By SUSAN JONES
Both the Union of Pitt Faculty and Pitt’s administration are signaling that contract negotiations are going well so far this fall, but the two sides are still wrapping up non-economic issues before turning to broader economic package of pay and benefits.
“We’re pleased with the progress in the last three meetings,” said Tyler Bickford, a professor in the English department and chair of the union’s bargaining committee, “and it appears that we have a partner at the table trying to get a deal.”
A University spokesperson said, “We continue to be encouraged by the progress happening at the bargaining table. Negotiating a first contract can be a complex process, but both the union and the University have demonstrated their commitment to finding common ground and solutions that will move us toward this goal.”
Bickford said just this week the two sides reach a tentative agreement on “historic improvements for part-time faculty members job security.”
“We’ve all experienced or heard about the challenges faced by adjunct professors for decades now, but there have been very few solutions across the industry,” Bickford said. “This agreement will ensure that part-time faculty at Pitt can rely on having their jobs in the future. Job security was the top non-economic priority in our bargaining survey, and this agreement achieves our long-standing position that if a faculty member is doing a good job and there is work for them to do, that they should be able to keep doing that job without having to reapply or beg.”
Bickford said they are making progress on the rest of the job security articles, covering full-time tenure stream and non-tenure stream faculty. “We are optimistic that we are moving toward strong agreements in these areas.”
“One of the major sticking points over the summer was about the enforceability of key provisions of the contract, and the administration finally gave us counter proposals that resolve those issues,” he said. “That was a major thing that let us make progress on the rest of the job security issues.”
As for pay and benefits, neither side has proposed interim raises while the contract is being finalized, which leaves pay increases this year for faculty in the bargaining unit in limbo. Raises for staff and faculty outside the bargaining unit are taking effect this month.
Last year, the union agreed to a memorandum of understanding that allowed the raise pool set by the Board of Trustees to apply to members in the bargaining unit.
“Our position is that we’re definitely close enough to wrapping up this whole agreement that it makes sense to negotiate all of our economic issues together as part of a package,” Bickford said, noting that any raises the union negotiates should be retroactive to July 1, 2023.
“Given this progress on the core non-economic issues yesterday (Sept. 19), we are eager to begin bargaining around economic issues,” Bickford said. “Yesterday we pushed the administration to respond to our economic proposals. We presented our proposal on compensation exactly a year ago and we have not received any response.”
The two sides met about two days a month over the summer and now have added another half-day of talks a month for the fall. The next session is Oct. 10.
This summer, Melinda Ciccocioppo, head of the union’s communication and action team and a teaching associate professor of psychology, said, “It just seems clear that we’re going to need to get loud in the fall if we want a good raise and we want it quickly.”
Bickford said they’ll definitely have a contingent at the Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 29 at William Pitt Union.
Updates from the union can be found at pittfaculty.org, and from the University at facultyunionization.pitt.edu.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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