All Teaching Assistants (TAs), Teaching Fellows (TFs), Graduate Student Researchers (GSRs) and Graduate Student Assistants (GSAs) at Pitt are eligible to be in our union.

Unfunded grad students, grads on external fellowships, and grads on training grants are ineligible because they are not directly employed by the University.
 
If you have questions about your own eligibility or want to know more about how the state labor board made this decision, get in touch! If you’re not eligible this semester but believe you will be next semester or next year, sign your union card and stay in touch with us! We know a lot of grads move in and out of different funding sources. One of our priorities as a union will be to promote funding grad student security across the university.

Graduate workers typically choose to organize with a larger labor union, such as the United Steelworkers (USW). The grad workers who started this union chose the USW because it is an extremely democratic union with a strong presence among professionals and in higher education, both in Pittsburgh and on Pitt’s campus. USW’s expertise is in building strong local unions and empowering workers to advocate for themselves and each other, giving us resources that will help us to secure the best possible contract and grow the strongest possible union for grad workers.

As employees, we have the absolute right, protected by Pennsylvania state law, to organize and join a union to negotiate with our employer over the terms and conditions of our employment. This includes our right to distribute union literature, wear union buttons, solicit coworkers to sign union authorization cards, and discuss the union with coworkers.
 
Supervisors, managers, and administrators cannot spy on you, coercively question you, threaten you, or bribe you regarding your union activity. You can't be fired, disciplined, demoted, expelled, or penalized in any way for engaging in these activities: that's against state law.

Labor law protects all graduate student workers, including international students. International students have the same rights as U.S. citizens to participate in union activity. It is illegal for an employer to threaten an international student’s visa status for joining or supporting a union. Many grad union contracts create specific benefits, support, protections, and opportunities for international students. As international students at Pitt, we’ll be stronger and safer when we sign union cards and vote to form our grad workers union together.

Dues are 1.45% of our pay, plus 2 cents per hour worked.
 
We don’t pay dues until after we democratically ratify our first contract.
 
44% of the dues we pay comes back to our own grad worker local union and we have direct control over how that money is allocated: we will use it to support and empower each other.
 
Pitt’s administration has significant economic and legal resources. This is our chance to level the playing field. Our union dues are our collective financial power.