The Pitt News
T h e i n d e p e n d e n t s t ude nt ne w spap e r of t he U niversity of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | OCTOBER 9, 2018 | Volume 109 | Issue 37
PITT QUEER PROFESSIONALS KICKS OFF COMING OUT WEEK
GRADUATE STUDENTS MAKE THEIR CASE FOR UNIONIZATION Janine Faust
Managing Editor
Co-chair of Pitt Queer Professionals Briar Somerville paints overlapping hearts on a chalkboard wall at a kickoff event for Coming Out Week and LGBTQIA+ History Month hosted at the Center for Creativity. Bader Abdulmajeed | staff photographer
NEW POLICY REWRITES RULES ON DONATED BOOKS FOR INMATES
Emily Wolfe
donates books to Pennsylvania prisoners. “Your program really helped me,” she wrote in a letter to Book ‘Em. “When I’m feeling down and Amanda, an inmate at the Pennsylvania State depressed, I read. It takes my mind off things.” Correctional Institute at Cambridge Springs, alNow, government policies preventing inways had one thing to look forward to — a packmates from receiving books have halted Book age from Book ‘Em, a Pittsburgh-based program ‘Em in its tracks. that operates through the Thomas Merton CenAfter several staff members became sick, ter, a nonprofit social justice organization, and concerns about synthetic cannabinoids arose and Staff Writer
the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections initiated a 12-day lockdown from Aug. 29 to Sept. 10. Midway through the lockdown, Gov. Tom Wolf and Corrections Secretary John Wetzel announced the arrival of new security protocols for the DOC, which include a ban on donated books from organizations like Book ‘Em. Inmates who See Book ‘Em on page 2
After a week of testimony in front of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, the Graduate Student Organizing Committee and Pitt have come to one conclusion — hearings will have to continue at a later date. According to Beth Shaaban, a union organizer who earned her doctorate in epidemiology from Pitt in 2018, the hearings will continue at a later date yet to be determined because the administration could not present all its witnesses in the original time frame allotted to them by the board. “We really hope it will not cause further delay of our election, which we petitioned the labor board for nearly a year ago,” she said. University spokesperson Joe Miksch said proceedings of this sort can take longer than expected. “This hearing is part of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board’s standard process, and we are simply following their process,” he said. The hearing, which took place Tuesday, Oct. 2 through Friday, Oct. 9 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Oakland, will ultimately determine if Pitt’s graduate students have the right to file a petition for a union election with the PLRB. Graduate students cannot participate in a union election if they are not seen as employees by the See Union on page 2