Well Sh!t, The Staff Wants to Unionize Pt 2

Oh Damn, that did not go how I expected: My first time at the bargaining table

The lawyer told us that a first contract will likely take a little over a year to finalize, possibly even up to two years. He also told us some pretty gnarly stories about other contract negotiations he’s done - fists pounding on the tables, chairs flipped, expletives flying, stalled negotiations, strikes, all kindsa things. I was definitely bracing myself for something to pop off at these meetings. The tension was already thick as hell.

After a few prep meetings going over the general process, putting together some standard proposals, and coming up with possible scenarios that staff may bring to the table, we coordinated with the Union to put some dates on the calendar to begin negotiations. Maybe now we can find out what the staff's major issues are and work to resolve them.

The day finally came for our first meeting. I had nervous sweats so bad I had to shove paper towels in my armpits. Me, our HR Manager, and the lawyer showed up to the meeting to find the Union represented by a negotiator, a couple Union reps, a couple organizers and the staff had 3 people on their bargaining team. We were outnumbered, which did not help with my sweatiness. Intros were made. Pleasantries were exchanged. Fine, let’s get to it already.

It was clear from the jump that the union negotiator came ready for a fight. But the first few meetings were relatively calm, slightly boring even. The most significant conflict and awkward moment was when the negotiator and our lawyer were arguing about standard language to some relatively insignificant contract article and the negotiator started talking about bringing a stack of contracts to prove his point and the lawyer said he’d bring his stack and they’d see whose stack is bigger. It probably didn’t help that I actually laughed out loud at the conversation.

Overall things were moving along at a good pace and we were sure we’d have this done well within a year. Then, much like our current staffing situation, it seemed like the bargaining team had a revolving door. They had a new person on the team every few meetings. New folks had to get caught up and now we were rescheduling meetings because they had nothing to present. We’d meet with proposals and leave the room so each party could caucus but hours would pass and they still wouldn’t have anything ready for us so we’d just go home for the day.

Months had come and gone and we still hadn’t gotten to the real juicy stuff. We were waiting for the dramatic main event of the financial portions and the pandemic provisions; the parts we had assumed were the major issues that staff had .I was getting impatient. Like, why can’t we just lay it all out and be done with this shit. But apparently that isn’t how it works. The Union brings something, we counter, they counter our counter, and so on until eventually we meet in the middle somewhere. Well, it doesn't always work that way either. We had made some pretty generous offers for tenure bonuses and PTO cash out, and they rejected them and left it on the table. Straight up turned down money. It made no sense. This must mean they were planning some big wage and financial package and didn’t want to allow our proposals to affect that.

They finally proposed some financial pieces. Retirement, healthcare, some other little things. Then they put forward wages, we went back and forth a couple times over a couple of meetings, and we met at exactly where we intended to meet from the beginning. It felt like a waste of time.

But ok, so financials weren’t the big climax we thought they’d be. It’s got to be the pandemic provisions then. A few meetings later we were just about wrapped up and here it comes, the proposal for the Pandemic Declaration… and when I tell you, this was the most boilerplate, generic-ass language I could have ever imagined; follow state and city laws and let the Union know if policies change. What the hell is this? I didn’t expect to be disappointed that there weren’t going to be fists pounding and chairs flipped, but here I was. We finished early at about 9 months, and after all of that, I’m still left wondering what started all of this.

Most of the staff who were here during the Union drive have long been gone. We do have a couple of staff still left who were in the Union but aren’t any more so maybe someday I’ll ask them what prompted the Union drive and what the concerns were. Or maybe I’ll never understand it. Either way, we’ve since negotiated a second contract which only took a couple of meetings and we have a great relationship with the Union. Sometimes I feel like management is more engaged with the Union than staff is, but I’m glad we have this partnership regardless of what the reasons were that started it.