BARGAINING
UPDATES

November 10, 2025

Key Takeaways

• The administration finally responded to our Career Advancement proposal

• Discussions continued regarding a procedure for dealing with health and safety concerns

Our meeting with the administration on Monday November 10, 2025, yielded constructive discussions about two proposals. We were glad to finally receive a counter to our career advancement proposal, which has been in their court since June. Among the things we hope to accomplish through an agreement on this proposal are: 1. To set a timeline for decisions to be made when a staff member requests a promotion or job change. 2. To ensure that employees are evaluated for promotions based upon current performance, not long-past unsatisfactory performance evaluations or performance improvement plans. 3. To give qualified employees preference for open positions over outside applicants and to recognize the value of accumulated service, and 4. To eliminate provisional periods for staff who are promoted or change jobs, instead creating a trial period that would permit the employee to return to their prior position if the new job is not a good fit. Getting to an agreement on exactly when provisional periods will or won’t apply is critical before we can reach an agreement on our separate Provisional Period proposal, which outlines their general structure and implementation. After the discussions at the table we submitted our own counter, and we hope that we can continue to make meaningful progress toward an agreement.

Last time, we told you that in response to comments from the administration, we put forward a Health and Safety counterproposal that detailed our vision for the collaborative process we would like to implement to address potentially unsafe working conditions. Since this is the last major barrier to reaching an agreement, we were pleased that they were receptive to our concept, and we look forward to resolving the last few procedural details as soon as possible.

As we continue to move forward toward our first contract, we need to amplify our message and share important information by many different means. If you’ve been looking for a way to get involved and have an interest in helping out on our social media team, please let us know by emailing us at staffunionofpitt@usw.org.

In solidarity,

Your bargaining committee
Jen Goeckeler-Fried, Chair, Biological Sciences, DSAS
Kearsten Adams, Recording Secretary, Academic Advising, UPG
Shawn Alfonso Wells, Pitt Global Experiences, UCIS
Lydia Chmill, Disability Resources & Services, OTC
Emily Daller, University Child Development Center, OHR
Jay Hornack, Law
Todd Shaffer, Office of Student Life, UPJ
Michelle Utz-Kiley, Epidemiology, SPH
Dan Wyszomierski, UPCI/NSABP
Matt Nader, USW
Nate Kilbert, USW
Don Shaffer, USW
Bernie Hall, District 10 Director, USW