Postdoc employment status varies widely

Nearly four years after the horrific lab accident in which Thea Ekins-Coward lost an arm as a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii-Manoa in the United States, she is still fighting a legal battle for compensation. The experience of this UK citizen is an extreme illustration of just how vulnerable young researchers are, and the difference that their employment status makes.

Experts concluded that the main cause of the March 2016 explosion that severed Ekins-Coward’s right arm was an electrostatic charge caused by ill-designed and improperly grounded lab equipment, and many other safety lapses were identified. Hawaii’s occupational safety and health agency found that the university had failed to provide a safe workplace, listing 15 separate relevant safety failures.

Ekins-Coward, who was 29 years old when the accident occurred, filed a personal injury lawsuit against the university, her supervisor and others in January 2017. The legal dispute centres on her employee status at the time of the accident.

The University of Hawaii originally made it clear that, as a visiting postdoc, Ekins-Coward would not be an employee and therefore would not receive benefits like health insurance or housing, according to her attorneys. However, in an apparent attempt to limit its liability, the university now argues that she was an employee, which means that she’s only entitled to worker’s compensation benefits and cannot sue the university for more.