GRAD WORKERS DESERVE BETTER WORKPLACE PROTECTIONS
Chancellor Gallagher & University of Pittsburgh Administrators,
We are deeply troubled by the Pitt Community Compact and Return to Campus Acknowledgement, and by Pitt’s refusal to give us a seat at the table during the planning process. First, we are concerned by the coercive delivery method of the agreement, leaving us no choice but to agree to a document with unclear legal implications and unrealistic expectations for any individual to calculate risk of infection. After signing, we note that these documents were repeatedly changed without notifying those who had signed. Second, graduate student workers had little to no voice in creating this compact, despite the fact that we, as researchers and educators, have much less choice in physically going to campus than undergraduates. Lastly, the administration has refused to include graduate worker input in their COVID-19 planning, and has ignored our repeated calls for emergency funding security.
To protect the safety of graduate student workers, we, the Pitt Grad Union, call on Pitt’s administration to:
We agree that many individual behaviors, like those encouraged in the Pitt Community Compact, are necessary to combat a pandemic, but we cannot support language in the Return to Campus Student Acknowledgement that seeks to absolve the University itself from responsibility for its decisions. Rather, the University administration must acknowledge that Oakland is home to many within and outside the Pitt community and be held accountable to “those families and communities [that] are impacted by [your] actions and decisions,” which far outweigh those that could be made by any individual.
In a survey conducted among graduate workers by the Pitt Grad Student Organizing Committee (GSOC-USW), 60% expressed concern about “safety issues related to restarting my research or teaching in person,” and over 70% felt concerned about the lack of input from faculty and graduate students on Pitt’s Fall 2020 plan. Perhaps these concerns would not be so widely felt if Pitt had allowed grad student workers a seat at the table when preparing for the return to campus and the fall semester. We believe that Pitt’s Fall Return Plan would have been better and safer had graduate student workers been given more of an opportunity to provide input or feedback.
For many graduate student workers, the assumption of risk is not voluntary, as proposed by the Return to Campus Student Acknowledgement. We had no say in Pitt’s decision to allow in-person classes this semester, but the presence of so many students on campus directly endangers those of us who must come to campus for work and research. In addition, it’s important to note that neither faculty nor staff had to consent to this acknowledgement to access Pitt buildings or email. Many graduate workers are pressured into working on campus due to academic and research requirements. This does not always look like a PI or adviser explicitly telling a worker to come to campus. Many of us simply cannot risk missing important deadlines, or we fear that we will run out of funding before we can complete our research timeline. Given the structural power imbalance between grads and their advisors and the pressure to adhere to pre-pandemic research timelines, we question how “voluntary” our return to campus really is.
Pitt’s administration claims that we are “all in this together,” but they have consistently failed to acknowledge the unique needs and precarity of graduate student workers. While it’s true that many of us can (and have chosen to) work and teach remotely, many of us do not have that option - especially those of us who work in labs or who are conducting field research. Likewise, we all face the bleak job market that accompanies this pandemic. Indeed, nearly 800 of us petitioned the University for an optional but guaranteed year of emergency funding to increase the likelihood of worker safety and success in the competitive academic market. This action was met with silence from Pitt’s administration.
We again want to emphasize that graduate student employees who must come to campus feel unsafe, question the lack of input from faculty and graduate students, and are asking for additional resources from the University. All of these requests have so far been ignored. This is why we need a union. As we collectively face unprecedented workplace safety risks, a dismal job market, and the reality that unionized graduate student workers are significantly better supported than we are here at Pitt, it is clear that forming a union is the only way to gain a seat at the table and the protections that we need to complete our programs.
We are more than just graduate students. We are workers, and we must have a say in decisions about our workplace health and safety.
Signed,
Pitt Grad Union
Chancellor Gallagher & University of Pittsburgh Administrators,
We are deeply troubled by the Pitt Community Compact and Return to Campus Acknowledgement, and by Pitt’s refusal to give us a seat at the table during the planning process. First, we are concerned by the coercive delivery method of the agreement, leaving us no choice but to agree to a document with unclear legal implications and unrealistic expectations for any individual to calculate risk of infection. After signing, we note that these documents were repeatedly changed without notifying those who had signed. Second, graduate student workers had little to no voice in creating this compact, despite the fact that we, as researchers and educators, have much less choice in physically going to campus than undergraduates. Lastly, the administration has refused to include graduate worker input in their COVID-19 planning, and has ignored our repeated calls for emergency funding security.
To protect the safety of graduate student workers, we, the Pitt Grad Union, call on Pitt’s administration to:
- Acknowledge our legal right to form a union, and immediately halt their anti-union disinformation campaign.
- Remove the Return to Campus Student Acknowledgement as a precondition for access to University IT services or buildings for Pitt graduate workers.
- Convene a health and safety working group, comprised of graduate student employees from both research and teaching-based disciplines, so that we can provide meaningful guidance and participation in the decision-making processes here at Pitt.
- Acknowledge and provide a meaningful response to GSOC’s emergency funding petition, currently signed by over 800 Pitt grads.
We agree that many individual behaviors, like those encouraged in the Pitt Community Compact, are necessary to combat a pandemic, but we cannot support language in the Return to Campus Student Acknowledgement that seeks to absolve the University itself from responsibility for its decisions. Rather, the University administration must acknowledge that Oakland is home to many within and outside the Pitt community and be held accountable to “those families and communities [that] are impacted by [your] actions and decisions,” which far outweigh those that could be made by any individual.
In a survey conducted among graduate workers by the Pitt Grad Student Organizing Committee (GSOC-USW), 60% expressed concern about “safety issues related to restarting my research or teaching in person,” and over 70% felt concerned about the lack of input from faculty and graduate students on Pitt’s Fall 2020 plan. Perhaps these concerns would not be so widely felt if Pitt had allowed grad student workers a seat at the table when preparing for the return to campus and the fall semester. We believe that Pitt’s Fall Return Plan would have been better and safer had graduate student workers been given more of an opportunity to provide input or feedback.
For many graduate student workers, the assumption of risk is not voluntary, as proposed by the Return to Campus Student Acknowledgement. We had no say in Pitt’s decision to allow in-person classes this semester, but the presence of so many students on campus directly endangers those of us who must come to campus for work and research. In addition, it’s important to note that neither faculty nor staff had to consent to this acknowledgement to access Pitt buildings or email. Many graduate workers are pressured into working on campus due to academic and research requirements. This does not always look like a PI or adviser explicitly telling a worker to come to campus. Many of us simply cannot risk missing important deadlines, or we fear that we will run out of funding before we can complete our research timeline. Given the structural power imbalance between grads and their advisors and the pressure to adhere to pre-pandemic research timelines, we question how “voluntary” our return to campus really is.
Pitt’s administration claims that we are “all in this together,” but they have consistently failed to acknowledge the unique needs and precarity of graduate student workers. While it’s true that many of us can (and have chosen to) work and teach remotely, many of us do not have that option - especially those of us who work in labs or who are conducting field research. Likewise, we all face the bleak job market that accompanies this pandemic. Indeed, nearly 800 of us petitioned the University for an optional but guaranteed year of emergency funding to increase the likelihood of worker safety and success in the competitive academic market. This action was met with silence from Pitt’s administration.
We again want to emphasize that graduate student employees who must come to campus feel unsafe, question the lack of input from faculty and graduate students, and are asking for additional resources from the University. All of these requests have so far been ignored. This is why we need a union. As we collectively face unprecedented workplace safety risks, a dismal job market, and the reality that unionized graduate student workers are significantly better supported than we are here at Pitt, it is clear that forming a union is the only way to gain a seat at the table and the protections that we need to complete our programs.
We are more than just graduate students. We are workers, and we must have a say in decisions about our workplace health and safety.
Signed,
Pitt Grad Union