The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) says our bargaining unit will be composed of Teaching Assistants, Teaching Fellows, Graduate Student Researchers, and Graduate Student Assistants. You can read the official decision from the PLRB on the makeup of our union by downloading the PDF below.
| BargainingUnitCompostionfromPLRB.pdf |
A union is a democratic organization of people working together to change or preserve aspects of their workplace through collective action and collective bargaining. Guided by these values, the Grads Together campaign at Pitt gathers grad student employees who want to collectively work towards securing our benefits in a binding contract that cannot be unilaterally changed by the university administration.
DO WE HAVE A RIGHT TO FORM A UNION?
Absolutely! All graduate student employees in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have the right to form a union to better their workplace conditions. Graduate student employees at public universities in many states, like us at Pitt, have had this right for years. In Pennsylvania specifically, the right is enshrined in the Public Employees Relations Act, Article IV Section 401. The act protect workers from harassment, discrimination, surveillance, and retaliation by an employer for engaging in any organizing activity that exercises these rights (enumerated in full in Public Employees Relations Act, Article XII, Section 1201 (a). In August, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate student employees at private institutions have this protection as well (see the Columbia University decision here: http://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45821c20d4).
WHAT DO WE GAIN WITH A UNION?
WHAT SORTS OF BENEFITS AND PROTECTIONS CAN WE ACHIEVE THROUGH COLLECTIVE BARGAINING?
Winning a contract through collective bargaining means having a legally enforceable document that guarantees our conditions of employment. Those benefits cannot be changed unilaterally by the university without negotiating with our union. Here are some examples of the kinds of things grad worker unions have won at other institutions:
WHAT HAVE GRADUATE STUDENT EMPLOYEES' UNIONS ACHIEVED AT OTHER UNIVERSITIES?
WHO'S ELIGIBLE TO BE IN THE UNION?
We want to represent everyone who works for the University of Pittsburgh whose employment status is tied to their status as a graduate student. We would be seeking to include Teaching Assistants, Teaching Fellows, and Research Assistants regardless of funding source. Undergraduates would not be included in the union, but Masters students employed in these roles would be. Many Masters student workers face the same conditions as doctoral student workers; by joining the union they can add their strength to the negotiating process and advocate for issues that may be unique or unknown to those not in this community. Ultimately, the specific workers eligible to vote will be decided by the PLRB after the union files for an election. The PLRB has historically taken a very broad view of who should be included in a bargaining unit.
CAN INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN THE UNION?
Absolutely! Anyone working in the United States has the same union rights regardless of their citizenship or visa status. Visa requirements in no way compromise your right to belong to a union that represents you in a U.S. workplace. In fact, international graduate student employees have played a central role in organizing and leading unions at more than 60 university campuses across the U.S. If anything, international students face particular vulnerabilities that can be best addressed through a union, such as the protections of a grievance procedure. It is possible to negotiate an expedited grievance procedure for international students who have spoken out and are facing visa issues to get the problems resolved in a timely manner. Also, the US State Department specifically says that temporary workers and students have the right to: “Request help from unions, immigrant and labor rights groups and other groups.” Find out more here (p. 4): http://1.usa.gov/1QGhL1G.
WHAT IS THE PROCESS FOR FORMING A UNION?
There are two possible paths towards getting a union. The first is for the University to voluntarily recognize the wishes of the graduate student employees through a card check of the graduate student employees who wish to sign union representation cards. A card check is performed by a neutral arbitrator so the University will not know who signed. If the administration doesn’t wish to voluntarily recognize our union, we will seek certification through the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) in order to have a fair, safe and objective process for us to make a democratic decision.
The first step here is to gauge support among the graduate student employees to see if enough people want a union to move forward. Throughout this assessment phase, a large majority of graduate student employees have indicated that they do indeed support the idea of a union and of having a more democratic workplace. The next phase begins with getting as many graduate student employees as possible to sign authorization cards stating that they wish to form a union and to join with the United Steelworkers (USW). In order to trigger the next phase, we need to cross the legal threshold that states that 30% of the workforce must sign a card, but we will aim (and believe we will have) a much higher number. Once there are enough cards, the union will take them to the PLRB for verification. If the PLRB determines that there is a sufficient number, it will begin proceedings for a secret ballot election to take place. We expect there to be some amount of negotiating between the union and the employer (Pitt) about the exact terms of the election and eligibility at this point. Once a date has been set, there will either be an in-person election in a convenient location (i.e., somewhere on campus) or a mail-in ballot. Once the votes are cast, if a simple majority of cast ballots are in favor of the union, we will have won.
SO WE WOULD HAVE A UNION, NOW WHAT? HOW DOES A UNION GIVE US A VOICE?
We will democratically determine our priorities and leaders.
HOW DO WE CHOOSE OUR BARGAINING COMMITTEE?
Most memberships balance a need for a committee of a manageable size and one that represents the variety of programs they belong to across the university. These committee posts will be democratically elected from the ranks of graduate student employees at Pitt.
WHY THE USW?
Graduate student employees typically choose to organize with a larger labor union, sometimes called an “international,” such as the United Steelworkers (USW). The USW began in the early 1940’s as a purely manufacturing union, but in the decades since workers from a diverse array of occupations have joined, including healthcare professionals, University and College faculty, public sector employees, pharmaceutical workers, and chemists. The union drive at Pitt for graduate student employees was initiated by a group of PhD candidates at Pitt from several departments who reached out to the USW and asked to work together to help form a union.
Rank and File members across several campuses created the Academic Workers Association (USW-AWA) in order to connect our higher education members with each other in a cohesive way to better understand the changes happening in the Academy, to educate our members about those changes, and to be able to plan together to have an impact on whatever may come. The USW International Headquarters is located right here in Pittsburgh, and gives us tremendous access to technical, intellectual, and material resources in order to get the best possible contract and the strongest possible union (those two things go together!).
WILL I HAVE TO JOIN A UNION?
No one is required to join the union. However, without membership status one cannot vote for union officers, or for the local’s bylaws. Everyone who is a member and in the bargaining unit will get to vote on the first contract, even if you later opt out of being in the union. By law, the union is obligated to enforce contracts for all graduate student employees in the bargaining unit, members and non-members alike. For example, if our first contract includes certain dental insurance for all graduate student employees, you will receive that insurance even if you chose not to join the union; if the university suddenly took away that dental insurance or changed coverage, the union will still have to use its resources to fight for your benefits. Because of the Supreme Court ruling Janus v AFSCME, it is up to you whether you choose to be a member of our union and pay dues. We will still be legally required to represent you. With all that being said, the greater the percentage of the members the better the outcome when it comes to negotiating. It’s a matter of leverage.
WHAT ARE DUES, AND WHAT ARE THEY FOR?
Negotiating and enforcing a contract requires funds. Running an effective union, both Local and International, also requires funds. These day-to-day costs are paid for by the dues of the union’s members. Dues money covers such things as paid time for elected local officers to prosecute grievances, rent for a physical space for the union, equipment, supplies, training. It also covers new organizing. The Pitt Grads Together campaign is currently being funded by the existing members of the United Steelworkers.
No dues are paid until we ratify (vote to accept) our first contract, and are only paid while working for the University. We will get to vote whether to accept the first contract or not.
Dues for the USW are 1.45% of gross pay, with an additional $0.02 per hour going to an Organizing Fund. Dues also cover things such as occupational health and safety experts, experienced negotiators who can offer guidance and assistance at the bargaining table, labor attorneys who are part of the USW, and our strike and defense fund (which helps to give us leverage at the bargaining table). Our local would keep 44% of the dues, with the remainder being split between various programs and departments of the International union such as membership training and education, strategic campaigns, organizing, and lobbying state and federal officials on matters important to graduate workers (e.g., the future state of funding from NIH and NSF grants). A link to a pamphlet containing the current breakdown of the USW dues structure can be found here http://www.pittgradunion.org/union-dues.html].
WHAT IS THE RIGHT TO FAIR REPRESENTATION?
You have a right to be represented by your union fairly, in good faith, and without discrimination.
Our union has the duty to represent all employees - whether members of the union or not- fairly, in good faith, and without discrimination. This duty applies to virtually every action that a union may take in dealing with the administration as your representative, including collective bargaining and handling grievances. For example, a union which represents you cannot refuse to process a grievance because you have criticized union officials or because you are not a member of the union.
WILL I HAVE TO GO ON STRIKE? WHAT WILL THAT MEAN FOR MY RESEARCH?
Members of the union will, by voting, decide if a strike is necessary. Although it is rarely necessary (98% of union contracts are reached without a strike), striking is an important and powerful last resort when an employer persistently refuses to negotiate in good faith or takes harmful positions. When other options for bringing an employer to the bargaining table have been exhausted, a strike is a powerful way to remind employers and the public of the importance of our work. At the University of Washington’s graduate student employees' union, for instance, research assistants fortunately have not had to strike, but several times they have begun preparations for a strike to achieve a fair contract. As part of such preparations, they engaged in discussions to figure out how best to participate in a strike without damaging their own academic progress. If the members of our union were to democratically contemplate a strike one day, we would sort through the same set of issues as well.
HOW IS A UNION DIFFERENT FROM THE GRADUATE STUDENT ORGANIZATION, THE CGSE, GSPGA, OR ANY OTHER GRADUATE STUDENT GOVERNMENTS?
Graduate student governments represent and support Pitt students as students: they fund student groups, award grants, sponsor events, and communicate student concerns to university administrators. However, these groups are not labor organizations: they have no power to negotiate a binding contract on behalf of graduate student employees, which means that the administration is under no obligation to act on any recommendations or requests that any student government body might make. This includes even seemingly trivial requests from the administration, such as requests to provide basic information about the constituents of graduate government bodies. The administration can also unilaterally eliminate student government if it chooses to do so. Our current student government bodies are an important part of grad life at Pitt; they just have different objectives and means of accomplishing those objectives.
IF THE UNION WINS MORE BENEFITS FOR GRADUATE STUDENT EMPLOYEES, WON’T PITT HAVE TO MAKE CUTS ELSEWHERE?
As graduate student employees and members of the Pitt community, we want Pitt to continue to excel. A union will help us ensure it does so by giving us a real role in setting the university’s institutional priorities and in helping to determine where its resources go. Pitt’s endowment was worth $3.49B in 2015, and decisions about how to spend the money earned from this endowment (4.25% in 2015) were made in secret, without the input of the thousands of graduate teachers and researchers who keep Pitt running. With a union, we’ll be able to have an internal discussion about the university’s budgetary priorities and the collective power to try to influence positive change. There are many top tier research schools that have unionized grad student employees and still attract top talent and do great research work.
CAN THE UNION MAKE ANY GUARANTEES ABOUT SPECIFIC IMPROVEMENTS?
We can’t guarantee that any specific improvements will be included in the contract. We can guarantee that a union will empower us to negotiate as equals with the administration for what we want. Graduate student employees at other universities have been able to use this power to win significant, specific improvements in their working conditions and benefits (see the section “What have other graduate student employees' unions achieved at other universities?”). Like most contracts, a union contract must be negotiated, and that means that we can’t be certain that any specific policies or improvements will be included. Once the union wins the election and is certified, the present work conditions become “status quo” (they will be protected from unilateral decision making by the administration). Everything that we are used to (both positive and negative) is the starting point of negotiations and we can propose improvements from there. And since we have collective leverage that we didn’t have before, and the contract has to be voted on by the membership, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which people would vote for any contract that wouldn’t make things better than they currently are. If we are unsatisfied with a proposed contract, we can vote against it and the bargaining team will go back to the negotiating table to work out a better agreement.
We can also guarantee that a contract will secure those improvements against administrative tampering. At present the administration changes policies and benefits unilaterally, without any obligation to consult those affected. Our contract will be a legally enforceable document that will guarantee our benefits and conditions of employment, ensuring that the administration cannot change our benefits without negotiating with us.
WILL HAVING A UNION MEAN ALL DEPARTMENTS MUST FOLLOW THE SAME POLICIES?
Our contract can be as detailed as we want it to be. If something is working well in your department, there’s no need to change it! And if a certain policy would be helpful for certain jobs but doesn’t make sense for other jobs, our contract can stipulate the policy applies or does not apply to certain jobs, like teaching fellow or lab research assistant. We believe that graduate student employees themselves know best whether a given policy is good or bad for them – that’s why we believe they should have the right to negotiate with the administration about those policies.
I AM GRADUATING SOON, AND ONLY HERE FOR A FEW YEARS ANYWAYS. WHY SHOULD I JOIN?
You’ve seen, through firsthand experience, the highs and lows of being a graduate student worker at Pitt. You know what has worked well and what hasn’t. If you had been consulted about any of the policies, or policy changes, in your program do you think you could have had a better experience? What do you want for your profession? For the Academy? Joining a union isn’t just a question of having on the job protections and a strong contract, it is also about advocacy. It is about elevating the work that you do and elevating those who do it. If entering the ranks of faculty is your path, it is in your best interest to raise the bar as graduate workers, which would raise it for faculty as well. If you believe that education, knowledge production and research are valuable, a union will give you the voice to make that claim and a path forward for that value to be realized.
WHAT ARE THE RULES GOVERNING HOW THE UNION IS RUN?
We would have the right to decide how our union is structured. All graduate student employees would have a voice in the union process, and it would be internally democratic. This would mean that the local union leadership would be graduate student employees. We would be affiliated with the United Steelworkers, which would provide resources, guidance, and support. This would not mean that the USW would direct us in all things, but that we would have a formal relationship with them.
The USW has an International Constitution, which is democratically amended every three years at a Constitutional Convention. This Constitution not only outlines the basic democratic structure of the union, it embodies the accumulated wisdom of decades of workers across a huge number of different kinds of work about how to ensure that the Union is effective and stays true to its values. In addition, once our union is recognized, we can create a voluntary committee to take responsibility to drafting our local’s bylaws – the internal rules and procedures that govern the operation of our local. Once completed, members of the local will have the opportunity to vote to ratify the bylaws or send them back for changes. Modifications to the bylaws, once ratified, can be made only by membership vote pending the approval of the International Secretary-Treasurer in order to ensure that they don’t violate the International Constitution or law. It will be important for us to look at this going forward in order to best represent our diverse membership.
WITH SO MANY DIVERSE PROGRAMS, HOW CAN WE BE SURE THE BARGAINING COMMITTEE WILL REPRESENT ALL GRADUATE STUDENT WORKERS?
First, and most important, research assistants and teaching assistants across departments share many common interests. For example, health care, family benefits, pay increases, and a fair grievance procedure affect RAs and TAs all across campus and are typically central issues in contract negotiations regardless of who is on the bargaining committee.
Second, RAs and TAs will get to vote democratically to approve not only the initial bargaining goals prior to negotiations but also the final contract negotiated by the committee, which encourages democratic accountability. The USW has a long history of addressing issues in diverse workplaces (production/maintenance in manufacturing, various divisions in healthcare, etc.) Having a negotiating team that is diverse and representative virtually assures that no one group will be able to throw the other under the bus during negotiations.
HOW WILL UNIONIZATION AFFECT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY ADVISOR/PI?
In the decades during which graduate student employees at campuses across the country have had unions, there’s been no evidence that collective bargaining has a negative impact on relationships between graduate student employees and their advisors. Peer-reviewed studies (see especially Rogers, Sean E., Adrienne E. Eaton, and Paula B. Voos. "Effects of Unionization on Graduate Student Employees: Faculty-Student Relations, Academic Freedom, and Pay." ILR Review 66.2, April 2013) have suggested positive effects for grad unions on graduate student employee-faculty relationships. By giving graduate student employees real power and a direct channel to the administration, our union will allow our advisors to focus on research and mentoring their graduate student employees rather than on dealing with employment issues like health care, timely payment, and parental leave. Our union will allow us to join the faculty holding administrators accountable and prioritizing the university’s core mission of research, scholarship, and teaching. No graduate student employee would support contract provisions that might harm the work or research of our advisors or PIs. Our bargaining surveys set our priorities, and all union members get to ratify our bargaining agenda. Our union’s democratic process ensures that our contract will protect both our interests and the research of our advisors, PIs, and labs. Academic success and a thriving research enterprise are top priorities for all graduate employees, and we can make sure we negotiate a contract that reflects our priorities.
FUNDING FOR MY RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIP COMES FROM AN EXTERNAL GRANT. HOW CAN WE NEGOTIATE OVER THAT?
Currently, Pitt administrators determine research assistants’ pay rates unilaterally, and those rates – as well as projected increases – are then factored into grant proposals to agencies such as NIH, NSF, DOD, etc. While the granting agency typically establishes rules, those rules leave very broad discretion to the University. It is within that realm of discretion that we’ll be able to negotiate over those pay rates. Grant-funded RAs at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Washington, as well as postdocs at the University of California, have negotiated guaranteed annual increases to their pay rates through collective bargaining.
WHAT SORT OF RESPONSE CAN WE EXPECT FROM THE ADMINISTRATION?
Administrators, while surely not personally malicious, have a job to do, and that job includes extracting maximum productivity from the university's employees at the minimum cost while maintaining maximum managerial flexibility. This has to be balanced against an interest in recruiting graduate student employees, but that's pretty much the only factor that balances out those basic interests. So we can expect the administration to oppose graduate student employees applying collective leverage to improving their work life; it's their job to do so. We expect the administration to say that they have an open door policy, have established ways for graduate student employees to express their concerns, and to paint the union as something other than the graduate student employee started, grad worker led organization that it is. If it chooses to fight the effort to form a union of graduate student employees, it will more than likely follow the path of other employers (including those in higher education) to use tuition and taxpayer dollars to purchase the services of consulting firms who specialize in fighting workers rights to organize. We hope that the administration of the University will remain neutral during this campaign and will respect the wishes of its graduate student employees, whatever they may be.
DO WE HAVE A RIGHT TO FORM A UNION?
Absolutely! All graduate student employees in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have the right to form a union to better their workplace conditions. Graduate student employees at public universities in many states, like us at Pitt, have had this right for years. In Pennsylvania specifically, the right is enshrined in the Public Employees Relations Act, Article IV Section 401. The act protect workers from harassment, discrimination, surveillance, and retaliation by an employer for engaging in any organizing activity that exercises these rights (enumerated in full in Public Employees Relations Act, Article XII, Section 1201 (a). In August, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate student employees at private institutions have this protection as well (see the Columbia University decision here: http://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45821c20d4).
WHAT DO WE GAIN WITH A UNION?
- Voice. A union would give graduate student employees a meaningful voice in how the university operates and address issues of transparency. In an era of academic corporatization and the increasing reliance on contingent researchers and teachers over tenured faculty, graduate student employee unions give us a powerful voice in shaping our present working conditions.
- Power. Collective bargaining allows us to negotiate with the university administration as equals. Our union will give us a seat at the table where we can negotiate for the benefits we need, shape conversations about the university’s future, and ensure our contribution to Pitt is properly compensated and respected.
- Security. A union contract will protect our benefits and working conditions from unilateral changes by the university administration. At present, the administration can change the policies that affect student workers without even consulting us. Once our conditions are protected by a union contract, the administration will have to negotiate with us about any changes it wishes to make.
- Community. By organizing, we join tens of thousands of graduate student employees, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty across the country coming together to win dignity and respect for all academic workers. We are building a more unified community of graduate student employees at Pitt by forging relationships across departments and disciplines. We’re breaking down the walls of our siloed disciplines and creating a more transparent environment where we can learn from each other’s experiences. In this way we move forward together towards the best possible version of graduate student employee life at Pitt.
WHAT SORTS OF BENEFITS AND PROTECTIONS CAN WE ACHIEVE THROUGH COLLECTIVE BARGAINING?
Winning a contract through collective bargaining means having a legally enforceable document that guarantees our conditions of employment. Those benefits cannot be changed unilaterally by the university without negotiating with our union. Here are some examples of the kinds of things grad worker unions have won at other institutions:
- Annual, across-the-board stipend increases and timely payments;
- Enhanced dental, vision, and mental health insurance (including lower co-pays for services and prescriptions);
- Improved family benefits, such as dependent health coverage, child-care subsidies and paid maternity leave;
- Workload protections that enhance the quality of research and education;
- Vacation and sick leave;
- Protections against discriminatory practices sexual harassment and assault;
- Improved disability access and resources for people of color;
- A fair and transparent grievance procedure that has independent enforcement through arbitration.
WHAT HAVE GRADUATE STUDENT EMPLOYEES' UNIONS ACHIEVED AT OTHER UNIVERSITIES?
- In March 2015, GSOC-UAW at NYU ratified a new contract with 99% approval. Their gains include a 4% wage increase with annual minimum increases, matriculation and other fees waived for graduate student employees, a 90% subsidy for individual health care coverage, free dental insurance, a family healthcare fund that will rise to $200,000, and a tax-free childcare fund that will rise to $100,000.
- In April 2015, the GEU-UAW at the University of Connecticut won their first contract with 99% voter approval. Their gains include a 9.3% compound wage increase over three years, restored access to state employee health benefits that were taken away in 2003, and nearly $900 per year in mandatory fee waivers (almost a 5% additional wage increase) as well as travel reimbursement, child care subsidies and six weeks of paid maternity leave.
- In May 2015, graduate student employees at the University of Washington won a contract guaranteeing child care subsidy increases, tuition and fee waivers, minimum annual wage increases, and workload protections for hourly employees. Collective bargaining has won major gains over the past decade, including no cuts in health care since 2004 despite the cost of the plan increasing almost 50%.
- After an eight-day strike in 2014 (the first in 38 years), the University of Oregon Graduate Teaching Fellows won a contract with a 10% wage increase, two weeks of paid family or medical leave, and a $150,000 “hardship fund” awarding grants for family and medical emergencies. In October they vote to ratify a new three-year contract awarding 10.7% wage increases and paid employment training.
- In 2014, the graduate student employees union at the University of California ratified a new contract that won a two-week increase in paid leave for childbirth (enabling a full three-month benefited maternity leave on quarter campuses, so mothers don’t have to take quarters off with no pay or benefits), a 50% increase in child care subsidies, 17% compounded wage increases over four years, new protections for workload intensity, undocumented students, and gender inclusivity, and full remission of tuition and registration fees for union members.
- Since 2007, Graduate Students United at the University of Chicago have campaigned for and won a doubling of teaching assistant salaries, better standards of care at the Student Care Center, and the right for students on parental leave to retain their student status, allowing the retention of visa status, health insurance, and access to university facilities.
WHO'S ELIGIBLE TO BE IN THE UNION?
We want to represent everyone who works for the University of Pittsburgh whose employment status is tied to their status as a graduate student. We would be seeking to include Teaching Assistants, Teaching Fellows, and Research Assistants regardless of funding source. Undergraduates would not be included in the union, but Masters students employed in these roles would be. Many Masters student workers face the same conditions as doctoral student workers; by joining the union they can add their strength to the negotiating process and advocate for issues that may be unique or unknown to those not in this community. Ultimately, the specific workers eligible to vote will be decided by the PLRB after the union files for an election. The PLRB has historically taken a very broad view of who should be included in a bargaining unit.
CAN INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN THE UNION?
Absolutely! Anyone working in the United States has the same union rights regardless of their citizenship or visa status. Visa requirements in no way compromise your right to belong to a union that represents you in a U.S. workplace. In fact, international graduate student employees have played a central role in organizing and leading unions at more than 60 university campuses across the U.S. If anything, international students face particular vulnerabilities that can be best addressed through a union, such as the protections of a grievance procedure. It is possible to negotiate an expedited grievance procedure for international students who have spoken out and are facing visa issues to get the problems resolved in a timely manner. Also, the US State Department specifically says that temporary workers and students have the right to: “Request help from unions, immigrant and labor rights groups and other groups.” Find out more here (p. 4): http://1.usa.gov/1QGhL1G.
WHAT IS THE PROCESS FOR FORMING A UNION?
There are two possible paths towards getting a union. The first is for the University to voluntarily recognize the wishes of the graduate student employees through a card check of the graduate student employees who wish to sign union representation cards. A card check is performed by a neutral arbitrator so the University will not know who signed. If the administration doesn’t wish to voluntarily recognize our union, we will seek certification through the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) in order to have a fair, safe and objective process for us to make a democratic decision.
The first step here is to gauge support among the graduate student employees to see if enough people want a union to move forward. Throughout this assessment phase, a large majority of graduate student employees have indicated that they do indeed support the idea of a union and of having a more democratic workplace. The next phase begins with getting as many graduate student employees as possible to sign authorization cards stating that they wish to form a union and to join with the United Steelworkers (USW). In order to trigger the next phase, we need to cross the legal threshold that states that 30% of the workforce must sign a card, but we will aim (and believe we will have) a much higher number. Once there are enough cards, the union will take them to the PLRB for verification. If the PLRB determines that there is a sufficient number, it will begin proceedings for a secret ballot election to take place. We expect there to be some amount of negotiating between the union and the employer (Pitt) about the exact terms of the election and eligibility at this point. Once a date has been set, there will either be an in-person election in a convenient location (i.e., somewhere on campus) or a mail-in ballot. Once the votes are cast, if a simple majority of cast ballots are in favor of the union, we will have won.
SO WE WOULD HAVE A UNION, NOW WHAT? HOW DOES A UNION GIVE US A VOICE?
We will democratically determine our priorities and leaders.
- First, we will elect graduate student employees from across the University to a bargaining committee.
- The bargaining committee will then survey the membership of everyone represented by the union to determine what issues are most important to the workforce.
- The bargaining committee, together with experienced negotiators and legal counsel from the USW, will then sit down with the administration to negotiate. Once they reach a “tentative agreement,” members will vote whether to approve that agreement as our first contract.
- If the membership doesn’t like the agreement, the bargaining committee goes back to the negotiations with the Administration to address the reasons why the membership voted against it. If we ratify the contract, we will then elect leaders from among our colleagues to run our union and to help ensure that our contract is enforced.
- Throughout contract negotiations, we will strive to maintain a positive, collaborative relationship with the University of Pittsburgh administration that leads to a beneficial agreement for all involved parties.
HOW DO WE CHOOSE OUR BARGAINING COMMITTEE?
Most memberships balance a need for a committee of a manageable size and one that represents the variety of programs they belong to across the university. These committee posts will be democratically elected from the ranks of graduate student employees at Pitt.
WHY THE USW?
Graduate student employees typically choose to organize with a larger labor union, sometimes called an “international,” such as the United Steelworkers (USW). The USW began in the early 1940’s as a purely manufacturing union, but in the decades since workers from a diverse array of occupations have joined, including healthcare professionals, University and College faculty, public sector employees, pharmaceutical workers, and chemists. The union drive at Pitt for graduate student employees was initiated by a group of PhD candidates at Pitt from several departments who reached out to the USW and asked to work together to help form a union.
Rank and File members across several campuses created the Academic Workers Association (USW-AWA) in order to connect our higher education members with each other in a cohesive way to better understand the changes happening in the Academy, to educate our members about those changes, and to be able to plan together to have an impact on whatever may come. The USW International Headquarters is located right here in Pittsburgh, and gives us tremendous access to technical, intellectual, and material resources in order to get the best possible contract and the strongest possible union (those two things go together!).
WILL I HAVE TO JOIN A UNION?
No one is required to join the union. However, without membership status one cannot vote for union officers, or for the local’s bylaws. Everyone who is a member and in the bargaining unit will get to vote on the first contract, even if you later opt out of being in the union. By law, the union is obligated to enforce contracts for all graduate student employees in the bargaining unit, members and non-members alike. For example, if our first contract includes certain dental insurance for all graduate student employees, you will receive that insurance even if you chose not to join the union; if the university suddenly took away that dental insurance or changed coverage, the union will still have to use its resources to fight for your benefits. Because of the Supreme Court ruling Janus v AFSCME, it is up to you whether you choose to be a member of our union and pay dues. We will still be legally required to represent you. With all that being said, the greater the percentage of the members the better the outcome when it comes to negotiating. It’s a matter of leverage.
WHAT ARE DUES, AND WHAT ARE THEY FOR?
Negotiating and enforcing a contract requires funds. Running an effective union, both Local and International, also requires funds. These day-to-day costs are paid for by the dues of the union’s members. Dues money covers such things as paid time for elected local officers to prosecute grievances, rent for a physical space for the union, equipment, supplies, training. It also covers new organizing. The Pitt Grads Together campaign is currently being funded by the existing members of the United Steelworkers.
No dues are paid until we ratify (vote to accept) our first contract, and are only paid while working for the University. We will get to vote whether to accept the first contract or not.
Dues for the USW are 1.45% of gross pay, with an additional $0.02 per hour going to an Organizing Fund. Dues also cover things such as occupational health and safety experts, experienced negotiators who can offer guidance and assistance at the bargaining table, labor attorneys who are part of the USW, and our strike and defense fund (which helps to give us leverage at the bargaining table). Our local would keep 44% of the dues, with the remainder being split between various programs and departments of the International union such as membership training and education, strategic campaigns, organizing, and lobbying state and federal officials on matters important to graduate workers (e.g., the future state of funding from NIH and NSF grants). A link to a pamphlet containing the current breakdown of the USW dues structure can be found here http://www.pittgradunion.org/union-dues.html].
WHAT IS THE RIGHT TO FAIR REPRESENTATION?
You have a right to be represented by your union fairly, in good faith, and without discrimination.
Our union has the duty to represent all employees - whether members of the union or not- fairly, in good faith, and without discrimination. This duty applies to virtually every action that a union may take in dealing with the administration as your representative, including collective bargaining and handling grievances. For example, a union which represents you cannot refuse to process a grievance because you have criticized union officials or because you are not a member of the union.
WILL I HAVE TO GO ON STRIKE? WHAT WILL THAT MEAN FOR MY RESEARCH?
Members of the union will, by voting, decide if a strike is necessary. Although it is rarely necessary (98% of union contracts are reached without a strike), striking is an important and powerful last resort when an employer persistently refuses to negotiate in good faith or takes harmful positions. When other options for bringing an employer to the bargaining table have been exhausted, a strike is a powerful way to remind employers and the public of the importance of our work. At the University of Washington’s graduate student employees' union, for instance, research assistants fortunately have not had to strike, but several times they have begun preparations for a strike to achieve a fair contract. As part of such preparations, they engaged in discussions to figure out how best to participate in a strike without damaging their own academic progress. If the members of our union were to democratically contemplate a strike one day, we would sort through the same set of issues as well.
HOW IS A UNION DIFFERENT FROM THE GRADUATE STUDENT ORGANIZATION, THE CGSE, GSPGA, OR ANY OTHER GRADUATE STUDENT GOVERNMENTS?
Graduate student governments represent and support Pitt students as students: they fund student groups, award grants, sponsor events, and communicate student concerns to university administrators. However, these groups are not labor organizations: they have no power to negotiate a binding contract on behalf of graduate student employees, which means that the administration is under no obligation to act on any recommendations or requests that any student government body might make. This includes even seemingly trivial requests from the administration, such as requests to provide basic information about the constituents of graduate government bodies. The administration can also unilaterally eliminate student government if it chooses to do so. Our current student government bodies are an important part of grad life at Pitt; they just have different objectives and means of accomplishing those objectives.
IF THE UNION WINS MORE BENEFITS FOR GRADUATE STUDENT EMPLOYEES, WON’T PITT HAVE TO MAKE CUTS ELSEWHERE?
As graduate student employees and members of the Pitt community, we want Pitt to continue to excel. A union will help us ensure it does so by giving us a real role in setting the university’s institutional priorities and in helping to determine where its resources go. Pitt’s endowment was worth $3.49B in 2015, and decisions about how to spend the money earned from this endowment (4.25% in 2015) were made in secret, without the input of the thousands of graduate teachers and researchers who keep Pitt running. With a union, we’ll be able to have an internal discussion about the university’s budgetary priorities and the collective power to try to influence positive change. There are many top tier research schools that have unionized grad student employees and still attract top talent and do great research work.
CAN THE UNION MAKE ANY GUARANTEES ABOUT SPECIFIC IMPROVEMENTS?
We can’t guarantee that any specific improvements will be included in the contract. We can guarantee that a union will empower us to negotiate as equals with the administration for what we want. Graduate student employees at other universities have been able to use this power to win significant, specific improvements in their working conditions and benefits (see the section “What have other graduate student employees' unions achieved at other universities?”). Like most contracts, a union contract must be negotiated, and that means that we can’t be certain that any specific policies or improvements will be included. Once the union wins the election and is certified, the present work conditions become “status quo” (they will be protected from unilateral decision making by the administration). Everything that we are used to (both positive and negative) is the starting point of negotiations and we can propose improvements from there. And since we have collective leverage that we didn’t have before, and the contract has to be voted on by the membership, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which people would vote for any contract that wouldn’t make things better than they currently are. If we are unsatisfied with a proposed contract, we can vote against it and the bargaining team will go back to the negotiating table to work out a better agreement.
We can also guarantee that a contract will secure those improvements against administrative tampering. At present the administration changes policies and benefits unilaterally, without any obligation to consult those affected. Our contract will be a legally enforceable document that will guarantee our benefits and conditions of employment, ensuring that the administration cannot change our benefits without negotiating with us.
WILL HAVING A UNION MEAN ALL DEPARTMENTS MUST FOLLOW THE SAME POLICIES?
Our contract can be as detailed as we want it to be. If something is working well in your department, there’s no need to change it! And if a certain policy would be helpful for certain jobs but doesn’t make sense for other jobs, our contract can stipulate the policy applies or does not apply to certain jobs, like teaching fellow or lab research assistant. We believe that graduate student employees themselves know best whether a given policy is good or bad for them – that’s why we believe they should have the right to negotiate with the administration about those policies.
I AM GRADUATING SOON, AND ONLY HERE FOR A FEW YEARS ANYWAYS. WHY SHOULD I JOIN?
You’ve seen, through firsthand experience, the highs and lows of being a graduate student worker at Pitt. You know what has worked well and what hasn’t. If you had been consulted about any of the policies, or policy changes, in your program do you think you could have had a better experience? What do you want for your profession? For the Academy? Joining a union isn’t just a question of having on the job protections and a strong contract, it is also about advocacy. It is about elevating the work that you do and elevating those who do it. If entering the ranks of faculty is your path, it is in your best interest to raise the bar as graduate workers, which would raise it for faculty as well. If you believe that education, knowledge production and research are valuable, a union will give you the voice to make that claim and a path forward for that value to be realized.
WHAT ARE THE RULES GOVERNING HOW THE UNION IS RUN?
We would have the right to decide how our union is structured. All graduate student employees would have a voice in the union process, and it would be internally democratic. This would mean that the local union leadership would be graduate student employees. We would be affiliated with the United Steelworkers, which would provide resources, guidance, and support. This would not mean that the USW would direct us in all things, but that we would have a formal relationship with them.
The USW has an International Constitution, which is democratically amended every three years at a Constitutional Convention. This Constitution not only outlines the basic democratic structure of the union, it embodies the accumulated wisdom of decades of workers across a huge number of different kinds of work about how to ensure that the Union is effective and stays true to its values. In addition, once our union is recognized, we can create a voluntary committee to take responsibility to drafting our local’s bylaws – the internal rules and procedures that govern the operation of our local. Once completed, members of the local will have the opportunity to vote to ratify the bylaws or send them back for changes. Modifications to the bylaws, once ratified, can be made only by membership vote pending the approval of the International Secretary-Treasurer in order to ensure that they don’t violate the International Constitution or law. It will be important for us to look at this going forward in order to best represent our diverse membership.
WITH SO MANY DIVERSE PROGRAMS, HOW CAN WE BE SURE THE BARGAINING COMMITTEE WILL REPRESENT ALL GRADUATE STUDENT WORKERS?
First, and most important, research assistants and teaching assistants across departments share many common interests. For example, health care, family benefits, pay increases, and a fair grievance procedure affect RAs and TAs all across campus and are typically central issues in contract negotiations regardless of who is on the bargaining committee.
Second, RAs and TAs will get to vote democratically to approve not only the initial bargaining goals prior to negotiations but also the final contract negotiated by the committee, which encourages democratic accountability. The USW has a long history of addressing issues in diverse workplaces (production/maintenance in manufacturing, various divisions in healthcare, etc.) Having a negotiating team that is diverse and representative virtually assures that no one group will be able to throw the other under the bus during negotiations.
HOW WILL UNIONIZATION AFFECT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY ADVISOR/PI?
In the decades during which graduate student employees at campuses across the country have had unions, there’s been no evidence that collective bargaining has a negative impact on relationships between graduate student employees and their advisors. Peer-reviewed studies (see especially Rogers, Sean E., Adrienne E. Eaton, and Paula B. Voos. "Effects of Unionization on Graduate Student Employees: Faculty-Student Relations, Academic Freedom, and Pay." ILR Review 66.2, April 2013) have suggested positive effects for grad unions on graduate student employee-faculty relationships. By giving graduate student employees real power and a direct channel to the administration, our union will allow our advisors to focus on research and mentoring their graduate student employees rather than on dealing with employment issues like health care, timely payment, and parental leave. Our union will allow us to join the faculty holding administrators accountable and prioritizing the university’s core mission of research, scholarship, and teaching. No graduate student employee would support contract provisions that might harm the work or research of our advisors or PIs. Our bargaining surveys set our priorities, and all union members get to ratify our bargaining agenda. Our union’s democratic process ensures that our contract will protect both our interests and the research of our advisors, PIs, and labs. Academic success and a thriving research enterprise are top priorities for all graduate employees, and we can make sure we negotiate a contract that reflects our priorities.
FUNDING FOR MY RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIP COMES FROM AN EXTERNAL GRANT. HOW CAN WE NEGOTIATE OVER THAT?
Currently, Pitt administrators determine research assistants’ pay rates unilaterally, and those rates – as well as projected increases – are then factored into grant proposals to agencies such as NIH, NSF, DOD, etc. While the granting agency typically establishes rules, those rules leave very broad discretion to the University. It is within that realm of discretion that we’ll be able to negotiate over those pay rates. Grant-funded RAs at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Washington, as well as postdocs at the University of California, have negotiated guaranteed annual increases to their pay rates through collective bargaining.
WHAT SORT OF RESPONSE CAN WE EXPECT FROM THE ADMINISTRATION?
Administrators, while surely not personally malicious, have a job to do, and that job includes extracting maximum productivity from the university's employees at the minimum cost while maintaining maximum managerial flexibility. This has to be balanced against an interest in recruiting graduate student employees, but that's pretty much the only factor that balances out those basic interests. So we can expect the administration to oppose graduate student employees applying collective leverage to improving their work life; it's their job to do so. We expect the administration to say that they have an open door policy, have established ways for graduate student employees to express their concerns, and to paint the union as something other than the graduate student employee started, grad worker led organization that it is. If it chooses to fight the effort to form a union of graduate student employees, it will more than likely follow the path of other employers (including those in higher education) to use tuition and taxpayer dollars to purchase the services of consulting firms who specialize in fighting workers rights to organize. We hope that the administration of the University will remain neutral during this campaign and will respect the wishes of its graduate student employees, whatever they may be.
