Creating a United JPL
JPL Workers United (JWU) – Better Together
As the workers of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we drive the exploration that makes JPL a world-renowned institution. We are dedicated to and excited by our work supporting and pushing the bounds of human knowledge. We are the scientists, engineers, deep space network team, business administrators, facilities and logistics coordinators, contract and acquisition teams, information technologists, mission safety officers, and many more who make essential contributions to the world-class exploration and research conducted at JPL.
Many of us joined JPL to do work that fulfilled a purpose greater than ourselves. However, JPL has undergone drastic changes in the past few years. We have so much lost talent because of the layoffs and general uncertainty about the Lab’s future. We have little transparency about decisions impacting our working conditions, lack secure rights in the workplace, and face increasingly unpredictable futures given the changing policies from JPL, the precarious nature of research funding, and the unstable regulation of visas and work authorization in recent years. Right now, without a union, JPL is the sole decision maker regarding our working conditions and can change them unilaterally at their own discretion.
With a union, we will have more power over what our working conditions look like. We are joining a national movement – workers across the country have formed unions with support from the UAW, including project scientists and postdocs at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (UAW 4811) and graduate student workers and postdocs at Caltech (UAW 2478). This effort at JPL is a part of a huge wave of unionization going on right now. With a union, we have an equal voice – to democratically negotiate a contract to address our concerns in the workplace.
JPL workers are coming together to have a say over the policies and benefits that shape our work. By forming a union, we gain the right to bargain equally with upper management. WE are the union and will get to decide our priorities collectively.