Being part of the union means that you have a voice in your workplace.

As soon we won our union in Fall of 2024 we won certain protections like the ability request union representation during disciplinary interviews that you believe could reasonably lead to discipline. We also secured an MOU with university to address interim issues around pay and have been successful in working with them to address some disciplinary issues.

In the meantime, the university has what’s called a status quo obligation that means the university can’t make certain types of changes, like cutting benefits, on their own without consulting with our union.

Once we vote to ratify our union contract, the university will be legally obligated to abide by that contract, which will ensure more transparency and fairness for all staff.

Only union members who have signed their membership card will be able to vote on the contract. After it is ratified, we will hold elections for local union officers and begin regular union meetings. Only members in good standing will be allowed to run for office, vote for officers and participate in union meetings.

Signing your membership card means that once we vote to ratify our first contract you will officially be joining the United Steelworkers (USW) as a dues-paying member. Only those who have signed a union card will be eligible to vote on the contract.

It also shows the university that staff are united for a fair contract and that you stand with your Bargaining Committee in negotiations for better pay and working conditions.

Becoming a member of our union gives you a voice in how our local union is run. You must be a member in good standing to attend local meetings (where decisions on how dues money is spent are made), run for local office and attend union conferences and trainings. Our membership is our strength. We are stronger together.

Pitt’s administration has significant economic and legal resources. This is our chance to level the playing field by ensuring we have the solidarity and economic power to fight for a better work place. Our solidarity and union dues are our collective power. A union is only as strong as the members.

Reach out to a CAT member if you have additional questions! If you need help finding your CAT member, email us at staffunionofpitt@usw.org

Unit members are eligible to request union representation during disciplinary interviews and meetings that you believe could reasonably lead to discipline.

If you need union representation, get in contact with a CAT team member or email us at staffunionofpitt@usw.org.

Standard USW dues are 1.45% of our pay, plus 2 cents per hour worked. Due to the structure of how the University tracks and pays our hours, our bargaining committee has negotiated a tentative agreement with the University to instead set our dues at 1.5% of our pay to make it easier to administer.

We don’t pay dues until after we vote to ratify our first contract.

44% of the dues we pay comes back to our local union. We have direct control over how that money is allocated through our local union structure. We will use it to support and empower each other, enforce and bargain our contract, and educate union leaders and members.

Pitt’s administration has significant economic and legal resources. This is our chance to level the playing field. Our union dues are our collective financial power.

Union dues will be deducted from every pay. We don’t pay dues until after we vote to ratify our first contract.

Standard USW dues are 1.45% of our pay, plus 2 cents per hour worked. Due to the structure of how the University tracks and pays our hours, our bargaining committee has negotiated a tentative agreement with the University to instead set our dues at 1.5% of our pay to make it easier to administer.

44% of the dues we pay comes back to our local union. We have direct control over how that money is allocated through our local union structure. We will use it to support and empower each other, enforce and bargain our contract, and educate union leaders and members.

Pitt’s administration has significant economic and legal resources. This is our chance to level the playing field. Our union dues are our collective financial power.

44% of the dues we pay comes back to our local union and we have direct control over how that money is allocated. We will use this money to support and empower each other, enforce, and bargain our contract, and educate union leaders and members.

Members make the decision on how that money is utilized, but is often used for things like attending union conferences and trainings, running the local union, enforcing and bargaining our contract, and much more.

The remainder of the money goes to the USW International for the purposes of organizing, education, advocating on regulatory and policy issues that impact our members, health and safety programs, and our strike and defense fund. You can learn more about the power of your union dollar here: Member Dues In Action l The USW

Standard USW dues are 1.45% of our pay, plus 2 cents per hour worked. Due to the structure of how the University tracks and pays our hours, our bargaining committee has negotiated a tentative agreement with the University to instead set our dues at 1.5% of our pay to make it easier to administer.

We don’t pay dues until after we vote to ratify our first contract.

Pitt’s administration has significant economic and legal resources. This is our chance to level the playing field. Our union dues are our collective financial power.

The time it takes to get to a tentative agreement on a contract varies. First contracts in particular are highly individualistic and a lot of factors contribute to the length of bargaining.

We’re happy to report that our Bargaining Committee is making great progress. We encourage you to sign up for the bargaining updates, as this is the best way to keep up to date with bargaining and track the progress.

You can find all of the past updates here: Bargaining Updates — Pitt Staff Union

To make sure you always get the latest updates quickly, sign up for texts by texting: pittstaff to phone number: 47486

As of right now all benefits, including retirement benefits, cannot change. Since we won our union in Fall of 2024 we are in what is called status quo, where Pitt’s administration cannot make unilateral changes to benefits.

As we continue to bargain, we will look to secure or improve these benefits.

We are pressuring lawmakers and advocating for the release of funds. We have formed a joint Rapid Response committee with the grad workers. Rapid Response is the Steelworkers’ nonpartisan grassroots education, communication and action program. It informs members about pending labor and work-related legislation, from advancing health and safety to protecting our right to bargain strong contracts. Through Rapid Response, all USW members have a voice in government decisions and legislative actions that affect them, their workplaces and their communities.

This structure is extremely effective. It is a way for USW to coordinate a large mobilization effort around issues that affect our union, across our many and varied sectors.

We organized a round table discussion in Pittsburgh with U.S. Representatives Chris Deluzio and Summer Lee and Pennsylvania Secretary of Policy & Planning, Akbar Hossain where staff, grad and faculty members got to share their stories of our how NIH funding cuts threaten union members and our families and jeopardize critical and life-saving medical research. We followed this with a lobby day in Washington, DC where staff, grads and faculty brought our message directly to Congress.

Now, we’re advocating for action from our Attorney General, David Sunday to protect our jobs and research.

If you have concerns or are interested in joining the Rapid Response committee reach out to a CAT team member or email us at staffunionofpitt@usw.org

The university has posted a list of bargaining unit members that is in progress with frequent updates. You can find the university’s list here.

If you are not on the list, but believe should be included in the union bargaining unit, please check it often and fill out this form with as much detail as possible so we can look into it.

We have a committee of people working with the administration to address issues where someone believes they should be in the bargaining unit, but are not included on the university’s list. This Inclusion Committee is working as quickly as possible to address these issues.

On January 21st, after months of negotiations, our Union and the administration signed an interim agreement formally called a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The purpose of this MOU is to resolve certain issues that may arise in the period between the union election and the ratification of a first contract. All of the topics covered in the MOU are still subject to negotiation as part of our contract. By negotiating this MOU, our Union has cleared a path for resolution of a number of important and urgent issues currently affecting staff, including promotional pay increases, equity increases, and supplemental pay. The administration is already working on processing and resolving many of these cases; however, there is a significant backlog, so it may take time. 

If you believe you're impacted by one of the issues covered under the MOU and your supervisor is not resolving the issue, please let us know by emailing staffunionofpitt@usw.org.

You can read the full text of the MOU here.

“Bargaining Unit” refers to all employees represented by the union and covered under the collective bargaining process.

Since we won our union, all Pitt Staff are now part of the bargaining unit. That means you have protections, including the right to union representation in disciplinary meetings, and protections against unfair, unilateral changes by the administration such as changing your pay or benefits. The university now has a legal obligation to negotiate these changes with our union.

Managers and supervisors are not eligible to be in the bargaining unit and will not be represented by the union or covered under the contract.

Even though the University supplied the list of eligible voters, they later made challenges to their own list, claiming some people are actually in supervisory roles. We are working through many of these on an individual basis to clarify and ensure all eligible bargaining unit members are in the unit. 

If this is you, please report it to us by filling out this form.

If you believe the University made a mistake by not putting you on the eligible voter list, let us know by filling out this form.

Unfortunately, we’ve heard this a lot – and it’s part of why having a union is so important!

Once we have a contract, it will help provide greater transparency and a clearer process for promotions and job changes.

If you believe you’ve been misclassified as a supervisor but don’t actually have supervisory responsibilities or your job has changed from a supervisory position to non-supervisory and you want to make sure you’re included in the bargaining unit, please fill out this form.

“Status quo” is a legal term that means the university can’t make certain types of changes on their own without consulting with our union. We’re currently working with the administration to address several instances where we believe they’ve inappropriately claimed something can or cannot be changed because of their obligation to maintain the “status quo” and to bargain with them regarding changes during the period we are negotiating our first contract. Check out our bargaining updates for the latest in these negotiations.