Union Bargaining Update - May 31, 2022
Dear colleague,
We met briefly with the administration on May 25, after they canceled our long-scheduled May 20 meeting. While they finally presented a few counterproposals in writing, we are disappointed that their main focus still seems to be trying to exclude faculty from the bargaining unit.
Most notably, they keep pushing to exclude the Falk School faculty. This has already been litigated extensively, and the administration raised no objections when the labor board included Falk faculty last year. The administration is now making the insulting argument that Falk faculty do not meet the definition of faculty because they teach K–8 students. But Falk faculty are members of the School of Education who do research, supervise undergraduate and graduate students, and fully participate in academic service, including serving on hiring and curriculum committees and taking on leadership roles. We all know that faculty across the university do a wide range of different work that falls under teaching, research, and service, and there is not a single way to be a Pitt faculty member. Our colleagues at Falk are no exception, and the administration’s misunderstanding of the work of Falk faculty is one more example of their general disconnect from the everyday work of faculty at Pitt.
With that said, the administration are no longer immediately demanding the exclusion of other large groups of faculty, which is welcome progress.
Reach out to a member of our Communication and Action Team (CAT) if you have any questions or want to learn how to get more involved in pushing back against the university’s unfair demands. If you don’t know who your CAT member is, email info@pittfaculty.org and we’ll put you in touch with a colleague in your area.
This Friday, June 3rd, you are also invited to chat with members of our CAT and other faculty colleagues at our union happy hour, from 5:30-7:30 PM at the Golden Age Beer Company at 337 E 8th Av in Homestead. Golden Age has a large outdoor patio so we will plan to congregate outside. We hope to see you there!
In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee
We met briefly with the administration on May 25, after they canceled our long-scheduled May 20 meeting. While they finally presented a few counterproposals in writing, we are disappointed that their main focus still seems to be trying to exclude faculty from the bargaining unit.
Most notably, they keep pushing to exclude the Falk School faculty. This has already been litigated extensively, and the administration raised no objections when the labor board included Falk faculty last year. The administration is now making the insulting argument that Falk faculty do not meet the definition of faculty because they teach K–8 students. But Falk faculty are members of the School of Education who do research, supervise undergraduate and graduate students, and fully participate in academic service, including serving on hiring and curriculum committees and taking on leadership roles. We all know that faculty across the university do a wide range of different work that falls under teaching, research, and service, and there is not a single way to be a Pitt faculty member. Our colleagues at Falk are no exception, and the administration’s misunderstanding of the work of Falk faculty is one more example of their general disconnect from the everyday work of faculty at Pitt.
With that said, the administration are no longer immediately demanding the exclusion of other large groups of faculty, which is welcome progress.
Reach out to a member of our Communication and Action Team (CAT) if you have any questions or want to learn how to get more involved in pushing back against the university’s unfair demands. If you don’t know who your CAT member is, email info@pittfaculty.org and we’ll put you in touch with a colleague in your area.
This Friday, June 3rd, you are also invited to chat with members of our CAT and other faculty colleagues at our union happy hour, from 5:30-7:30 PM at the Golden Age Beer Company at 337 E 8th Av in Homestead. Golden Age has a large outdoor patio so we will plan to congregate outside. We hope to see you there!
In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee
Union Bargaining Update - May 12, 2022
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Dear Colleague,
We have been hard at work since our last bargaining update. We have now had five contract bargaining sessions with the administration. During those sessions, we have presented eleven written contract policy proposals on topics such as health and safety, academic freedom, and faculty governance. In the typical bargaining process, the administration would present us with written counter proposals and we would go back and forth until we came to a mutual agreement. For example, when USW-affiliated faculty at Robert Morris University were five sessions into bargaining their first contract, the administration had presented nineteen written proposals. By contrast, Pitt’s administration has presented us with only one written response. We entered into these negotiations with the hope that the administration would share our goal of quickly and efficiently negotiating a contract that would be beneficial for faculty as well as our institution. Sadly, it appears this is not the case. In their sole written proposal to us, the administration proposed excluding over 600 faculty from the bargaining unit; stripping them of the protections and benefits our contract would provide (reach out to a member of our Communication and Action Team for more details on who the administration proposed excluding). The labor board has already ruled on which faculty should be included in the bargaining unit, and the administration agreed to their inclusion just last year. Changes to the bargaining unit would require approval by the labor board. Unfortunately, the administration has described this as a “threshold” issue to further negotiations. This is despite the fact that it is unlawful for them to refuse to bargain anything else in favor of haggling over the unit. It is difficult to imagine a charitable interpretation of this behavior. We will continue to offer responsible, lawful, evidence-based proposals, and to give the administration every opportunity to engage with this process in a similarly constructive spirit. We will continue to stand together against any attempts to divide us. But we will need your help to show the administration that they must do better than they have done so far. For more information, get in touch with a member of our Communication and Action Team in your area. If you don’t know who that is, you can email info@pittfaculty.org. In solidarity, Your Bargaining Committee Union of Pitt Faculty, United Steelworkers Tyler Bickford Nicholas Bircher Lauren Collister Rekha Gajanan Lech Harris James Hill Haitao Liu Sabrina Robinson Valerie Rossi Evan Schneider Paul Wesley Scott Jeff Shook Matthew Stumpf Stacey Triplette Abagael West |
Faculty Support Bargaining Committee - April 20, 2022
Union Bargaining Update - March 25, 2022
Dear Colleagues,
Today our union was forced to file legal charges against Pitt for failing to bargain in good faith with us.
When the faculty voted to form a union last October, our relationship with the administration changed. They are now legally obligated to give us notice of changes to policies that affect our work, to provide us with detailed information about those changes and their context, and to bilaterally negotiate the substance of those policies.
Despite this, they are unilaterally implementing changes to the COVID mitigation policies without meeting their obligations to discuss and negotiate those changes before they are implemented.
We are committed to enforcing our right to bargain over the terms and conditions of our jobs.
In addition to their failure to bargain over policy changes, we have made a number of information requests dating back to November, including basic information about the composition of the bargaining unit, that they have failed to fulfill.
This process is unacceptable and a violation of our collective rights.
We are filing this unfair labor practice charge with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to ensure that these issues are resolved going forward.
We are very willing to engage in good faith over changes the administration wishes to make regarding COVID policy.
On March 22nd, we presented a practical, thoughtful proposal to make the accommodations procedure more flexible for vulnerable faculty and their families, give individual faculty discretion to set masking policies in their classrooms, labs, and offices, and provide more information about ventilation so faculty can evaluate their own risk more effectively.
On March 24th, the administration offered a response that largely ignored the suggestions from our proposal and did not give time for additional discussion before the March 28th implementation.
Our fifteen member bargaining committee, along with a team of expert staff from USW, has been working long hours developing proposals and preparing to present them at the bargaining table.
We remain ready and willing to negotiate in good faith and to work together to achieve transparent agreements that make sense for all of us. We expect the administration to be as prepared and committed to this process as we are.
In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee
Today our union was forced to file legal charges against Pitt for failing to bargain in good faith with us.
When the faculty voted to form a union last October, our relationship with the administration changed. They are now legally obligated to give us notice of changes to policies that affect our work, to provide us with detailed information about those changes and their context, and to bilaterally negotiate the substance of those policies.
Despite this, they are unilaterally implementing changes to the COVID mitigation policies without meeting their obligations to discuss and negotiate those changes before they are implemented.
We are committed to enforcing our right to bargain over the terms and conditions of our jobs.
In addition to their failure to bargain over policy changes, we have made a number of information requests dating back to November, including basic information about the composition of the bargaining unit, that they have failed to fulfill.
This process is unacceptable and a violation of our collective rights.
We are filing this unfair labor practice charge with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to ensure that these issues are resolved going forward.
We are very willing to engage in good faith over changes the administration wishes to make regarding COVID policy.
On March 22nd, we presented a practical, thoughtful proposal to make the accommodations procedure more flexible for vulnerable faculty and their families, give individual faculty discretion to set masking policies in their classrooms, labs, and offices, and provide more information about ventilation so faculty can evaluate their own risk more effectively.
On March 24th, the administration offered a response that largely ignored the suggestions from our proposal and did not give time for additional discussion before the March 28th implementation.
Our fifteen member bargaining committee, along with a team of expert staff from USW, has been working long hours developing proposals and preparing to present them at the bargaining table.
We remain ready and willing to negotiate in good faith and to work together to achieve transparent agreements that make sense for all of us. We expect the administration to be as prepared and committed to this process as we are.
In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee
Union Bargaining Update - March 21, 2022
Dear colleagues,
Greetings from your newly formed USW-Union of Pitt Faculty Bargaining Committee!
Thank you to everyone who filled out the bargaining survey. Tomorrow our contract negotiations begin in earnest, and we will meet with the administration again in late April. As we move forward, we wanted to update you on what we’ve been able to accomplish so far.
Your Bargaining Committee includes part-time, full-time non-tenure-stream, tenure-stream, and tenured faculty from across the university. We have been working with the Council of Representatives (COR), the Communication and Action Team (CAT), and the USW legal and strategic teams as we begin the process of negotiating a strong contract for Pitt faculty.
We met with the administration for a preliminary bargaining session on March 14, where we addressed a few immediate issues:
Going forward:
Our strength at the bargaining table comes from you. The more we can demonstrate that we have the faculty’s support, the more leverage we have in negotiating strong improvements in our contract. So to win the strongest contract for everyone, we need your help:
We are excited about working together to win improvements for all faculty in our first contract.
In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee
Greetings from your newly formed USW-Union of Pitt Faculty Bargaining Committee!
Thank you to everyone who filled out the bargaining survey. Tomorrow our contract negotiations begin in earnest, and we will meet with the administration again in late April. As we move forward, we wanted to update you on what we’ve been able to accomplish so far.
Your Bargaining Committee includes part-time, full-time non-tenure-stream, tenure-stream, and tenured faculty from across the university. We have been working with the Council of Representatives (COR), the Communication and Action Team (CAT), and the USW legal and strategic teams as we begin the process of negotiating a strong contract for Pitt faculty.
We met with the administration for a preliminary bargaining session on March 14, where we addressed a few immediate issues:
- Interim grievance procedure: We proposed an interim grievance procedure with binding third-party arbitration so that we all have a transparent and predictable channel for resolving disagreements that arise while bargaining is ongoing. We are waiting on the administration’s response.
- “Status quo”: Since we voted in October to unionize, the administration now has a legal obligation to bargain in good faith over changes to our pay, benefits, and working conditions. We have heard from faculty across the university that existing efforts to make improvements have been put on hold by the administration because of their duty to bargain. We gave the administration a list of ongoing improvements that we believe can continue to move forward through the existing faculty governance process. The duty to bargain is an important right that we gained when we voted to unionize and protects us against retaliation, but many improvements can and should continue to be made while bargaining is ongoing. If you have been told that a planned improvement in your area must be put on hold because of the union vote, please reach out to your COR representative to report that to the bargaining team.
- COVID: The administration had intended to eliminate all masking requirements as early as last week with no intention of getting input from faculty. We brought them to the bargaining table on March 14th and insisted they need a plan to protect at-risk faculty and their families, and we offered ideas for what that plan could look like. We are awaiting their response. The USW legal team is working with individual faculty who have reached out for support getting accommodations approved. Please contact your COR representative if you have been denied accommodations or have experienced retaliation as a result of an accommodation request.
- Communication: We are committed to keeping you updated about the bargaining process. We will report regularly to the elected Council of Representatives and we will send updates to faculty through the Communication and Action Team. We have requested that the administration "whitelist" email messages from the bargaining team and USW to your pitt.edu addresses, so that they are not filtered as spam. The administration has denied this request. For now, to ensure that you receive our official bargaining updates you’ll need to sign up to receive messages by (text PITTFACULTY to 47486) and/or personal email.
Going forward:
Our strength at the bargaining table comes from you. The more we can demonstrate that we have the faculty’s support, the more leverage we have in negotiating strong improvements in our contract. So to win the strongest contract for everyone, we need your help:
- Share this update with your colleagues! This email may have been caught in their spam filter. For easy reference, you can also find this information on our website HOME (pittfaculty.org).
- Encourage your colleagues to sign up for text and email messages so they don’t miss future updates.
- Join the CAT! Help facilitate two-way communication between your colleagues and the Bargaining Committee, to help you and your colleagues stay informed about bargaining and to keep us informed about the issues that matter to you.
We are excited about working together to win improvements for all faculty in our first contract.
In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee
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