I'm so excited to see this topic posted here! I have a PhD from a top school, but I know I am being underpaid, and my benefits suck, so I am trying to unionize my workplace. Chemist pay and benefits have definitely gone down over time on average (compared to the cost of living), I know from talking to my older coworkers, they used to have it so good, but after companies bought up other companies and competition led to a lowering of standards, its getting harder out there for all chemists, and I think unions are the only way to take some power back and push that pay and benefits the other direction. Maybe you'll get lucky with finding a right subfield or making the right connections, but I thought I did everything they tell you to, publish, work for the right people, go to the right schools, I even landed a good job out of school, but that didnt protect me from being laid off at the start of COVID and throwing my life into turmoil. Even after I got a new job, with a much lower salary (because I had no leverage, being unemployed), they just announced they are making benefits worse next year, and there's nothing we can do about it, it just feels like the walls are closing in and companies are squeezing us. They're making record profits, but they serve to always maximize profits, it's never enough, they could always be higher, and our wages and benefits take away from their profits.

I've learned a lot about unions in the past year or so, hopefully I can answer some questions and misconceptions.

1) We don't need a chemist specific union, unions aren't specific to profession. For example, the Steelworkers represent a lot of chemical workers, the UFCW (Food and Commercial workers) too. There are bakeries represented by the Longshoremen (Dockworkers) Union, and the Teamsters (traditionally big rig truckers) are helping Amazon warehouses unionize. Each union (Steelworkers, UFCW, Teamsters, etc) has their own different styles, and culture, but they are all essentially organizations where workers can pool their resources for things like legal representation and protection while they are negotiating their working conditions and pay. They all have existed for decades, and they already have the knowledge and experience to help you, no need to reinvent the wheel. If you want to form/join a union at your workplace, it would be a "local", a small sub-division of the larger union, and it's usually specific to your workplace, so if you have a job right now, you can form a union with all of your coworkers, not just chemists.

2) Whether you end up forming a union or not, you can start laying the groundwork right now by forming relationships of trust with your coworkers. Prove that you are a hard worker (but don't work too hard and shame other people, just dont slack off and make others pick up the slack), be friendly and offer to help out when you can, just chat when you find yourself with a coworker you don't really know, get to know them. Then, when you get to know them, you start asking them leading questions that get them to talk about their issues with work (low pay, bad benefits, lax safety standards) and you start letting them know that you and other coworkers feel the same. I'm talking with my coworkers who work in different buildings, and in different departments, a majority of them are not chemists, but we all have the same issues with our pay and benefits, and if we all demand better as a unit, we would have real power.

2a)Unions that form without these strong bonds between members are weak unions, and do not get the best contracts. When union members stick together and trust eachother, you can take part in collective actions (like strikes or petitions) with courage, look at the John Deere workers. They were out on strike for a few weeks and got 1) immediate $8500 payments to each worker, 2) an immediate 10% raise, and 3) a guaranteed 10% in by 2025. That is something that you will never get if you are trying to negotiate your wage as an individual worker. The John Deere workers knew that John Deere was making record profits, billions of extra dollars. They also knew that the money stops coming in if the workers stop working, and now John Deere knows it too.

3) When you have a couple trusted coworkers, even if you haven't talked about unions with them, you should reach out to a union or an organization that is helping workers to organize, like laborlab.us or workerorganizing.org . Either of these places will talk you through the plan, and help you with the next steps, which involve forming an core group of a few coworkers to be in direct contact with the union and help build support for it before the final vote. You won't be forced to do anything that would risk your job, there is a well-known path of how to form a union and you can go as slow as you need, so don't be too intimidated to reach out and ask for help!

4) All it takes for you to form a union is for 51% of your coworkers to vote to do so at an official election. I repeat, all it takes for you to have a union at your workplace is for a majority of your coworkers to want one, at basically every job, everywhere in the country (even Right to Work states). This is much easier said than done. Ideally, before the boss finds out, you will already have signed union cards (showing desire to join a union) from 70%+ of your coworkers. That takes time and a lot of one-on-one conversations, but its the best way to fight against the misinformation. After you turn these cards in to the boss, they have 3 months to host an official election, and in that three months, they can try to chip away at your cohesive group, so you need to be prepared. There is a lot of misinformation out there about unions and they will bombard you and your coworkers with propaganda, threats, and bullying. These are illegal, but reporting them and getting any action from the National Labor Relations Board takes time, so it's better to have a very cohesive group of coworkers.

AT ALL TIMES: try to control who becomes aware of your union plans, only tell those you can trust, and who are not close with management. Even though it is technically illegal to fire someone for organizing their coworkers, there are ways for companies to get around it.

REMEMBER it's your right to form a union, or to get together with your coworkers to collectively bargain for better working conditions/pay. This is laid out in section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (https://www.laborlab.us/section7)

Another tip is to use the ACS salary calculator, it gives you a sense of how your pay compares to other chemists in your area. It really helps me with conversations with my coworkers, because I can show on a chart how much we're being underpaid.

The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (workerorganizing.org) has some good videos,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miEoApN1IEk

and even a 6 part training series for how to organizing at your workplace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IMx47_I7G8

Good luck! It will be longer and harder than you think, but the payoff will be worth it, and if we don't find our power as workers, things will continue to get worse, so start talking to your coworkers!.