Union Bargaining Update - August 10, 2022
Dear colleagues,
We are pleased to announce an agreement with the administration that creates important new protections for faculty as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, which we describe below. We know that there are a wide range of views about masking and other COVID mitigation policies among the faculty. Our priority throughout this process has been to make sure that the faculty members who are the most vulnerable have reasonable opportunities to protect themselves and their families.
As you know, in March we filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board over the administration’s failure to negotiate with us over changes to the mask mandate. This agreement resolves that charge.
These improvements would not be possible without the new legal rights we gained by voting to form a union, and without our commitment to enforcing those rights. This brought the administration to the table and motivated them to seek a reasonable agreement. To be clear, this was a negotiation: both sides brought their goals to the table, and over the course of several weeks we worked out a mutually agreeable resolution. And unlike previous workplace policies, this agreement is legally binding, so we will be able to ensure that these new protections are being implemented.
This agreement includes the following improvements:
COVID-19 work adjustments: This agreement creates a new process for faculty to request and receive reasonable adjustments to their work if they have a particular need for additional protections against COVID-19, whether due to their own risk factors or risk factors of a member of their household. For detailed information about how to request a COVID-19 work adjustment, visit COVID-19 WORK ADJUSTMENTS FOR PITT FACULTY - UNION OF PITT FACULTY.
This will not replace the existing accommodation process for accommodating faculty with qualifying disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Instead our agreement creates a new process for situations that do not fall under that statute. For example, some faculty live with a person at high risk for serious illness, but the ADA only applies to individual employees, not members of their households. Other faculty may have been denied ADA accommodations, but still have personal health reasons for needing additional COVID protections. This new process will allow faculty to request an adjustment to their work, and it commits the administration to seeking a reasonable solution.
We are confident that the administration will implement this new policy in good faith and make a sincere effort to approve adjustments that protect vulnerable faculty and their families. But one of our concerns in the past has been that determinations about COVID-19 accommodations may have been made inconsistently across the university. So this new process includes a procedure for appealing departmental decisions as well as a structure for ensuring uniform standards across the university, and it will allow the union to monitor the new policy and ensure it is being implemented fairly.
Remote office hours: The administration has agreed that individual faculty members in every unit have the right to hold office hours virtually or in an alternative location when masking is not required. While many of us already exercise this right, this has not been certain for all faculty in all schools and campuses, so it is important to affirm this as a uniform standard.
Ventilation data: We are working with the administration on accessing more complete information about filtration and ventilation in our workspaces, so that we can ensure we have the data necessary to evaluate our own risks.
Please reach out to a member of our Communication and Action Team or email us at info@pittfaculty.org with any questions or concerns. We look forward to standing side by side with you as we continue to work to make our jobs better and safer.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
We are pleased to announce an agreement with the administration that creates important new protections for faculty as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, which we describe below. We know that there are a wide range of views about masking and other COVID mitigation policies among the faculty. Our priority throughout this process has been to make sure that the faculty members who are the most vulnerable have reasonable opportunities to protect themselves and their families.
As you know, in March we filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board over the administration’s failure to negotiate with us over changes to the mask mandate. This agreement resolves that charge.
These improvements would not be possible without the new legal rights we gained by voting to form a union, and without our commitment to enforcing those rights. This brought the administration to the table and motivated them to seek a reasonable agreement. To be clear, this was a negotiation: both sides brought their goals to the table, and over the course of several weeks we worked out a mutually agreeable resolution. And unlike previous workplace policies, this agreement is legally binding, so we will be able to ensure that these new protections are being implemented.
This agreement includes the following improvements:
COVID-19 work adjustments: This agreement creates a new process for faculty to request and receive reasonable adjustments to their work if they have a particular need for additional protections against COVID-19, whether due to their own risk factors or risk factors of a member of their household. For detailed information about how to request a COVID-19 work adjustment, visit COVID-19 WORK ADJUSTMENTS FOR PITT FACULTY - UNION OF PITT FACULTY.
This will not replace the existing accommodation process for accommodating faculty with qualifying disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Instead our agreement creates a new process for situations that do not fall under that statute. For example, some faculty live with a person at high risk for serious illness, but the ADA only applies to individual employees, not members of their households. Other faculty may have been denied ADA accommodations, but still have personal health reasons for needing additional COVID protections. This new process will allow faculty to request an adjustment to their work, and it commits the administration to seeking a reasonable solution.
We are confident that the administration will implement this new policy in good faith and make a sincere effort to approve adjustments that protect vulnerable faculty and their families. But one of our concerns in the past has been that determinations about COVID-19 accommodations may have been made inconsistently across the university. So this new process includes a procedure for appealing departmental decisions as well as a structure for ensuring uniform standards across the university, and it will allow the union to monitor the new policy and ensure it is being implemented fairly.
Remote office hours: The administration has agreed that individual faculty members in every unit have the right to hold office hours virtually or in an alternative location when masking is not required. While many of us already exercise this right, this has not been certain for all faculty in all schools and campuses, so it is important to affirm this as a uniform standard.
Ventilation data: We are working with the administration on accessing more complete information about filtration and ventilation in our workspaces, so that we can ensure we have the data necessary to evaluate our own risks.
Please reach out to a member of our Communication and Action Team or email us at info@pittfaculty.org with any questions or concerns. We look forward to standing side by side with you as we continue to work to make our jobs better and safer.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
Union Bargaining Update - July 22, 2022
Dear colleagues,
Thank you to those of you who completed our bargaining survey in the spring. There was a high level of participation across the university and this information is helpful for us in determining our priorities at the bargaining table. The results of this survey revealed that contract renewals, contract length, and workloads were the top non-economic contract priorities for faculty at every campus and school.
Yesterday, we were very proud to present a group of proposals focused on these priorities to the administration. These proposals are at the core of our vision for this contract. We know that our jobs can be more secure and more fair, and that by creating transparent and enforceable procedures for contract lengths, renewals, and workloads, we will be freed to focus on our core work of teaching, research, service, librarianship, and clinical work, without having to worry about whether we’ll still have our jobs next semester or next year.
Our proposals say, simply, that for all faculty, including part-timers, if you are doing a satisfactory job and there is work for you to do, you should be able to keep doing it. The large majority of faculty at Pitt are on short-term renewable contracts, a system developed generations ago for a small number of temporary faculty. We all know the many reasons this demeans us and makes our work harder, and we know that a simpler, more humane system for appointing two thirds of the faculty is possible.
There should be fair and transparent procedures in place to confirm that faculty are doing a satisfactory job, and sometimes financial emergencies or other shocks may mean that there isn’t work for all of us.
But it is inefficient, unfair, and disrespectful to require us to reapply for our jobs constantly. We can and should have longer contracts, and the process of renewing our contracts should be transparent, fair, and straightforward.
The proposals we presented yesterday would also protect and strengthen tenure, establish new rights and fair procedures when faculty are laid off, and create consistent and flexible standards for promotion that respect the wide range of jobs we have in different schools.
We all know the many harms of short-term contracts, but a major one is that they erode academic freedom, another top priority from the bargaining survey. When we know that our chair or dean has total discretion to cancel our contract next term or next year, it makes it harder for us to pursue controversial lines of research, to teach challenging materials, and to speak up in committees and in shared governance, because the risk of angering the wrong person is too high.
Our proposals would also require that our assignments be reasonable and clearly specified, so that faculty are empowered to say “no” when asked to take on excessive work, and so we can see and respond when work is being unfairly distributed among different faculty.
The current system of short-term contracts has been building for decades to a crisis point. We have an opportunity now to fix this broken system, in a way that will make our jobs better and free up resources across the university to focus on our shared academic mission.
We will need your help to achieve this vision. If you haven’t done so yet, now is the perfect time to join our Communication and Action Team. The work of this team is vital to maintaining good communication between the broader faculty and those of us on the bargaining committee and to facilitating collective actions that will show the administration that we are organized, united, and ready to stand up for better working conditions.
We look forward to standing side by side with you as we work to make Pitt a better place to teach students, do research, serve library patrons, and care for patients.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
Thank you to those of you who completed our bargaining survey in the spring. There was a high level of participation across the university and this information is helpful for us in determining our priorities at the bargaining table. The results of this survey revealed that contract renewals, contract length, and workloads were the top non-economic contract priorities for faculty at every campus and school.
Yesterday, we were very proud to present a group of proposals focused on these priorities to the administration. These proposals are at the core of our vision for this contract. We know that our jobs can be more secure and more fair, and that by creating transparent and enforceable procedures for contract lengths, renewals, and workloads, we will be freed to focus on our core work of teaching, research, service, librarianship, and clinical work, without having to worry about whether we’ll still have our jobs next semester or next year.
Our proposals say, simply, that for all faculty, including part-timers, if you are doing a satisfactory job and there is work for you to do, you should be able to keep doing it. The large majority of faculty at Pitt are on short-term renewable contracts, a system developed generations ago for a small number of temporary faculty. We all know the many reasons this demeans us and makes our work harder, and we know that a simpler, more humane system for appointing two thirds of the faculty is possible.
There should be fair and transparent procedures in place to confirm that faculty are doing a satisfactory job, and sometimes financial emergencies or other shocks may mean that there isn’t work for all of us.
But it is inefficient, unfair, and disrespectful to require us to reapply for our jobs constantly. We can and should have longer contracts, and the process of renewing our contracts should be transparent, fair, and straightforward.
The proposals we presented yesterday would also protect and strengthen tenure, establish new rights and fair procedures when faculty are laid off, and create consistent and flexible standards for promotion that respect the wide range of jobs we have in different schools.
We all know the many harms of short-term contracts, but a major one is that they erode academic freedom, another top priority from the bargaining survey. When we know that our chair or dean has total discretion to cancel our contract next term or next year, it makes it harder for us to pursue controversial lines of research, to teach challenging materials, and to speak up in committees and in shared governance, because the risk of angering the wrong person is too high.
Our proposals would also require that our assignments be reasonable and clearly specified, so that faculty are empowered to say “no” when asked to take on excessive work, and so we can see and respond when work is being unfairly distributed among different faculty.
The current system of short-term contracts has been building for decades to a crisis point. We have an opportunity now to fix this broken system, in a way that will make our jobs better and free up resources across the university to focus on our shared academic mission.
We will need your help to achieve this vision. If you haven’t done so yet, now is the perfect time to join our Communication and Action Team. The work of this team is vital to maintaining good communication between the broader faculty and those of us on the bargaining committee and to facilitating collective actions that will show the administration that we are organized, united, and ready to stand up for better working conditions.
We look forward to standing side by side with you as we work to make Pitt a better place to teach students, do research, serve library patrons, and care for patients.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
Union Bargaining Update - July 5, 2022
Dear colleagues,
We met with the administration on June 7 and June 22. We are finally making progress, although it is still much slower than we want. We’d like to meet with the administration more frequently so that we can make faster progress, but they have only agreed to meet twice in the next month. This pace of bargaining and the administration’s reluctance to agree even to simple articles indicates that we’ll need your support to get wins on tougher proposals around job security and pay as bargaining continues.
Falk School: It appears that the administration has backed off of its efforts to exclude the Falk faculty from the contract. Specifically, they are no longer demanding that every article in the contract include language excluding the Falk School, and their most recent counterproposal on who the contract covers drops the exclusion of Falk faculty. They may still seek to treat different groups of faculty differently in parts of the contract, but for now we are hopeful that we have resolved their effort to completely exclude one group of our colleagues.
Counterproposals: They have finally been providing written counterproposals, including to our proposals on academic freedom and intellectual property. Both of those counterproposals claimed that the administration should be able to rewrite these policies unilaterally during the term of the contract, which is obviously not acceptable to us. We expected that the administration’s opening positions would be to continue to claim maximal control and flexibility in every area, since that is their substantive priority. But this is, at least, actually bargaining.
Tentative Agreements: We have tentative agreements (TAs) on two articles. The administration accepted our “separability” proposal (a standard contract provision that just says that if one part of the contract is determined to be illegal the rest of the contract will continue in effect) and we agreed to an article on “labor-management meetings” (which says that once we have a contract, the two sides will continue to meet regularly). This is progress, and we’re happy to be moving forward, but we remain frustrated that it has taken three months for the administration to agree to the most basic contract terms. Once we have tentative agreements on a full set of articles, all Pitt faculty union members will be able to read and vote on the contract, which will only go into effect if the full membership votes to ratify it.
Schedule of Bargaining: We proposed ten additional dates in June and July for further bargaining sessions, but the administration only agreed to meet twice. We continue to push them to meet more frequently so that we can make more progress.
Moving forward: We currently have proposals on the table on topics including Academic Freedom, Health and Safety, Grievance and Arbitration, Discipline and Discharge, Non-discrimination, Facilities and Support, Faculty Governance, and Intellectual Property, which we will continue discussing with the administration at our next meeting.
Reach out to a member of the Communication and Action Team (CAT) if you have any questions or want to learn how to get more involved. Our power at the bargaining table comes from all of you! 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.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
We met with the administration on June 7 and June 22. We are finally making progress, although it is still much slower than we want. We’d like to meet with the administration more frequently so that we can make faster progress, but they have only agreed to meet twice in the next month. This pace of bargaining and the administration’s reluctance to agree even to simple articles indicates that we’ll need your support to get wins on tougher proposals around job security and pay as bargaining continues.
Falk School: It appears that the administration has backed off of its efforts to exclude the Falk faculty from the contract. Specifically, they are no longer demanding that every article in the contract include language excluding the Falk School, and their most recent counterproposal on who the contract covers drops the exclusion of Falk faculty. They may still seek to treat different groups of faculty differently in parts of the contract, but for now we are hopeful that we have resolved their effort to completely exclude one group of our colleagues.
Counterproposals: They have finally been providing written counterproposals, including to our proposals on academic freedom and intellectual property. Both of those counterproposals claimed that the administration should be able to rewrite these policies unilaterally during the term of the contract, which is obviously not acceptable to us. We expected that the administration’s opening positions would be to continue to claim maximal control and flexibility in every area, since that is their substantive priority. But this is, at least, actually bargaining.
Tentative Agreements: We have tentative agreements (TAs) on two articles. The administration accepted our “separability” proposal (a standard contract provision that just says that if one part of the contract is determined to be illegal the rest of the contract will continue in effect) and we agreed to an article on “labor-management meetings” (which says that once we have a contract, the two sides will continue to meet regularly). This is progress, and we’re happy to be moving forward, but we remain frustrated that it has taken three months for the administration to agree to the most basic contract terms. Once we have tentative agreements on a full set of articles, all Pitt faculty union members will be able to read and vote on the contract, which will only go into effect if the full membership votes to ratify it.
Schedule of Bargaining: We proposed ten additional dates in June and July for further bargaining sessions, but the administration only agreed to meet twice. We continue to push them to meet more frequently so that we can make more progress.
Moving forward: We currently have proposals on the table on topics including Academic Freedom, Health and Safety, Grievance and Arbitration, Discipline and Discharge, Non-discrimination, Facilities and Support, Faculty Governance, and Intellectual Property, which we will continue discussing with the administration at our next meeting.
Reach out to a member of the Communication and Action Team (CAT) if you have any questions or want to learn how to get more involved. Our power at the bargaining table comes from all of you! 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.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
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
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
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
|
