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BARGAINING UPDATE
​January 25, 2023

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Takeaways:

  • We met with the administration yesterday and presented a response on job security, to keep up momentum on this fundamental priority
  • We received new proposals from them regarding library faculty and Falk School faculty, which share certain key improvements in their other proposals, but also raise serious equity concerns
  • We are close to an agreement on Union Rights, with a sticking point on access to pitt.edu email addresses

Dear colleagues,

At yesterday’s bargaining session we made progress on a number of issues. Most importantly, we presented a response to their counter-proposals on NTS contract lengths and renewals in which we sought to find middle ground by adopting significant elements of their framework while holding firm on our key priorities: that improvements to contract lengths and the renewal process need to be broadly inclusive and enforceable. As is normal in a negotiation like this, many key details remain to be worked out, so there is a lot left to do, but both sides have proposed approaches that would increase contract lengths and dramatically reform the renewal process towards a more automatic system.

The administration also presented counter-proposals regarding librarians and Falk faculty that include similar frameworks for increasing contract lengths and improved renewal procedures. However, their proposals continue to treat library and Falk faculty separately from the rest of us in ways that raise concerns. We strongly oppose singling out small groups of faculty for unequal treatment. Our bargaining committee and the Council of Representatives include representatives from the libraries and Falk school, and the entire bargaining committee is committed to ensuring that this contract contains improvements for everyone and distributes those improvements equitably.

We also exchanged proposals regarding union rights, which we mentioned last time. We now appear to be in agreement on almost all the language for this article, which will ensure that our union has the information and access necessary to represent, communicate with, and advocate for everyone in our bargaining unit. The one remaining issue is that the administration is unwilling to agree to provide a list of faculty members’ work email addresses, which we will use to match records between lists. We have a legal obligation to represent our members, which includes accessing relevant information about our bargaining unit. We find it strange that they are making this an issue, since email addresses are publicly available, but they are labor-intensive to collect and trivially easy to provide in a spreadsheet along with other data.

Remember to get in touch with your Council rep or CAT member with ideas or questions.

In solidarity,

Your bargaining committee

Tyler Bickford (chair), Professor, English, Oakland
Nicholas Bircher, Part-time Professor, Nurse Anesthesia, Oakland
Lauren Collister, Faculty Librarian, ULS, Oakland
Lech Harris (secretary), Part-time Instructor, English, Oakland
James Hill (archivist), Visiting Assistant Professor, History, Oakland
Haitao Liu, Professor, Chemistry, Oakland
Sabrina Robinson, Part-time Instructor, Slavic, Oakland
Valerie Rossi (clerk), Teacher, Falk Laboratory School, Oakland
Evan Schneider, Assistant Professor, Physics and Astronomy, Oakland
Paul Scott, Assistant Professor, Health and Community Systems (Nursing), Oakland
Jeffrey Shook, Professor, Social Work, Oakland
Stacey Triplette, Associate Professor, Spanish, Greensburg
Abagael West, Teaching Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, Oakland
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