The Coalition of Workers at Penn met last week to discuss the progress of unionized employees on campus, along with the potential organizing efforts of other Penn workers.
The group — which was established in 2023 as an association of University workers and local labor representatives — urged University administrators to respect workers’ rights to organize. The Oct. 15 event primarily focused on how staff members can support the bargaining process of Penn’s graduate student union, Graduate Employees Together — University of Pennsylvania.
In a statement posted on Instagram prior to the meeting, on-campus unions described the event as an “important” step to understanding the “crossroads” currently facing Penn staff members.
Representatives of the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO — which represents over 100 unions across the city — were also present at the meeting. In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian, AFL-CIO organizer Evan Kassof highlighted the need for Penn’s unions to “support each other.”
“Part of our strategy is just making sure people … learn about each other’s struggles and learn about each other's work,” Kassof said. “Through that, we often can kind of discover ways to support each other in more actively significant ways.”
Kassof also discussed the “siloing” of workers at Penn, adding that “a lot of workers don't know [others] like them.” He emphasized that the meeting “happened in the immediate … response to the grad workers and their practice picket,” referring to GET-UP’s Oct. 8 demonstration to demand fair contracts and organize union members in preparation for a potential strike.
“[We were] thinking about how … we [can] support them in their continued escalation with the administration,” Kassof said. He also mentioned that some attendees used the meeting to discuss “what stage people are at in their organizing” and how certain contracts can affect their “ability to support workers.”
According to Kassof, the meeting also served as an opportunity for the Coalition of Workers at Penn to promote its pay transparency survey, which has circulated for two months and seeks to reduce pay disparities across the University.
“Penn workers are under attack,” the survey’s description reads. “Penn does not practice pay transparency in its job postings or raises, but we can change that by sharing our own info here, anonymously.”
The survey asks employees to disclose their job title, how long they have been working at Penn, and their current salary.
In addition to describing Penn’s lack of transparency, Kassof denounced the University as an “anti-union employer” in a statement to the DP.
“We see this in the legal challenges they have brought against new organizing campaigns, the efforts they have taken to drag out bargaining, and their continued resistance to work quickly to settle new, fair contracts,” Kassof wrote. “The fact that GET-UP UAW and the Penn Museum Workers United (AFSCME Local 397) have had to escalate into holding informational pickets is indicative of an anti-union orientation by the employer.”
In July 2025, Penn Museum Workers United staged an informational picket outside the building to protest low wages and call for major contract improvements. The union also unanimously authorized a strike that month.
The recent meeting also drew attention to Penn’s postdoctoral researchers, who unionized with research assistants in July to form the Research Associates and Postdocs United at Penn. RAPUP’s initial bargaining demands — which were discussed in a meeting this month — include competitive salaries, support for international workers, and protections against workplace discrimination and harassment.
Penn Libraries United is at a similar stage of negotiating. After unionizing in October 2024, the group is in the process of negotiating its first contract with Penn.
“Workers are fed up,” Kassof said. “I hope that Penn — in the larger climate, as fascism comes marching towards all of us — chooses to pick its battles more carefully and not to take battles with its employees.”
