BARGAINING UPDATE
October 12, 2023
Continued progress on core non-economic articles
Takeaways:
Dear colleagues,
We bargained with the administration on Tuesday, October 10, and exchanged proposals on Full-time Non-tenure Stream, Tenure Stream, and Tenured faculty. Positively, we are in agreement on the basic substantive issues in these proposals and we continue to work toward agreement on the details. These proposals will provide increased job security for faculty and we keep pushing to reach tentative agreements on them.
We received a counter to the proposal on Academic Freedom we presented in September. Our proposal included protections for faculty to have freedom to engage in and disseminate research on subjects they choose, teach material related to their subject matter, and engage in extramural speech as citizens without fear of institutional censorship or discipline. We are reviewing the administration’s counterproposal, which made some progress in recognizing and clarifying these protections. Academic freedom protections are essential for us to be able to do our jobs and fulfill the mission of the university. We also received counterproposals on Recognition and Grievance and Arbitration that move us closer to finalizing those key procedural articles.
We are happy to share that we reached agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on recommendations from the Provost’s office to revise tenure requirements to both acknowledge and provide credit for faculty work related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Community Engaged Scholarship (CES). Our agreement ensures that faculty cannot be required to participate in DEI or CES work to receive tenure or be promoted, and expectations cannot be increased for faculty based on these changes. The MOU acknowledges the importance of faculty DEI and CES work and encourages tenure policies that value the time commitment and range of ways that findings are disseminated in promotion and tenure decisions. (We last met with the administration about this issue in June, after they brought it to us. We are not sure why they did not respond to our proposals for almost five months, but when they finally did we promptly reviewed their response and agreed to it within two days.)
The administration has still not responded to the compensation proposal we presented thirteen months ago. We know compensation is a priority for our members and we continue to push ardently for the administration to meet their legal obligation to respond to our proposals. After faculty demonstrated at the Board of Trustees meeting last week, the administration has finally acknowledged this obligation, and we expect to receive their counterproposals soon.
Finally, a number of faculty have reached out to us asking whether they are able to receive promotion or equity raises prior to reaching agreement on our union contract. The answer is a definite yes—the MOU we signed last year explicitly allows for such increases until we have a union contract that spells these policies out in full. In particular, faculty who are promoted in schools with established promotion raise practices should expect to receive those raises as normal. Reach out to your Council rep or a member of our Communication and Action Team if you are told that our Union is preventing this.
Our power at the bargaining table comes from all of you! We hope that you will join our Union by signing a membership card. You can find information about membership and request to sign a card at
www.pittfaculty.org.
In memoriam:
Tom Conway, USW International President, passed away in September. He was a stalwart supporter of our organizing drive and our contract campaign, and his leadership ensured that we have had the resources and support we have needed over the last decade to achieve our union and win our first contract.
Our colleague Van Beck Hall passed away in August. Dr. Hall was a faculty member in history at Pitt for over fifty years, and as the president of the Pitt Professional Union he led the petition for the first faculty union election at Pitt in the 1970s. Our movement has a long history, and we want to honor Dr. Hall, whose lifetime of work made our current project possible.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
Tyler Bickford (chair), Professor, English, Oakland
Nicholas Bircher, Part-time Professor, Nurse Anesthesia, Oakland
Chloe Dufour, Faculty Librarian, ULS, Oakland
Anthony Fabio, Associate Professor, Epidemiology (Public Health), Oakland
Lech Harris (secretary), Part-time Instructor, English, Oakland
James Hill (archivist), Visiting Assistant Professor, History, Oakland
Megan O’Brien, Master Teacher, Falk Laboratory School, Oakland
Sabrina Robinson, Part-time Instructor, Slavic, 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
Links!
- We made progress on key job security provisions for Appointment Stream, Tenure Stream, and Tenured Faculty, as well as Academic Freedom, Recognition, and Grievance and Arbitration.
- We reached agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding on recommendations for schools and departments to revise tenure guidelines to recognize Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work and Community Engaged Scholarship.
- We are frustrated by the administration’s continued lack of a response to our compensation proposals. However, after faculty demonstrated at the Board of Trustees meeting last week, the administration has finally acknowledged this obligation, and we expect to receive their counterproposals soon.
- Please reach out to your Council representative if you are denied a promotion raise or equity or retention adjustment on the basis of ongoing contract negotiations. Faculty are still able to receive these salary increases as negotiations continue.
Dear colleagues,
We bargained with the administration on Tuesday, October 10, and exchanged proposals on Full-time Non-tenure Stream, Tenure Stream, and Tenured faculty. Positively, we are in agreement on the basic substantive issues in these proposals and we continue to work toward agreement on the details. These proposals will provide increased job security for faculty and we keep pushing to reach tentative agreements on them.
We received a counter to the proposal on Academic Freedom we presented in September. Our proposal included protections for faculty to have freedom to engage in and disseminate research on subjects they choose, teach material related to their subject matter, and engage in extramural speech as citizens without fear of institutional censorship or discipline. We are reviewing the administration’s counterproposal, which made some progress in recognizing and clarifying these protections. Academic freedom protections are essential for us to be able to do our jobs and fulfill the mission of the university. We also received counterproposals on Recognition and Grievance and Arbitration that move us closer to finalizing those key procedural articles.
We are happy to share that we reached agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on recommendations from the Provost’s office to revise tenure requirements to both acknowledge and provide credit for faculty work related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Community Engaged Scholarship (CES). Our agreement ensures that faculty cannot be required to participate in DEI or CES work to receive tenure or be promoted, and expectations cannot be increased for faculty based on these changes. The MOU acknowledges the importance of faculty DEI and CES work and encourages tenure policies that value the time commitment and range of ways that findings are disseminated in promotion and tenure decisions. (We last met with the administration about this issue in June, after they brought it to us. We are not sure why they did not respond to our proposals for almost five months, but when they finally did we promptly reviewed their response and agreed to it within two days.)
The administration has still not responded to the compensation proposal we presented thirteen months ago. We know compensation is a priority for our members and we continue to push ardently for the administration to meet their legal obligation to respond to our proposals. After faculty demonstrated at the Board of Trustees meeting last week, the administration has finally acknowledged this obligation, and we expect to receive their counterproposals soon.
Finally, a number of faculty have reached out to us asking whether they are able to receive promotion or equity raises prior to reaching agreement on our union contract. The answer is a definite yes—the MOU we signed last year explicitly allows for such increases until we have a union contract that spells these policies out in full. In particular, faculty who are promoted in schools with established promotion raise practices should expect to receive those raises as normal. Reach out to your Council rep or a member of our Communication and Action Team if you are told that our Union is preventing this.
Our power at the bargaining table comes from all of you! We hope that you will join our Union by signing a membership card. You can find information about membership and request to sign a card at
www.pittfaculty.org.
In memoriam:
Tom Conway, USW International President, passed away in September. He was a stalwart supporter of our organizing drive and our contract campaign, and his leadership ensured that we have had the resources and support we have needed over the last decade to achieve our union and win our first contract.
Our colleague Van Beck Hall passed away in August. Dr. Hall was a faculty member in history at Pitt for over fifty years, and as the president of the Pitt Professional Union he led the petition for the first faculty union election at Pitt in the 1970s. Our movement has a long history, and we want to honor Dr. Hall, whose lifetime of work made our current project possible.
In solidarity,
Your bargaining committee
Tyler Bickford (chair), Professor, English, Oakland
Nicholas Bircher, Part-time Professor, Nurse Anesthesia, Oakland
Chloe Dufour, Faculty Librarian, ULS, Oakland
Anthony Fabio, Associate Professor, Epidemiology (Public Health), Oakland
Lech Harris (secretary), Part-time Instructor, English, Oakland
James Hill (archivist), Visiting Assistant Professor, History, Oakland
Megan O’Brien, Master Teacher, Falk Laboratory School, Oakland
Sabrina Robinson, Part-time Instructor, Slavic, 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
Links!
- If someone forwarded this to you, sign up to receive these emails
- Find previous bargaining updates here
- Status of bargaining
- Get in touch with your Council rep
- Get involved with the Communication and Action Team
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