By SUSAN JONES
A representative for the Union of Pitt Faculty said last week that tremendous progress has been made on many of the bargaining issues for its first contract with Pitt, but the two sides remain stuck on compensation.
“We’ve come to a lot of agreements around important issues,” said Melinda Ciccocioppo, the union’s Communication and Action Team chair and a psychology faculty member. “And now at this point, what we need is for Chancellor Gabel to decide to spend some of Pitt’s operating budget surplus on paying faculty fairly, which is a $60,000 salary floor and raises that keep pace with inflation.”
The University said in a statement that, “We are pleased with the ongoing progress being made.” Bargaining sessions were held Jan. 10 and 23 and Feb. 7, 12 and 20. “Through these sessions, the parties have executed multiple tentative agreements and exchanged several proposals,” the statement said. “The administration looks forward to reaching an agreement with the union that is mutually beneficial for both parties.”
All proposals and counterproposals have been posted online on separate websites maintained by the University (facultyunionization.pitt.edu) and the union (pittfaculty.org), including the University’s latest compensation proposal.
As for a salary floor, the administration has agreed to $60,000 for full-time bargaining unit faculty, except instructors ($50,000 salary floor), visiting faculty ($40,000 or $50,000 depending on the position) and those at the Falk School ($45,000).
Ciccocioppo said instructors and visiting faculty members do the same work as other faculty, “and that work is vital to the University. They have advanced degrees, they have expertise in their fields. There just isn’t a reason why they should be getting paid less than $60,000. The other issue is, if those titles have a lower salary floor, it incentivizes the administration to hire faculty members with those titles, rather than professors.”
She also noted that the majority of faculty now earning less than $60,000 are women, “And so by raising the floor, you can help to close that gender niche gap.”
Ciccocioppo also said it would be helpful if the chancellor attended the bargaining sessions, which are being held about three times a month, “so decisions could be made in real time. That’s been an issue for us to process, that we’re sitting across the table primarily from lawyers.”
Lu-in Wang, vice provost for faculty affairs, has been the University’s primary representative in the bargaining sessions.
The union, which is part of the United Steelworkers, is very diligent about responding to Pitt administration proposals quickly, Ciccocioppo said, but often has to wait several weeks to get a response in the other direction.
In response to these concerns, a University spokesman said: “Just as the faculty union bargaining committee will ultimately take the collective bargaining agreement to their full membership for a vote, multiple individuals and units provide valuable and collaborative input on the University’s proposals and decisions. The team at the bargaining sessions are well prepared to engage in negotiations, solicit stakeholder and decision maker input, during the sessions as necessary, and provide timely responses. Chancellor Gabel receives thorough briefings after the sessions and engages with the University’s committee members regularly throughout the process.”
Faculty in the bargaining unit have yet to receive annual raises for the 2023-24 fiscal year. The union decided to not enter a memorandum of understanding, as it had the previous year, to let the raises set by the Board of Trustees to go through, but instead opted to tie the raises to finalizing a full tentative contract agreement.
“Obviously, it would be nice if we had our raises by now,” Ciccocioppo said. “But one thing that I think faculty understand is the reason why it was quicker for non-bargaining unit faculty members to get their raise is because the administration just gets to unilaterally decide that. Whereas for us, with the union, they have to negotiate.”
The current offer from the University is for 4 percent raises for bargaining unit faculty when the contract is ratified — not retroactive to July 1, 2023 — and then guaranteed 2 percent raises each of the next two years.
Raises for Pitt staff and non-union faculty were set by the Board of Trustees in late July 2023, with a 3 percent pool for performance-based increases and a separate 1 percent compensation pool for merit, market and equity-based increases. The raises were in September paychecks and were retroactive to July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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