After a few weeks of dodging any signs of possible danger, I am glad to say that I (will) be having health insurance once again. Great big thanks to my PI for switching me to a monthly salaried position as opposed to an hourly academic student employee. Not only will I be getting health insurance, I am also going to be getting a very slight raise, vacation days and holidays, and other benefits endowed to a monthly-salaried research scientist. But I didn’t get them without a fight, read on.
Even though now my PI has agreed to switch me to a monthly-salaried position, it wasn’t always this way. For the past month or so, I’ve been subtly (and sometimes, not-so-subtly) nudging him about turning me into a full-time employee as opposed to the hourly undergraduate research assistant that I current am. You see, hourly employee is considered “part-time” even though I am working full-time; therefore, I was ineligible for healthcare and vacation benefits (though UPass, the commuter ticket, still works). With my healthcare plan expired in December, I was in need of health coverage.
The other problem, of course, is the lack of vacation days, which means that in order for me to get paid for certain days, I have to work. That means coming to work on all federal and state holidays as well as having to schedule vacations around a full-time schedule. As you can plainly see here, I just don’t have the luxury to take days off without pay.
So I started haggling with my PI, explaining to him how I need healthcare coverage and UPass. And that in order for me to have those, he will need to switch me to a monthly position. He was very resistant to that at first, asking me why I want to switch to a monthly position, and also suggesting that he’s not willing to pay for a “tech” that gets paid more than the grad students do. I also told him that I’m ineligible for “undergraduate research assistant” anyway because 1) I’ve graduated and is no longer enrolled in UW and 2) I’ve been working grossly over the legal limit stipulated by the job code.
Several weeks passed, then comes the hail mary – he has received word from Chuck Frevert, who listed him as a co-PI for a neutrophil grant, that it was approved. At the same time, he also found out that he can pay me as low as half of what he thought was legal for a monthly position – research scientist assistant at 50% time. With the cash infusion and knowledge of the “sliding scale”, he finally agreed to allowing me to become a full-time monthly-salaried employee. But even then, it wasn’t final.
After meeting with Chuck, he and I went to get lunch (or more specifically, he went and got lunch while I tried to follow him and talk). He asked me one question: “do you think it’s fair that you’re getting paid more than a grad student?” I don’t know how to answer. To say yes would be too egomaniacal; but to say no would mean I’d have no chance in switching to monthly. Instead, I said, “well, I’m not getting a degree out of this,” to which he counters, “but you’re not going to be working in my lab for as long.” Zing!
That little chat wasn’t too fruitful and I left it in the back of my head for the next few days. I shared the incident with the grad students in my lab – and they too were equally ambivalent – while it’s true that my work duration would be shorter than theirs, I wasn’t getting any of the fringe benefits (i.e. tuition cost) paid for either. It was until later when Alice asked me how much BioE grad students make did I finally figured out how much they make. And on the same day, I got confirmation from Chris and Anthony the grad students that I was, indeed, making more than they currently are making now.
A few days later, I was summoned by my PI. He asked me how much I’m making now, I said “roughly 2100″. Then he offered to pay me at the same rate as a monthly. I told him that I actually am making closer to $2200 (multiply $12/hr by 40 hrs by 4.5 for monthly approximation). Then he counter-offered $2200, and in exchange, I have to give up volunteering on Thursdays. It was a weird but reasonable proposition (he wants me to spend more time in lab) so I agreed.
Upon further number-crunching, I was actually taking a de-facto pay cut because I have forfeited overtime. Considering that I put in ~50 hours on average for the past two weeks, I was actually making $1200 for half-month or $2400 for the month. Which means it will go down by $200 when I switch to a monthly. But in exchange I got health insurance, which is definitely more generous than what I could get for that same $200/month. In a twist of irony, I have actually made the pay levels more equal between me and the grad students – as now I have returned to the same pay range that they have without the overtime.
But, the scale may yet tip in my favor. First, the sliding scale calls for employment “short of 100%” of full time, meaning that in order for me to be eligible for a reduced pay from the full-time minimum wage, I’d have to work less than 40 hours a week. So essentially, I would be working in the range of 90% full time or 36 hours per week (and the other 10% can’t be work, right?). At the same time, my anticipated job code would also entitle me to overtime benefits. This means that if I am working beyond the capacity as stipulated by the sliding scale, I should also be entitled to overtime compensation as well. Not that I think that will affect me, but I can always hope. There we have it: everyone in lab is created equal, just that I am more equal than the grad students are…
I’m glad to hear you have health insurance.
I might digress and complain about how it’s impossible for healthy people to get health insurance in Washington state these days because of how restrictive the insurance market is to insurers, but perhaps I’ll save that for a blog post.
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