always self-funded. Some of our international GSW and Postdoc colleagues have decided they would rather not go home than deal with trying to get time off for visa renewal; many have not seen their family for years, even skipping funerals of loved ones. Some have even said that their advisors suggested delaying their timely visa renewal so as to not leave the lab. Based on our initial bargaining survey, winning guaranteed time off for visa renewal was the second highest priority for international scholars at Caltech — after increasing wages and compensation. GSWs and Postdocs hope that through good faith negotiations with Caltech administration, we can ensure these basic rights.
International scholars are also more vulnerable to harassment and discrimination due to the possible impact on our visa status. One international Postdoc described the frequent mistreatment he endured, which included his PI aggressively emailing and shouting about research and results. They would have scientific disagreements about methodology which would end in threats towards the postdoc’s visa: “If you don’t agree, go ahead and leave.”
After their historic 2022 strike involving 48,000 academic workers, GSWs and Postdocs at the University of California won groundbreaking contract language to include bullying protections, along with 2-year initial appointments for postdocs. Abusive conduct like our fellow Postdoc’s mistreatment is grievable, with interim measures that ensure they could continue their research during the investigation and secure bridge funding to transfer to a new lab. Every higher-ed union’s non-discrimination article also prevents retaliation and threats on the basis of visa status.
Financial difficulties due to rising costs impacts all Grads and Postdocs at Caltech. In fact, 32% of Postdoc Caltech Climate Survey respondents seriously considered leaving Caltech, citing low pay and the high cost of living among the top reasons. One international Postdoc parent described how he “…felt very mocked when [administration] presented the Caltech daycare as a viable option, considering our pay.”
International scholars often face additional financial burdens. Costs of living often cannot be split with a partner; many spouses face difficulty obtaining work authorization in the U.S., forcing international households to survive on single incomes. International postdocs are also required to use the more expensive of the two Postdoc healthcare options, paying up to three times more in monthly premiums than our domestic peers, while international grad workers with dependents pay more than four times their domestic peers at Caltech. In contrast, Postdocs at the University of California have access to healthcare plans with up to 98% of the premium covered by the university without loss of coverage, and GSWs at USC have a universal childcare subsidy of $3.2K per year and per child.
Bargaining is now underway. International scholars at Caltech have voiced and organized around our shared struggles to win our union election and reach majority ratification of our Initial Bargaining Demands. Despite the changing nature of U.S. immigration policy, there is no doubt that a more secure, less stressful future exists for us. Other academic unions have shown that it’s possible to demand — and win — better. It’s now our turn to hold the Caltech administration accountable for the well-being of their international scholars, who often struggle behind the scenes while keeping the wheels of the university turning.
