By SUSAN JONES
One group of union members on the Oakland campus say they’ve been working without a contract since last July and don’t seem to be getting closer to an agreement, while another group of 400 Pitt employees, represented by the Service Employees International Union, reached an agreement last week on a one-year deal.
The 70 skilled tradespeople who are still seeking a contract are represented at the bargaining table by the Pittsburgh Building Trades Council, but they are members of seven different unions for steamfitters, laborers, carpenters, sheet metal workers, painters, electricians and plumbers.
Recently, Robert Catone, subforeman of the electrical shop, and Paul LeDonne, foreman of the laborers, sat down with the University Times to discuss what they and their coworkers contribute to the University and how the contract talks were coming.
Their four-year contract expired on July 1, 2024. The men said the first vote on a new contract was 66-0 against. The most recent vote, on Feb. 26, was 51-6 against.
The current offer is for a four-year contract with a 3% raise each year, but Catone and LeDonne say that doesn’t make up for the low wage increases they’ve had over the past four years.
Like the rest of University staff and faculty, the trades unions had a pay freeze in 2020, even though they stayed on campus while most others were sent home, and were considered essential workers. “We kept the place up and running,” Catone said.
“The chancellor before (Pat Gallagher) said in appreciation they’re going to make it up, since everyone took the freeze, and of course, nothing ever got made up towards us,” LeDonne said.
The raises given to the tradespeople over the past four years, according to the two men, were equal to or less than the salary pool for unrepresented staff:
2024: 2.25% vs. 2.5% + 0.5% for merit
2023: 2.25% vs. 3% + 1% for merit
2022: 1.75% vs. 3.25% + 1% for merit
2021: 1.5% vs. 1 to 1.5% depending on salary, plus 0.25% for merit
Salaries for nonsupervisory trades workers in their last contract ranged from $37 per hour for painters to $47.59 for sheet metal workers.
Catone said the 3% raise is fine, but they’d also like to see a market adjustment on top of that, as well as language like that found in the faculty union contract that says if health insurance costs go up over a certain percentage that negotiations would have to be reopened.
Catone and LeDonne also noted that the trades workers receive the least amount of sick time of campus staff. The last contract gave them eight sick days, while the staff handbook says other staff can accrue up to 12 sick days a year (7.5 hours per monthly pay period). The handbook predates the majority of staff voting last year to join the United Steelworkers union and the ongoing contract negotiations. Members of the Service Employees International Union at Pitt receive 10 sick days.
The two men said workers also object to language in the current contract that prohibits employees taking more than one sick day per calendar year on any day that is immediately before or after a vacation day, holiday or personal day.
The work that the tradespeople do on campus ranges from installing banners, to maintaining generators, building custom furniture, remodeling the chancellor’s house, installing fences, adapting for power requirements in labs, moving furniture and much more. They have had to deal with graffiti on campus buildings this year and putting up barricades and lights around the protest on the Cathedral lawn last summer.
“We just want to get treated like the rest of the campus,” said LeDonne, who will hit his 41st anniversary at Pitt this summer.
“We just want the fair treatment everybody else gets,” echoed Catone, who has been here for 10 years. “I remember years ago, we were told they wanted you to be like a family, and I like that atmosphere. Unfortunately, that’s not the atmosphere that is being presented to us.”
Service employees contract
The Service Employees International Union’s 400 workers at Pitt have ratified a new one-year contract with the University. Their previous agreement expired in December (see story from Feb. 24 University Times).
“The agreement on a one-year deal instead of a standard three-year deal is directly correlated to a real fear on the part of the University that federal education funding cuts are coming from the current (Trump) administration,” the union said in a statement.
The union members, who include cleaners, housekeepers, grounds crew, and movers and receivers, will receive a $1.25 an hour base wage raise with an additional 3% increase in pay that is retroactive to Jan. 1.
For cleaners, that increase will take wages from $20.02 to $21.91 an hour. The contract also takes the number of personal days from three to four and establishes “better mandatory overtime language to alleviate burnout,” the union said.
“We are excited that we were able to get a deal done and that these hard-working people will be paid a wage more closely aligned with what workers at other large Pittsburgh Universities make,” said Pete Schmidt, Western PA District Leader for SEIU. "However, it is frustrating that the University and the members will have to head back to the table again in a year because of the federal government’s warpath against education funding. This is a clear example of how the early stages of the current administration are directly impacting our working class.”
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.