Day 10 of 2010 National Bargaining

Tuesday, May 25, 2101

Over the last two weeks the writing team has been working nonstop to craft the language around the concepts we agreed on with management during our last bargaining session. They have been working hard to navigate where in the National Agreement our recommendations should be added, fit in the changes to the existing language, and organize our other recommendations such as the signing of the National Agreement. Those agreements were important and precedent setting.

Today in our Coalition labor caucus, the writing team presented the results of their work. Additionally, they shared the process of working with the National Bargaining Coordinating Committee (senior labor and senior management leaders) for about ten hours yesterday.

Some of these, "senior management leaders" had not participated in our bargaining sessions, nor had they participated on our subcommittees. Because they had not participated, and apparently did not understand or agree with some of the, “agreements” made by their own managers, our "agreements" which we already had agreement on, were seemingly open to debate. Seems that these, "senior management leaders," are the true, "decision makers." Reportedly, labor prevailed on most accounts, yet a few of our previously agreed on issues were moved to the, “unresolved” list.

Once again, as I previously stated in my earlier blogs, for the better part of most of bargaining, we have been negotiating with the, non-decision makers.

Now, finally, we have the decision makers in the room.

In the Coalition labor caucus, we went through all of the agreements, language changes, additions and unresolved issues. We came to consensus on the agreements, strategized on how to get the most important unresolved issues back on the table and agreed to scrap others.

Then we waited, and waited and waited for management.

When we finally met with them (close to 5:00 PM), we went through the same process. We gained consensus on all of the newly crafted agreement language and changes, and went through the unresolved issues list. Additionally, we presented ways in which some of the unresolved issues could become resolved through the creation of subcommittees here at bargaining and in the Executive Strategy Committee. We once again gained consensus on the signing of the National Agreement by the Common Issues Committee.

Then, rather than spend time on the unresolved issues, we wanted to go straight into wages and benefits.

After all, we need to know that management is in agreement with not trying to get concessions (impose co-pays or rescind some of our retiree benefits). Because if we don’t get that agreement, then we won’t have a National Agreement settlement because we will walk away from the table.

So, some time after 9:00 PM senior labor leaders were sending a message to the senior management leaders (the decision makers who are finally here with us) that we are calling the question: Are we here to settle this without loosing any benefits or not.

Until tomorrow, my brothers and sisters,

In Unity, Rachelle