Hearing Update: Day 2

Today was the second day of the hearing, and the last day that grad workers served as witnesses.

This week overall: Penn State Admin will be arguing that Research Assistants and Trainees aren’t workers in an unnecessary hearing. A majority of grad workers signed union authorization cards, and over a thousand signed onto the letter demanding they drop their objection and the hearing, but instead of listening to workers Penn State Admin has chosen to further delay the process.

Grad workers are sitting in on the hearing and taking notes on the progress throughout the week. Here’s what Grad Workers said at the hearing today:

• RA’s and trainees shared more of the work that they did including: editing textbook chapters, running trainings, cleaning data for analysis, and conducting literature reviews.

• Grad workers emphasized that while they care about their research, our work is still labor! We love what we do and want a democratic say in our workplace!

Tomorrow, the administration will put forward their witnesses and argue that RA’s and trainees aren’t workers. Look for tomorrow’s email in the evening for updates!