BARGAINING
UPDATES

May 12, 2026

On Tuesday, we met with the administration’s bargaining committee and exchanged proposals on hours of work and artificial intelligence. We also reached a tentative agreement on no strike/no lockout. We continued to negotiate over our original proposal package from March 31st that includes management rights, just cause in the exercise of professional judgement, performance evaluation, and non-discrimination proposals. 

The proposal package is an offer to the administration to accept all of our versions of these proposals to help reach an agreement. Unfortunately, the administration is still refusing to discuss just cause in the exercise of professional judgement and non-discrimination. Instead, they have only returned management rights and performance evaluation. We find this to be an unacceptable offer, leading to negotiations taking longer. 

While we wait for proposals to be returned, the administration spent around $1,900,000 on Ogletree Deakins contracts in 2023-2024, which is the firm hired to negotiate the grad, faculty, and staff contracts. Ogletree Deakins lawyers have flown in for 25 grad bargaining sessions, which we estimate has accrued 3.5 metric tons of CO2 emissions. The energy cost is equivalent to the consumption of 6.25 average households in a year and to offset would require about 173.5 trees growing for 1 year.

To get connected to our organizing committee’s efforts, follow @pittgradunion on social media and get connected to an organizer in your field by clicking here. Check out the bargaining tracker for the full proposals!

See this and previous updates and newsletters here. Don’t forget to fill out your membership card if you haven’t already, or to fill out this form if your working conditions change. The administration will NOT have access to your membership card information (including whether or not you signed one) until our first contract is ready for ratification.

In solidarity, 

Your bargaining committee 

Lauren Wewer, Chair (MEMS)
Michaela Cushing-Daniels, Recording Secretary (SPIA)
Keanna Cash (SOE)
Alisa Omelchenko (SOM)
Chi-Tsung Chang (English)
Hollen Tillman (SSW)
Emily Ruttenberg (Math)
Emily Wheelis (Neuroscience)
Matt Nader (USW)
Nate Kilbert (USW)
Don Shaffer (USW)