Minority of University’s staff members unionized

Students enjoyed a well-deserved — if somewhat early— break from classes Monday, in… Students enjoyed a well-deserved — if somewhat early— break from classes Monday, in honor of Labor Day, a federal holiday created in 1894.

The University’s labor pool, which the holiday in some part recognizes, is comprised of many jobs and even more people. Only a minority of Pitt staff members, however, is unionized.

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Human Resources John Greeno estimated that approximately 10 percent of Pitt’s 6,842 staff members are unionized, somewhere in the ballpark of 720 union employees.

Those figures include full-time and part-time employees at the main and all regional campuses. Temporary employees at Pitt are not unionized and not included in those calculations.

However, employees of Sodexho — Pitt’s food service provider — who are not counted as staff members of the University, may be unionized.

On its Web site, Sodexho says that it has almost 300 collective bargaining agreements and that 13 percent of its employees are unionized.

There are no faculty unions at Pitt, according to Greeno.

Greeno said that rarely do nonunionized staff members perform the same functions as union workers at Pitt.

“For the most part, it’s either unionized or not,” Greeno said. He added that exceptions come most often when a particular job is contracted out and tasks fall under different jurisdictions within the University than they normally would.

Pitt has collective bargaining agreements with eight unions.

The Service Employees International Union is Pitt’s largest union, with approximately 400 members on the main campus and 50 members in a separate local that serves the Johnstown campus.

Jobs covered by the Service Employees International Union include cleaners, groundskeepers, mechanics and incinerator operators.

The Pitt Police have the University of Pittsburgh Police Association, and officers at Johnstown have a similar union.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters does some hauling for Pitt.

The International Union of Operating Engineers has two locals for Pitt, one for the main campus and one for the regional campuses.

The final active union at Pitt is the Building and Construction Trades Council of Pittsburgh and Vicinity. Members of the Council operate six trade shops. They are carpentry, paint, electrical, plumbing, laborer and sheet metal shops.