By SUSAN JONES
As Pitt enters the fall semester, two union bargaining groups — staff and graduate workers — continue to negotiate with the University on their first contracts; one group — the Building Trades — voted to accept a contract in May, but hasn’t received any retroactive pay; and a third — the faculty union — is preparing for negotiations for its second contract next year.
There’s certainly plenty to keep the Office of Human Resources’ Employee and Labor Relations staff busy, including three dedicated to academic labor relations with faculty. In addition, there are several other unions on campus that are not currently in negotiations.
Pitt Staff Union
Jennifer Goeckeler-Fried, chair of the staff union bargaining committee and a lab manager and research specialist in the Department of Biological Sciences, said negotiators are “making progress slowly” on the union’s first contract. The staff union is a part of the United Steelworkers.
“We really wish that the administration would respond faster to our proposals and to our requests for information,” she said. “They they seem to be stalling a bit. We are committed to making progress for the staff here at Pitt as fast as we can.”
Several issues have been discussed since negotiations began in earnest in January.
The University said its bargaining committee and the staff union “continue to negotiate in good faith for their first collective bargaining agreement.” Recent proposals and counterproposals were presented on Health and Safety, Impact of Technology, Provisional Period, and Flexible Work Arrangements.
Over the summer, the two sides have met every three to four weeks, Goeckeler-Fried said. The most recent session was on Aug. 20. She highlighted several recently discussed issues:
Raises: The union proposed a 12.5% raise for bargaining unit staff, which the University rejected at the latest bargaining session. The union previously rejected a proposal for staff to get 2.5% raises along with the higher health care costs that non-union staff will have for 2025-26. Right now, there are no raises this year for staff in the bargaining unit, and health care costs are unchanged from last fiscal year, but those issues are still being negotiated.
Layoffs: Goeckeler-Fried said they are in discussions with the administration about the 13 people on the Pitt Digital help desk that got lay off notices last month. “We understand that Pitt administration is doing what they think needs to be done to trim the budget, but we obviously disagree with their choice to lay off good workers who have contributed a lot to the Pitt community.”
The union said the University had an obligation to bargain with the union prior to subcontracting work done by bargaining unit members. “Their last working day is August 31 and we met with the administration this week to discuss what happens next for them, and we have another meeting scheduled for next week to hopefully finish those talks.”
The University had said previously that it had discussed the changes with the union before the affected staff were notified. The University said it was aware that some affected help desk staff learned of the transition from a Staff Union bargaining committee member “and are disappointed we weren’t provided the opportunity to communicate this change to the impacted individuals as planned.”
Health and safety: The two sides have agreed on at least three meetings a year to discuss health and safety issues. She said they want to be able to have timely discussions about issues like dangerous intersections or poor ventilation in a timely manner.
Provisional period: The union has proposed there be no provisional period is someone is promoted under the same supervisor or if their job is reclassified, but the work remains the same. The University proposed that a provisional period should be at the supervisor's discretion after promotion, reclassification and transfer.
There are still many issues to negotiate, including who exactly is in the staff bargaining unit. Goeckeler-Fried said that the administration has not been willing to schedule the next meeting of the inclusion committee. “We would love to be able to resolve some of these issues, and we have staff who are reaching out to us who feel that they should be included, and some that are included, but think that maybe they shouldn't be.”
Ultimately the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board will decide this issue, but if both sides agree then it makes it easier, she said.
The next bargaining session is Sept. 11. “We would like to have a solid schedule of every two weeks, but that hasn't been the case so far,” Goeckeler-Fried said. “We want to move things along as fast as possible.”
Get bargaining updates on the Pitt Staff Union website and the Office of Human Resources’ staff unionization information site.
Union of Pitt Faculty
The faculty union, a part of the United Steelworkers, is working under its first contract, which was approved by members last year. The contract is up June 30, 2026.
Tyler Bickford, president of the faculty union USW Local 1088-04 and a Pitt English professor, said they have already elected a bargaining committee, which has been meeting over the summer.
“We're working and getting prepared for the next round of bargaining, but we plan to survey our members starting early In the fall semester about their bargaining priorities. And at some point in the fall, will notify the administration that we would like to start bargaining the next contract.”
Bargaining should take place in the spring, Bickford said. He doesn’t expect this next contract to take two and half years, like the first one did. He said there is some “some ambiguous language or procedures that don't work quite so perfectly on the ground,” that will need to be addressed.
For instance, the process for renewing part-time faculty has given them more job security, but has also been more “chaotic,” he said.
“I think we're really proud of the first contract and got a lot of improvements, but there's definitely things that we know we didn't get in that first round,” Bickford said. “People have been experiencing salary compression, partly due to the the major increases in salary minimums from the current contract. And so we know that's an area that we want to work on. … Improvements in benefits, and especially expanding benefits to a broader group of faculty, is always going to be a priority of ours.”
Bickford said the union has been very busy during the first year of its first contract, including So electing officers, establishing a grievance committee, and appointing and training almost 100 stewards. The union has established committees on workload policies, regional campus advocacy and research stream advocacy.
“We have worked hard to establish a good working relationship with the administration, which has been helpful for resolving grievances,” he said. “Through the grievance process, we've won over $300,000 for faculty, which I'm quite proud of. A lot of that money is in permanent raises. ... We have won reinstatement for faculty who were improperly non renewed. We've won workload reductions and overload pay for faculty whose workloads were incorrectly calculated or improperly increased. We've secured health benefits for part-time faculty who were initially told they were ineligible.
“The grievance process has been what we hoped it would be. It's slow and not super efficient, but it's a process where, when faculty do have issues, we're able to get tangible results for them.”
Some of the things that were in the contract that have now come to fruition include: Presumptive renewal for non-tenure-stream faculty without an onerous application process; conversion of dozens of visiting faculty to regular appointments; professional development leaves for the first group of non-tenure-stream faculty; sabbatical for faculty in the business school; and teaching load reductions for full time faculty at Greensburg and Johnstown from 15 to 12 credits per term.
Bickford said they have I a good relationship with the people on Human Relations Academic Labor Relations team and with the provost’s office. “I think the most important thing is having channels of communication and being able to communicate even when we disagree,” he said.
“I think Pitt is is big and complicated, and different schools … do a better or worse job, but I think things are probably going about as well as we could have hoped.”
Grad workers union
Lauren Wewer, chair of the grad worker bargaining committee and a PhD candidate in material science engineering, said negotiations have gone slowly over the summer on the union’s first contract.
The administration wasn’t able to meet “as often as we would have liked. So we were really only meeting once a month over the summer. Hopefully that starts to go back to every other week like we did during the academic year,” she said.
The union and administration have reached eight tentative agreements on issues such as shared governance and union rights, but still have 18 non-financial articles unresolved. Negotiations have not started on the financial issues.
She said they’ve had fruitful discussions around health and safety. “Since grads work in a variety of environments, from classrooms to labs off campus to internationally, we feel like we should feel safe and have the tools to stay safe in all of those situations.”
The University said it has offered counterproposals on Public Safety, Health and Safety, Nondiscrimination, Appointments, Professional Rights, and English Language Proficiency and Testing.
The union, which also is part of the USW, was told that represented grads, just like staff in the union bargaining unit, are ineligible for raises right now. Wewer said they weren’t offered a choice — unlike the staff union, which rejected a deal to get raises along with higher health care costs.
In the end, though, Wewer said the biggest issue is salaries. “We're some of the lowest paid employees,” she said. “This is really hitting grads hard. If we can't afford food, housing, childcare, I'm not too sure how we're supposed to be doing groundbreaking research or teaching next week.”
The grad workers started negotiations in February and so far have only had nine sessions with the administration. The next bargaining session is on Aug. 28.
Get bargaining updates on the Pitt Grad Union website and the University’s graduate student unionization site.
Building and Construction Trades Council
Roughly 70 skilled tradespeople, who are represented at the bargaining table by the Pittsburgh Building Trades Council but are members of seven different unions for steamfitters, laborers, carpenters, sheet metal workers, painters, electricians and plumbers, worked without a contract from July 1, 2024, until a new contract was approved on May 27, 2025.
A member of the union said they still have not received any retroactive pay or a copy of the official signed contract as of Aug. 21.
Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.