Those who negotiate union contracts

njjel

For the formite who are part of a contract negotiation team, what number of members are on your negotiation team and why? I have always thought there should be at least 3 members on management's side of the table. Also who serves on the team and why?

Hunter1

In our case, it is:

1)Me, because I love that kind of work!
2)Personnel Analyst - She takes notes of the process and does analysis of cost, comparables, etc. Also for input/suggestions when I can't see the big picture.
3)At least one management member who understands how current language or changes will actually affect the day-to-day function of the department(s) involved. To keep me from making mistakes, and to keep us moving toward a usable product. Again, for input/suggestions and to answer questions about function.

Geno

njjel,

In our case, just two -- myself and the director of finance who was chosen for her working knowledge of the agency’s policies and procedures and her uncanny ability to recall minute details. Obviously, one is not enough, but who and how many you need beyond that depends on the union(s) you are negotiating with and the complexity of the issues being negotiated. My rule of thumb is the fewer, the better. We may occasionally bring in someone to address a specific concern, but for the most part, just two.

GENO, SPHR

Don D

Since both sides have to announce their negotiating team and management has to set up the room, I favor not being overwhelmed by, say 8 employee/union negotiators and 2 or 3 company. It should be orchestrated in my opinion and include the major players so you're not ocnstantly 'calling back to the plant for input and answers'.

The last one I was in, I was the lead negotiator, the CFO, to whom I reported, was present, the director of manufacturing and his boss, a Vice President over engineering and manufacturing. I had given all supervisors and managers two months to submit to me their ideas in written format for changes to the contract, and we had at least five meetings to iron those out before negotiations.

The orchestration part was the minority owner (money wise) appeared on the third day and the primary, majority owner, appeared on next to last day.

Of course all of us, whether in the room or not, met constantly in the room reserved for that purpose, throughout the day and at night to keep our ducks organized.

As things developed and were reduced to the more important issues toward the end of the week, the primary owner came in for the morning and listened and talked a bit and announced that he and his family were leaving for a week tomorrow. That shocked the union into knowing they needed to cut bait or fish and either sit on their hands for a week till he got back or accept one of our packages. They knew he had the final say on lots of proposals.

I'll say this though; we should have had the accounting expert in there. As it was, he was not invited, but we constantly were on the phone to him and had him working into the evenings providing numbers on all the scenarios. It would have served the purpose better had he been at the table, listening and calculating.

There's also something to be said for 'numbers'. You will get your share of the credit but not all of the blame.

WT

I have negotiated a good many contracts and have done it with as few as one person (myself) on the management side or as many as 4 to 5. Numbers really mean nothing. There are several critical areas to understand and you must have as many or few people as needed at the table depending on their knowledge. Contract language is a must to reduce to written language precisely what you intend, finances must be understood with an analysis of what effect your negotiations will have on the bottom line, front line supervisors must be included or consulted on those vital work rule issues that make their lives easier or harder depending on the final product. Finally, a board or CEO will have to be included as to what can be spent. They are often not in the room but are vital to the effort none the less. I usually start gathering issues for a negotiation right after a contract is settled. Poll management on issues that arise and problems that need to be settled by contract language. Start a file to be used at next negotiation. Money issues and the bottom line can be left to the end as your board of CEO will not want to predict what can be spent or done three or four years in the future.

Hunter1

Good ideas, all, but I would personally NEVER bring in a more important member of management near the end of negotiations. That just means that we're not really going to get down to business until that important person shows up, so next time we'll just dance around until he/she shows up, then we'll get down to business. You need to have authority to act for the business, and the union rep needs to understand that.

Your question dealt with who would be on the bargaining team, but others have made some very good points: start preparing for next negotiations as soon as this one is over; keep notes, ask for input, meet with the individuals who will work with the contract during its term, etc.

Whatever

On our side, the team consists of myself, the ceo, cfo and vp of manufacturing. However, at the last negotiation, the union brought in an attorney as their chief negotiator. The man was written word infatuated and was completely unprepared (and had only limited time in his schedule to negotiate). As a result of his demands (many of which had nothing to do with the negotiations), we ended up bring an attorney into the mix and eventually a federal mediator. It something I hope never to go through again.

njjel

Good suggestions. The reason I posted my question was that I have been asked to be a negotiator along w/another member of management who is on the same level as I am. No upper management members are on the team and this concerned me. Am I headed for trouble here? I assume I will receive "marching orders" but nothing has been decided yet other than it's me and another middle manager on the team and he is not a financial person, but a supervisor.

Whatever

The reason for the high level management is that in the end the contract is a financial document (holidays and vacation cost, salary cost,benefits cost etc.) and, also, a set of rules (working hours, etc.). It would be very unfortunate, for example, if you negotiated a contract and then found out it was more than the company could afford.

njjel

Whatever - I think what they are trying to say here is that if we don't have upper management weigh in until the end of the nego. that the unions will not recognize US as the true negotiators and will hold back until the end. This is exactly what I am thinking will happen w/me and my co-worker and why I am concerned. I want to ask for a 3rd member from the upper level of management.

Don D

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 05-10-05 AT 10:26AM (CST)[/font][br][br]You have to do what you think will work for YOU. The reason it worked for us to bring the CEO/owner in at the end was this; the union had no idea he would even show upsince typically he does not. A co-owner had been there earlier and the VPs are the decision makers and two of them were there, Engineering VP and CFO. The union had farted around for almost four entire days with minutia and posturing. We brought the CEO in and he talked for awhile about his plans for the company and what he would agree to, then announced he was going to be leaving town the next morning. They scrambled like mice caucasing and came back to the table and accepted one of our four final packages and dropped a majority of their demands. It worked just as planned.

And numbers absolutely have meaning. A junior manager without decision making power or a set of co-managers sitting across from eight or ten pseudo-powerful IBEW dinosaurs, plus several out of town heavyweights, one a lawyer, is quite an impossible imbalance. If nothing else it has the outcome of those two (you in this case) being overwhelmed by a feeling of powerlessness and lack of authority. There's not only strength in numbers, but there's also knowledge in numbers.

(edit) There is also the possibility that if you populate your table with managers or lower, you will be charged with refusal to bargain in good faith since you have nobody with decision making authority at the negotiations. Union officials do not like the prospect of bargaining with messengers.

njjel

Excellent point Don on the "failure to bargain in good faith" statement. As I said i don't know what the "orders" will be but if we don't have the authority I will bring up this point to upper management and perhaps they will see it in a different light. I sure hope so!

WT

Authority is so key that I assumed it would exist in my first post. However, back when I did my first negotiation the CEO wanted me to not agree to anything unless or until discussed with him. I call this the errand boy syndrome. In my opinion it is the worst of all models for negotiation. The CEO and I went round and round until he understood that the negotiator must have authority to actually negotiate and come to a tentative agreement. Guidelines and particularly financial guidelines are needed and generally welcomed by negotiators. We have a board here that votes on contracts (but I have never had one turned down). Bottom line - get your authority or if you cannot, bring somebody who has the authority to make a deal.