At the University of Pittsburgh, roughly thirty-five hundred educators are currently voting on whether to unionize. Should they do so, they would constitute one of the largest new unions in the United States so far this year. The election, years in the making, is being conducted through the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB). Mail-in ballots went out on August 27, and are due back by October 12.

The union is organized with the Pittsburgh-headquartered United Steelworkers (USW), with whom Pitt’s graduate workers are also organizing — earlier this year, the PLRB dismissed a petition by the USW to overturn those workers’ 2019 election that resulted in a narrow rejection of the union. The USW counts a number of other Pittsburgh-area academics among its members, representing adjuncts at Point Park and Robert Morris Universities.

The thousands-strong faculty union at the public institution is all-ranks: it includes lecturers, adjuncts, tenure-track professors, and tenured professors. Some members primarily teach; others spend the bulk of their time conducting research. While the former are particularly concerned with increases in class sizes and workloads that have not been accompanied by increases in pay, and the former may be focused on the allocation of lab space and research grants, they share an employer, and the need for a say on the job.