Nearly one year after academic workers signed a new labor contract with the University of California–San Diego, five international postdoctoral researchers say the university violated the agreement when they fired them over the recent holiday break—leaving them at risk of deportation.
Two of the researchers, Yu Gao and Suresh Madheswaran, told local news outlet KPBS that they believed their contracts under their union, UAW Post Doc Local 5810, required at least a two-year assignment.
Ms. Gao has been a researcher at the university’s Institution of Oceanography for one year. It’s unclear how long Mr. Madheswaran has been in his research position at the university’s Moores Cancer Center.
Since they are in the country on work visas, they may be forced to leave the United States unless they get their jobs back.
Both say that the university told them they were terminated due to a lack of funding in their respective programs—which Ms. Gao said is untrue.
“I was informed there are still four to five months of funding left,” she told KPBS. “But my supervisor refused to use it to renew my contract or to give me a temporary position so I can have some time or grace period to find my next position.”
According to Ms. Gao, she and her husband—who is also in the U.S. on a student visa working remotely on a Ph.D. program at the University of Delaware—will also soon be forced to vacate their student housing at the university.
Meanwhile, Mr. Madheswaran and his wife, who have a two-month-old daughter, are facing deportation to India.
However, their situation is complicated because their child is an American citizen with no passport or travel visa.
Jeanean Naqvi, a postdoctoral scholar and the head of UAW Local 5810, told KPBS that the union believes the university “really doesn’t want to implement this contract that they signed.”
“Our position is that we’re going to continue to fight and make sure that every worker gets the rights that they deserve,” she said.
Officials from UC San Diego were not immediately available for comment.
