Pitt grad students file for union election

Graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh announced Friday that they have filed for a union election with state labor officials, with an eye toward holding a vote early next year.

The students, by delivering signed union authorization cards to the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board office in Harrisburg, seek to vote on whether to elect the United Steelworkers to collectively bargain with the university for a contact to cover them.

The filing follows an organizing effort spanning roughly two years and including some 2,000 graduate students at the school. It touches off what could be a contentious legal battle before the labor relations board, which is tasked with certifying any union election.

“Graduate students do important work that is vital to the success of the university,” said USW international president Leo W. Gerard in a statement. “They deserve to have a voice on the job.”

For a union vote to be held, the labor board requires at least 30 percent of people who would be represented by a union to sign union authorization cards. A United Steelworkers spokeswoman said Friday that more than 50 percent of the graduate students had signed cards — which don’t necessarily mean a

“yes” vote for the union but is a strong indicator of approval.

The union needs a simple majority of votes cast to win the election.

The students are seeking more transparency in the decision-making process that affects their working conditions, as well as protections against discrimination and harassment. The university could dispute the vote and scope of the bargaining unit.

The outcome could sway a second effort by the United Steelworkers to organize about 5,000 tenured, tenure-track and adjunct professors in a separate bargaining unit.

The university, which has sent out letters urging

Pitt students are seeking more transparency in the decision-making process that affects their working conditions, as well as protections against discrimination and harassment.

students to oppose the unionization effort, now has the chance to formally oppose the election before the labor board. It could challenge whether the union has gathered enough signed union cards or whether its proposed bargaining unit is legal.

In August, the school circulated a letter urging the student workers to weigh pros and cons before signing and telling them that union representation does relationship graduate students have with their faculty” and their school.

A Pitt spokesman did not say Friday whether it would object to the election.

“We have heard about the filing,” said Joe Miksch, the school’s director of media relations. “We are committed to providing our graduate students with an exceptional academic experience, and this will remain our focus moving forward.”

For the United Steelworkers, Pitt would be a major prize for the Downtown-based union that has been reaching into college campuses in recent years.

The union now represents 300 adjunct faculty at Point Park University and 430 at Robert Morris University. In 2012, about 80 adjunct faculty in liberal arts at Duquesne University overwhelmingly approved a union vote, though the Catholic school is challenging that election.

The union also tried to organize faculty at Chatham University in 2016, but abruptly canceled the election before ballots were cast.