University Times

Pitt’s Staff Association Council (SAC) plans to meet behind closed doors Feb. 12 to discuss what it calls “staff salary inequities.”

Last month SAC voiced outrage at what members called excessive raises and retention bonuses the trustees approved for Pitt senior officers.

The group said it would draft a resolution expressing SAC’s views on compensation issues, including recent staff layoffs, comparatively low pay raises for staff, and instances of staff not receiving raises at all because they had reached the top of the pay scales for their job classifications. See Jan. 9, 2003, University Times.

SAC planned to present its resolution to Senate Council, made up of staff, faculty and student representatives as well as Pitt senior administrators. But SAC’s steering committee voted Jan. 30 to table the resolution.

Rich Colwell, SAC vice president for steering, said: “We still have to go back to the membership to explain why we tabled the resolution, and we figured the best way to do that is in a closed meeting because the membership can speak more freely without being quoted” in the media.

He declined to discuss specifics of the resolution or why it was tabled. Under SAC’s bylaws, the steering committee is responsible for council-wide actions.

Last month SAC officers said they would request separate meetings with Nordenberg and Pitt Board of Trustees Chairperson William S. Dietrich II to discuss staff compensation.

At Senate Council on Monday, Colwell reported that SAC officers met recently with Nordenberg and Executive Vice Chancellor Jerome Cochran and “re-established the lines of communication” with Pitt’s senior administration.

Asked to elaborate, Colwell told the University Times that SAC officers have “always had regularly scheduled meetings with the chancellor and the executive vice chancellor, but those meetings are confidential.”

Colwell said SAC officers requested a meeting with Dietrich “more than a month ago” but haven’t gotten a reply.

SAC hopes to meet regularly with Pitt trustees to discuss a variety of staff concerns in addition to compensation, Colwell said.

—Peter Hart