NIH Fellows United

RAPUP-UAW on X: "Thanks to our postdoctoral colleagues in @hopkinspro_uaw, @urfu_uaw, @spocuaw, and @uaw_4811 for the words of solidarity ahead of our vote later this week! https://t.co/8CPDIlNw0F" / X Thanks to our postdoctoral colleagues in @hopkinspro_uaw, @urfu_uaw, @spocuaw, and @uaw_4811 for the words of solidarity ahead of our vote later this week! https://t.co/8CPDIlNw0F

Exciting week for Penn Postdocs in their union elections this week! Academia needs collective power more than ever! Every academic worker deserves rights, protections, and a say. ✊ #WeAreTheUAW

x.com/RAPUP_UAW/st...

Excited for our DC siblings at the Kennedy Center ✊⚙️

Today, NIH Fellows United and our colleagues walked out of NIH Director Jayanta Bhattacharya’s Town Hall. Dr. Bhattacharya's tenure at NIH has been marked with damaging cuts to NIH personnel and biomedical research funding.

Academic workers across the country are calling 📞 Legislators to ask them to sign on to bipartisan letters ✉️ in support of robust NIH funding and opposing the 15% indirect cost caps. Take 5 minutes to call your legislators today. Deadline is May 19th.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

While this administration sows fear and isolation, our union stands up for hope and solidarity. Standing together, we will not be intimidated.

When we fight, we win. ✊

On Wednesday, we planned to lead a walkout at his first town hall.

We wanted to send a message: we will not sit by while our Director aids and abets the dismantling of America's crown jewel research enterprise.

Seems he got wind of our plans, because he postponed last-minute.

Since Bhattacharya’s arrival, we have made good-faith efforts to meet with the Director, but have been brushed off.

His comments - whether misinformed or intentionally deceptive - have repeatedly misled the NIH community and the public.

Trust demands better.

In another misleading exchange, Bhattacharya dismissed a Nature news article reporting that NIH planned to suspend subawards for foreign collaborations as “rumors.” Hours later he released a policy confirming said “rumors.”

Inside the Bloodbath at the NIH Sources say that a climate of fear has spread throughout the agency as the Trump administration takes a hatchet to its core functions.

…On the contrary, in the past month, critical NIH facilities received stop work orders, 2200 contractors were terminated, a second round of RIFs hit, and the funding cuts continued.

In an interview with @science.org on Monday, Bhattacharya evaded accountability for what is happening at NIH and claimed,“in the month I’ve been here, I think things have turned around pretty significantly”...

A thread: NIH Fellows United is committed to showing up, even when leadership won’t. 🧪

form.laborbase.org/251246245216...

Last Friday, the Trump Administration proposed major budget cuts to the NSF and NIH, two of the largest public funders of biomedical research. On May 13th @ 3pm ET join us in calling Congressional Legislators to tell them to sign onto letters supporting federal research funding. #KilltheCuts >🔗

Concerns about higher ed’s future under Trump and calls for a forceful response to his actions pervaded a recent gathering on collective bargaining in higher ed. The conference—held in Manhattan just two days after Columbia announced it would capitulate to multiple demands the administration made—offered a snapshot into a large pocket of resistance. We couldn’t actually be better positioned to fight back against the kind of authoritarian attacks that we’re seeing.” —Ian Gavigan, national director of Higher Ed Labor United

Panelists and the audience discussed the Trump administration’s ongoing targeting of higher ed and how to respond. “We are under absolutely relentless assault,” said Rebecca Givan, general vice president of the Rutgers University AAUP-AFT and a HELU steering committee member. “It’s constant, it’s everywhere, it’s in every direction, but it would be so much worse if we didn’t have our unions. And so we have these structures and we need to use them to fight back.” Givan said that “none of us have been sleeping,” but “if we can’t organize within our unions to fight back, we have nothing.” She said unions have to work within state and federal politics and agencies, fighting for changes such as higher taxes on the rich to fund higher ed. “We also have to give our university administrators a strong invitation to do the right thing,” Givan said. “And if they do not, we have to fill that leadership vacuum. We cannot let them back down. We cannot let them do a Columbia and capitulate.”

Atop the litigation, presidents and members of those unions and others—such as the United Autoworkers, a major organizer of graduate student workers—have rallied in Washington, D.C., against cuts to universities and federal research agencies. This week, the UAW joined other, nonunion organizations in suing to overturn the administration’s cancellations of National Institutes of Health grants. Attempts at more national shows of force are coming. Across dozens of campuses, multiple unions are sponsoring a “Kill the Cuts” day of action on April 8, focused on reversing the NIH cuts and other federal funding reductions, followed by a more general protest April 17. It all adds up to campus unions taking a public stand where administrators largely haven’t.

Read more about the panel featuring Local President Levin
Kim & @nihfellowsunited.bsky.social President Emilya Ventriglia here: www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

@uaw4811.bsky.social @umd-glu.bsky.social

Researchers, Higher Ed Union Fight NIH Grant Terminations A new lawsuit argues that canceling billions in research grants will delay scientific advancements, compromise human health and even result in deaths.

Due to cuts to the NIH, “…scientific advancement will be delayed, treatments will go undiscovered, human health will be compromised, and lives will be lost.” Read about how UAW is fighting funding cuts in court: www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

KillTheCuts.org

The fight for research, healthcare, and education is on.

Join us in April 8th at 4PM at Upper Senate Park, D.C. (and nationwide!) to demand NO CUTS to research and education. 🪧 We say: #KILLTHECUTS!

RSVP[https://tinyurl.com/KillTheCuts]

Over 600 passionate individuals united with Maryland leaders, alongside advocates, to stand strong against the Trump Administration's assault on the National Institutes of Health. UWA leaders @nihfellowsunited.bsky.social delivered an inspiring speech that electrified the crowd. @mcdems.bsky.social

Dr. Haley Chatelaine, VP of UAW Local 2750, addresses attendees at the Stand Up for Science Rally in Washington DC on March 7, 2025.

"As scientists, we stand on the shoulders of giants. Today, we are all standing shoulder to shoulder WITH giants. Everybody here has the ability to move us forward. Everyone here is a leader. Lead with your hearts now."

— Haley Chatelaine, VP of UAW Local 2750 @nihfellowsunited.bsky.social

UAW members who work at the National Institutes of Health rally with fellow scientists and advocates at the Stand Up for Science Rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on March 7, 2025.

UAW members who work at the National Institutes of Health rally with fellow scientists and advocates at the Stand Up for Science Rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on March 7, 2025.

UAW members who work at the National Institutes of Health rally with fellow scientists and advocates at the Stand Up for Science Rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on March 7, 2025.

UAW members who work at the National Institutes of Health rally with fellow scientists and advocates at the Stand Up for Science Rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on March 7, 2025.

UAW members joined thousands of fellow scientists and advocates today for the Stand Up for Science Rally in Washington DC.

Attendees called on leaders at every level to champion and protect scientific research and education against recent attacks by the Trump administration.

Life-saving medical research will suffer from the administration’s rash cuts The new administration is gutting federal health programs, and that will hurt higher ed.

At a labor rally, speakers blasted the administration’s cuts to health care and higher education. Read more & learn how to GET ORGANIZED below. www.afscme.org/blog/life-sa...

I’d rather be in a lab right now. But we’re here because the NIH grants that fund our research have been cut. RFK Jr. says he wants to make America healthy again - but how does he want to do that without our research?! - Annika Barber, @ruaaup-aft.bsky.social

Washington D.C. and online – 1:30pm ET Rally and online phone bank

On Tuesday 2/25 – in D.C. and online – workers and labor leaders will rally to expose how attacks on public funding decimate public health and education while siphoning off public resources for private gain. Hands off our healthcare, research, jobs, and education! Join us: www.labor4highered.org

Young researchers mobilize to protest Trump administration’s science policies Stunned by attacks on the scientific research system, early career scientists plan a D.C. demonstration and a national ‘Stand Up for Science’ event.

“We have strength in numbers. …I think we’re ready to fight.” said Ian Fucci, a member of NIH Fellows United / UAW Local 2750. Join us next week to fight together for research: tinyurl.com/3ct6yns2

www.statnews.com/2025/02/13/r...

Join us on the 19th at the Department of Health and Human Services in DC! RSVP here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

To ensure these cuts are reversed, UAW demands immediate action from Congress before they wreak havoc on the working class, scientific innovation, and the future of public health.

UAW is participating in legal efforts that have resulted in a Temporary Restraining Order issued on February 10 that blocked these cuts from going into effect.

Trump claims this will “save money,” but the truth is every NIH dollar invested in research generates two and a half times its value in economic activity. Gutting NIH funding is not savings—it’s sabotage.

These cuts will shut down promising medical breakthroughs, slam the brakes on clinical trials, destroy jobs, and gut university research programs where thousands of UAW members across the country work every day to advance life-saving discoveries.

The Trump administration’s decision to slash NIH funding is a gut punch to scientific progress, economic growth, and the fight against deadly diseases. Cutting research on cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s isn’t "efficient”—it’s economically reckless and inhumane.

🧵UAW Blasts Reckless National Institute of Health Cuts: A Direct Attack on Jobs, Innovation, and Life-Saving Research