To Faculty Assembly Vice President Kristin Kanthak, the recent actions of the faculty union are “frustrating and embarrassing”.

Four months after Pitt faculty voted overwhelmingly in favor of unionization, the union’s newly formed bargaining committee sat down alongside United Steelworkers representatives last Friday to negotiate with the administration for the first time.

Researchers and professors from across all Pitt campuses voted resoundingly to form a faculty union, according to a copy of an election returns document obtained by The Pitt News.

A “union avoidance” law firm continues to receive a large windfall of legal fees from Pitt, recently passing $1 million, according to University financial disclosure reports.

Forming a faculty union at a Pennsylvania university actually isn’t too complicated — in theory.

An “inflated” union eligibility list dilutes the significance of each authorization card, making it harder for union organizers to collect cards from the 30% of faculty needed to prompt a union election.

Pitt filed an exception Tuesday to a proposed ruling by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board.

After ruling June 18 that the size of the bargaining unit for Pitt’s faculty union was under review, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board ordered Pitt to turn over several pieces of information to faculty union organizers — most notably, a list of faculty eligible to be in the potential bargaining unit.

Faculty union organizers faced a major setback when the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board ruled in April they failed to collect enough signed authorization cards to prompt a union election.

Nestled in a small office in downtown’s Piatt Place building, a group of lawyers debated the future of Pitt graduate student unionization Tuesday and Wednesday.