Why Do Bargaining Council Have Their Own Rules

Collective bargaining is a powerful policy tool, and key policies obtained by unions in bargaining have historically set the stage for subsequent local, state, and federal laws on a variety of issues, including anti-discrimination policies, sick leave, and wages. Labour laws have been heavily distorted in favour of employers since the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which amended the National Labour Relations Act of 1935 in a manner outrageously favourable to the corporate class and against workers. In decades of debates about how unions can be rebuilt – about organizing unions versus unions, about internal union democracy, and about top-down unions versus bottom-up unions – little has been written about the collective bargaining process itself. While Kate Bronfenbrenner`s groundbreaking research on unionization in the 1990s focused on steps workers can take to improve their chances of getting a first contract, there is little contemporary research on how unions bargain – and how they can do it better. Larsen and DeVicaris prepared a detailed presentation on what they believe to be the central elements of an open bargaining campaign: a member engagement team (a type of contract action team) made up of grassroots leaders with relationships for the entire workplace; personal “focused discussions” between members before and during negotiations; regular communication from the bargaining team on what is happening in the negotiations; and bargaining sessions open to all members. With the endorsement of “two of the most conservative labor lawyers we knew,” Larsen and DeVicaris began informing local presidents of the new approach, focusing on associations with a history of mistrust between members and management, or a particularly contentious relationship with their school board. Since workers were supported by the national union, Larsen and DeVicaris were not dogmatic about how local associations approached change. Elected leaders of local associations can “push to the extreme whatever they are willing to do” as long as they are transparent and communicative and prioritize individual organization. Soon, Burke`s local, the Mercer County Special Services Educational and Therapeutic Association (MCSSETA), the Watchung Hills Regional Education Association (WHREA) and two other local associations were hired to try to open negotiations for the first time. Another venue, the Readington Township Educational Association (RTEA), decided to conduct transparent negotiations and agreed to radically improve communication about the negotiations, although the meetings themselves remained closed.

When Silva and other Local 26 members talked about their work, retirement was at the forefront for many. The local pension fund was newly established and the benefits accumulated, even for older workers, were modest. Soon, the reality of what it meant to not have retirement savings began to register for younger workers as well. Ye Qing Wei, a maid at the Sheraton Boston, a Starwood Marriott hotel and the largest in the city, didn`t quite understand why her own mother, also a maid, always cleaned the rooms. “I`m 52, so I don`t know why 70-year-olds are still working.” Then she and her mother did the math together. “My mother worked at the hotel for over 25 years. She now has $1,100 for retirement. So she said, “I pay $400 for rent and I pay $300 for insurance.

How am I supposed to survive when there is only $400 left? At the very least, workers wanted to be able to pay the monthly premium for Medicare supplements to maintain the level of insurance they had under the union`s health and social health plan. Union Standard: A basis for wages and benefits distributed through collective agreements within a specific industry/industry and labour market. A union standard can be established and maintained through city-wide contracts, me-too agreements, or simply through the power of the union organization. Case Studies: MNA; UNITE HERE members left the World Café with a better understanding of their employees` problems. The negotiating team left with a clear idea of members` negotiating priorities and a butchery document filled with notes on how best to explain the proposals. The meeting put rank-and-file members in the position of their staff on the bargaining team and prepared them for what the actual bargaining sessions would look like. “It`s starting to show other members that it`s really hard to come up with an explanation that isn`t just `This should be it,`” Larsen said. “They`re starting to realize that it`s really not easy to sit down at the table and negotiate against their bosses,” DeVicaris said. “They never thought of it like that.

After that, the team gets a lot more respect. When it comes to dispute resolution, the commissioners who assist the collective bargaining board specialize in the sector and the collective agreement. Businesses, unions and workers receive expert advice and assistance from the Commissioner in dispute resolution. Room Rules: A set of internal rules established by the collective bargaining committee and communicated and accepted by all workers participating in bargaining sessions. Not to be confused with the ground rules that are negotiated with the employer and apply to both parties. Room rules should include Pokerface, the negotiator as the designated speaker, and a method of communicating with the negotiator during meetings, such as passing notes. Case studies: Einstein; NJEA; MNA A timetable for the escalation of structural testing by Law360 union members ahead of their strike vote. Law360 had already abolished non-compete obligations before it even sat down with management. And for a while, negotiations seemed to start smoothly, with members winning an early victory when the company agreed to abolish the quota system. “We felt like we were making progress, and then all of a sudden we realized we were slowly being rolled over by the steering,” Rodriguez said. “We started discussing words in the proposals or philosophical arguments about whether it was appropriate to include a certain provision in the first treaty, things like that.” Things really stopped when it came to discussing competence – the amount of work that would be covered by the collective agreement. Strong contractual language defining union responsibilities was important to ensure that supervisors or subcontractors did not begin to remove what constitutes “union work,” reduce the size of the union over time, or prevent the union from growing with the company. After months of back-and-forth to get the company to deviate from its initial position – without any jurisdictional clause – the mobilization committee took action.

Fact-finding: A dispute resolution mechanism that may be required under public sector labour law if the union and employer cannot reach an agreement. During the investigation of the facts, a neutral third party reviews the negotiating situation and issues a report and recommendation for an agreement. Case Study: NJEA In early January 2018, journalists, data journalists, writers, photographers, videographers, web and audio producers, page designers, librarians, and other contributors voted 248-44 to join NewsGuild. The unit included not only the main newsroom in downtown Los Angeles, but also community newspaper offices throughout the area and dispersed remote employees. Through negotiations, it then expanded to the newspaper`s office in Washington, D.C. A month after the election, and after revelations that Tronc had set up a “ghost newsroom” to replace unionized employees with new non-unionized employees employed by a separate business unit, the company announced plans to sell the paper to a new owner.