Pitt’s Faculty Union Organizing Committee announced Wednesday on Facebook that it will begin asking faculty members to sign union authorization cards at a kickoff celebration Monday, Jan 22, in the William Pitt Union Ballroom. The event is co-hosted by the Pitt Progressives.

Pitt faculty and graduate students first formally announced a push to create their respective unions in January 2016. Damon Di Cicco, a faculty union organizer, said it has taken a collaborative effort — and time — to get to this point.

“It’s been a slow build for a couple of years,” Di Cicco said. “But in the last six months we’ve gotten a lot of support.”

Thirty percent of faculty members will need to sign cards in order for the Committee to file for an election with Pennsylvania Labor Board. Di Cicco said now is the time to push the card-signing because they have amassed significant support.

This move is coming about a month after the Graduate Student Union Organizing Committee filed for a union election in mid-December 2017, indicating that at least 30 percent of grad students had signed their union cards.