Allow the new election
Pitt should heed proposed PLRB ruling
The University of Pittsburgh’s attempt to block a new graduate assistant union election is an affront to democratic principles, a display of disrespect for the right to pursue organization.
A Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board official last month ordered a new election, ruling that Pitt had engaged in unfair labor practices in the run-up to the previous union election in April. The university is appealing this ruling to the full PLRB, asserting that it is in the right and that the results of the first election, in which unionization was defeated by just 37 votes, should be honored.
Pitt also noted that nine of the 12 allegations raised by union organizers against the university were determined not to have constituted unfair labor practices.
But the PLRB official, hearing examiner Stephen Helmerich, found that Pitt did commit three unfair labor practices around the April election, including the placement of manipulative information in a university Q&A on unionization and the suspected surveillance of voting lists. Mr. Helmerich determined that this activity was coercive, and that it “potentially affected a large enough pool of eligible voters for the effect on the election to be manifest due to the extreme narrowness of the result.”
The university would have been wise to respect Mr. Helmerich’s judgment and, in turn, respect the rights of its teaching, research and graduate assistants to freely consider organization. Instead, it will spend tax and tuition dollars on its misguided efforts to stop the new election, after having already spent in excess of $230,000 between 2016 and 2018 for legal support in the run-up to campus unionization efforts.
It would be smarter and more just for Pitt to simply get out of the way and let the chips fall where they may. University officials may be opposed to unionization — that is their right — but that does not justify any obstruction in a union election. There must be respect for the democratic process and Pitt should trust those voting in the union election to make the decision best for themselves and the university.