About 75 University of Pittsburgh faculty members, frustrated by the slow pace of trying to secure their first union contract, protested Wednesday outside the provost’s office in the Cathedral of Learning.

They did not manage to get a face-to-face meeting with Provost Ann Cudd, Pitt’s chief academic officer.

Instead, the faculty members stood outside her door and read a statement through an intercom as she listened, presumably from somewhere inside her eighth-floor offices.

The Union of Pitt Faculty, part of the United Steelworkers, is calling for automatic contract renewals for non-tenure-stream faculty, who at present must frequently undergo what they say is a cumbersome review process that can push nearly to the start of classes each semester, impeding student learning.

It can mean less time to develop curriculum for their students and delays ordering and securing textbooks and other materials when classes begin, those present said. It also is unnecessary, they added.

“If we are doing a good job, and there is work for us to do, the default should be that we can continue to do that work,” said Melinda Ciccocioppo, teaching associate professor in the Department of Psychology.

At times rallying the crowd by speaking through a bullhorn, Ciccocioppo told those on hand that faculty on short-term appointments represent two-thirds of the university’s teaching force.

“It is our work that makes this university,” she said.

Organizers also are calling for a $60,000 floor for annual pay for full-time instructors across the bargaining unit.

The union represents more than 3,000 full- and part-time faculty on the main Oakland campus and branches at Bradford, Greensburg, Johnstown and Titusville. Members voted overwhelmingly to join the union. Results of that election were announced in October 2021.

But more than a year later, bargaining has yet to yield a contract and the process has grown increasingly tense.

A major issue in the talks is job security.

The union pointed out on its website that Cudd has declared the 2022-23 academic year as “the year of emotional well-being,” and added, “For the two-thirds of the faculty who are on short-term appointments, a major challenge to our emotional well-being is the anxiety and stress of having to frequently renew our contracts.”

“The most straightforward way to improve our emotional well-being would be to eliminate the unnecessary precarity of our jobs,” the union said.

In July, the union called for automatic contract renewal, saying productive faculty — many of them on single-year or multi-year contracts — should not have to reapply for their jobs.

Both sides are scheduled to meet for talks again on Dec. 14.

The provost listened as speakers made their case, but reminded them that she is under restrictions imposed for the collective bargaining process.

“Just so you know, I cannot discuss with any bargaining unit faculty members any aspect of the bargaining,” Cudd said.

Like other departments, hiring of full-time music faculty has lagged behind student demand, meaning many important courses for majors and non-majors are taught by lower-paid, part-time instructors, said Marcelle Pierson, 37, a teaching associate professor.

They must be rehired every semester and sometimes are unable to access campus resources such as the library for a week into the new term, Pierson said in remarks directed to the provost.

“The level of burnout is extremely high,” she said. “We are hemorrhaging valuable people.”

Wednesday’s crowd was orderly during the 45-minute protest, though it made for odd scene, as workers inside various provost offices looked out at the crowd through closed partial glass doors as faculty were led in chants of “We have the Power!” And “Union Power!”

Pitt is Western Pennsylvania’s largest university, with 29,000 of its roughly 34,000 students located on the main campus in Oakland.

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