By SUSAN JONES
For Tyler Bickford, a member of union’s bargaining committee, the tentative agreement the Union of Pitt Faculty has reached with Pitt’s administration is an “historic first contract, and it's going to dramatically improve a lot of people's lives and make our jobs better.”
The agreement was reached, Melinda Ciccocioppo, the union’s chair of communication and action, said, because “we messaged effectively around this. Our members showed up when they needed to show up — at bargaining sessions, at Board of Trustees meetings, at the provost’s office. We were just very persistent in saying this is what we need.”
The University said in a statement that it was “very pleased” to have reached a tentative agreement with the faculty union. “The University values our faculty and their countless contributions to our Pitt community and this agreement demonstrates the University’s significant investment in our faculty — while adhering to our commitments to access and affordability for students and to providing a high-quality, world-class education.”
“We are exceptionally proud of the efforts invested on behalf of both the union and the administration to reach an agreement. … We look forward to building upon the collaborative relationship established during negotiations.”
The tentative agreement reached April 25 covers raises, benefits and much more for the nearly 3,500 people in the bargaining unit. (See story on contract details).
Senate President Robin Kear, a liaison librarian and member of the bargaining unit, said the tentative agreement shows compromise by both the union and the administration. Positive areas in the agreement, Kear said, include bringing full-time faculty who make less than $60,000 up to that level; presumptive renewal for appointment-stream faculty; transitioning faculty with eight-month appointments to nine months; and guidance for layoff and severance.
But, she said, “Some areas of the contract should have been more robust, for example addressing the resulting salary compression of raising the salary floor, dependent care benefits, specific work overload guidance outside of teaching credits, and protections for the instructor category. I am concerned that retention, merit, market and equity adjustments are left solely to the employer’s discretion and note that promotional increases that are flat and not percentages are not advantageous to all. Some areas of the contract are left ambiguous, such as guidance for workplace concerns about health and safety, or silent, such as intellectual property.”
She also pointed out that the University can raise medical insurance premiums by as much as 8 percent in 2025-26, “which is higher than what has been traditionally negotiated through shared governance.”
Bickford and Ciccocioppo noted this is the first such health premium cap of any kind at Pitt.
Kear also raised the question of how Pitt will pay for the salary increases, which include $3,900 this fiscal year for bargaining unit faculty, $3,140 next year and a 2.5 percent raise in 2025-26, in addition to bringing the salary floor up to $60,000 for what the union says is 18 percent of bargaining unit faculty.
“Overall, this contract costs several tens of millions of dollars, not all of which would be in reserve,” Kear said. “Now the administrators and deans need to figure out how to pay for this from their budgets. I worry that there will be unintended budgetary consequences related to the contract. Any large change such as this brings unforeseeable effects, and we will see how that develops in the next few years.”
Ilia Murtazashvili, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, said he thought one of the important accomplishments of the agreement “is severely constraining the ability of deans, chairs and directors to use student surveys for merit and tenure and promotion. This is critically important because those surveys are not valid indicators of teaching effectiveness and yet, because they are bureaucratically appealing, are often the only things used to assess teaching. Some of the other appealing features include significant protection of faculty in disciplinary proceedings, a strong affirmation of academic freedom, and recognition that our wages have not kept pace with dramatic increases in cost of living.”
He also noted that the agreement will especially improve the quality of work for adjunct and appointment-stream faculty, “by providing them with more certainty about their positions, increasing their wage, and through explicit recognition that tenure is not the only source of academic freedom for our faculty. Students will almost certainly benefit from greater certainty among adjunct and appointment-stream faculty since they are some of our best teachers who also contribute much to our research culture, including leading many community-engaged projects.”
Annette Vee, associate professor of English who is part of the bargaining unit but said she is not a union member, said she was happy to see a significant raise for the lowest-paid faculty, which “has been a long time coming.”
“The $60K floor has been a good rallying cry for the union, and $60K is great,” Vee said. “But it will lead to salary compression for those making just under or over $60K, who may have been at that salary for a long time, and I worry that will breed resentment among faculty.
“I wish we’d had a progressive raise instead — something that gave a much larger percentage boost to our lowest-paid faculty to bring them above living wage here in Pittsburgh, but also gave significant raises to those already in the $50, 60, 70, 80K range, tapering down as salaries grew higher. For those faculty above $80K, the percentage raises are lower than had been negotiated by our Faculty Senate, and which the union rejected in the fall. So raises in the contract aren’t great for midcareer tenure stream, as I am.”
Pitt staff and non-bargaining union faculty received 3 percent raises for 2023-24, with an additional 1 percent available for merit, market and equity adjustments.
She said she’s glad to see that supplemental payments for those taking on jobs like directors of undergraduate studies, are allowed in the agreement; that merit raises are still possible, and payments for voluntary overloads.
“I think it will be easier to hire beginning assistant teaching professors and visiting lecturers, which I’m glad about,” Vee said. “We’ve lost great faculty because our salaries have not been competitive or even livable for our beginning ranks. I think it will reduce raises for faculty at higher-paid ranks over time, so I worry about retention.
“It will be good to have things resolved,” she continued. “I’d like to see the Pitt faculty union be more transparent in their dealings, like CUNY and most other strong faculty unions. The details of bargaining were hidden from regular faculty and only interpreted through emails that presented the administration as hostile, yet the administration made the details of their side available.”
New administrators
Kear told Faculty Assembly on May 1 that Human Resources is in the process of hiring an assistant vice chancellor for labor relations, a director of academic labor and other labor specialists. Besides an impending union contract for 3,500 faculty, there are 11 other staff-related unions at Pitt, the largest being between 400 and 500 people.
“So I think you can see why administration might need to expand management in this area to manage the details and everything going forward,” she said.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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