While universities in the region continue to define artificial intelligence’s role on campus, some higher ed unions hope to gain clarity at the bargaining table.
The University of Pittsburgh is in the midst of contract negotiations with much of its faculty, staff and graduate students — the latter two are bargaining for the first time since unionizing. Union members broadly seek commitments to job security, privacy and human evaluation.
These asks reflect the anxieties of many college and university workers around the country, as some institutions suggest their roles could be heavily augmented or even replaced by AI. Their fears are compounded by the rate at which AI continues to evolve, and the fact that several higher ed institutions haven’t formalized policies around it.
Research universities, like Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University, have especially embraced AI as both an area of study and a resource to be mined. The two local schools have hosted notable industry gatherings around innovation, and their respective presidents each tout the tech’s capabilities.
“We’ve seen a pretty rapid effort by universities to adopt AI tools, and with, I would say, much more kind of inconsistent thinking and policy development about guardrails and protections for how those AI tools might impact academic work at universities,” said Tyler Bickford, president of Pitt’s faculty union.
Is consistency on the horizon?
Protections don’t deter innovation
Bickford and other higher ed union representatives interviewed for this story emphasized that they aren’t taking an anti-AI stance during the bargaining process.
“We don’t see any conflict between, kind of, excellence and innovation on the one hand, and protecting our jobs and protecting our intellectual property on the other hand,” he said.
In fact, Bickford sees the two parties as occupying the same lane, so to speak. Both faculty members and administrators want to ensure Pitt preserves its reputation as a university that provides quality education to its students. Bickford said having AI tools teach, for example, threatens that goal.
Public Source sent Pitt a list of questions about AI usage in the workplace, including if the university believes AI tools are capable of providing quality instruction. In response to these questions, university spokesperson Jared Stonesifer wrote: “The university has engaged at the bargaining table with the union on topics related to AI, as appropriate and where required by law.”
“We look forward to continuing these and other discussions,” he continued.
Bickford said there’s been progress on bargaining areas such as faculty evaluations, surveillance and intellectual property, “to some extent.” However, other objectives have languished, including a plank proposed by the union that all courses be designed and taught by humans.
The university’s latest counterproposal eliminates, among other things, that clause and another asking for faculty to have autonomy over how they use AI in their work. According to the American Association of University Professors, such autonomy falls in line with academic freedom, which is a core tenet of higher education.
Stonesifer did not respond when asked if the university considers AI autonomy to be academic freedom-related.
Read more about academic freedom in higher ed
Why academic freedom is a heated topic in Pitt grad union negotiations
Grad students asked Pitt to “stand with their workers” on the topic academic freedom, hoping students’ stories would sway administrators to consider engaging with the issue. Pitt has yet to respond.
Pitt isn’t the only institution in the area weighing AI concerns at the bargaining table.
Contract negotiations began last month for faculty and coaches at Pennsylvania’s state-owned universities, and its union president said AI is expected to come up.
Kenneth Mash, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, said PASSHE — the system governing state-owned schools — acknowledges that AI is a hot topic and will be open to discussing it. He said he doesn’t know if any areas will be particularly thorny.
A PASSHE spokesperson said all topics are negotiated in good faith, and the system is evaluating policy language for how its universities interact with AI.
Better outcomes or more measurement?
Slippery Rock Associate Professor Patrick McGinty believes faculty are obligated to question new technologies and processes. McGinty works with Mash as an executive council member for PASSHE’s union, and said he is concerned with whether integrating AI tools leads to true job performance improvements or simply enables more measurement.
It is unclear how many higher ed institutions around the country employ AI in their performance evaluations, but schools such as the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill maintain AI usage guides for their human resources departments.
Asked whether AI is used for faculty evaluations, PASSHE said, “the use of AI is not referenced in the faculty evaluation section of the current collective bargaining agreement.” Stonesifer did not address whether Pitt uses AI in evaluations.
McGinty said the “real-world remarkable impact” a faculty member brings to campus can’t be catalogued and quantified.
The Cathedral of Learning rises in the background as Pitt’s faculty union rallies at Posvar Hall on Sept. 16, in Oakland. The union proposed a plank that all courses be designed and taught by humans. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source) 
Melinda Ciccocioppo, recording secretary and chair of the organizing committee for Pitt’s faculty union and faculty member in the psychology department, kicks off a union rally at Posvar Hall on Sept. 16, in Oakland. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source) 
The Pitt Faculty Union chants during a rally outside Posvar Hall before a bargaining session with the university on Sept. 16, in Oakland. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
The same applies to staff at colleges and universities, said Jen Goeckeler-Fried, the bargaining committee chair for Pitt’s staff union, which is negotiating its first contract with the university.
Goeckeler-Fried said staff’s greatest concern about AI is its potential for replacing workers. She said within the past year, some members reported being asked by supervisors to describe their duties, which has put staff on guard.
While Pitt hasn’t identified layoffs as being connected to AI, letting go of staff in favor of new models isn’t without precedent at the school.
Last year, Pitt laid off 13 information technology employees and outsourced help desk work to a third party. The university said the decision was not a reflection of their performance, and instead a strategic move to ensure “service consistency.”
Stonesifer did not detail to Public Source if the third party utilizes AI. Salesforce, the company Pitt outsourced to, states on its website that AI agents handle some tasks, including live chats.
The staff union’s bargaining committee was told about the layoffs before the affected IT help desk employees. As a result, the union informed some of the employees ahead of the university, which set off a series of back-and-forths between Pitt and the bargaining committee.
“We felt like the university should have contacted us before making this decision, and bargained over the impact to the staff members,” Goeckeler-Fried said.
While legal options were considered, things never rose to that point, according to Goeckeler-Fried. She said the bargaining committee negotiated severance packages for those fired.
That incident, in part, informed how the committee began proposing layoff protections for union members. Initially, they proposed more explicit language stating staff would not be laid off because of AI or new technology, but Goeckeler-Fried said Pitt rejected it, citing that technology wasn’t “a mandatory subject of bargaining by law.”
Stonesifer did not respond when asked about the staff proposal.
In the end, Goeckeler-Fried said the bargaining committee’s “way of getting around” the sticky topic was to obtain some data security protections and an agreement that Pitt would meet with union members to discuss any proposed technology changes and the effects of implementation.
Maddy Franklin reports on higher ed for Pittsburgh’s Public Source, in partnership with Open Campus, and can be reached at madison@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Danny Arensberg.
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