Nowadays the important responsibilities boards of educations face across the globe is negotiating with their unions. Bargaining can be at times both a daunting and difficult task. However, this responsibility is crucial because it has an extraordinary impact on a district’s budget, and therefore, its educational programming. Preparation: Union negotiators are going to come to the table prepared to make an argument for what they think is right.
Preparation by a board for negotiations should begin well in advance of the first bargaining session. Preparation activities should include costing out the contract; meeting with administrators and supervisors; conferring with outside consultants who can provide a contract review, salary guide analysis and insurance cost containment advice; appointing a negotiations team; gathering comparative data; and developing initial bargaining proposals. Going to the bargaining table without proper preparation will bog down negotiations, damage the board’s credulity, and impede the accomplishment of board goals. It’s important to have as much feedback from administrators and supervisors in order to identity troublesome areas of contract or other impediments to administrate discretion and flexibility.
The board will need to assess whether newly planned educational programs, changing operational needs, or the opening of a new building will require negotiations over affected terms and conditions of employment. Throughout the negotiations process, the board team needs to confer with administrators to understand the effect that negotiated changes would have on district operations. Guidelines: For both practical and legal reasons, the board’s negotiations team, not the full board, conducts that actual negotiations. To enable the team to bargain effectively, the board must develop parameters, or guidelines, for an acceptable settlement. These guidelines address the board’s issues. The process of establishing parameters focuses the board on its goals, objective, and priorities.
Bargaining parameters give the board’s negotiations team the necessary directing to plan its negotiations strategy and it’s timing for responses and counterproposal. Most important, parameters enable the team to reach a tentative agreement that will be supported and ratified by the board. Although guidelines are established at the beginning of negotiations, the team may need to ask the board to reassess the parameters, as negotiations progress. In some instances, the original parameters will be reaffirmed by the board; in other instances, they may need to be modified based on new information or on a re-evaluation of what is realistic and achievable. Numbers: Necessary pay and benefits data include relevant comparisons such as rate paid with the industry (Fossum, John A 2014 pg. 337).
Early in the process, the parties should agree on a scatter gram, or placement of staff on the salary guide, and calculate the salary base. Once the parties have signed off on the scatter gram, the standard practice is to freeze the scatter gram and salary base for the purpose of determining salary increases and salary guide construction over the entire term of contract. If this is not done, the parties may not be able to reach an agreement over salary increases because there is no clear understanding of the actual cost of the settlement. Using comparison: Comparative data is commonly used in both board and the union to support their arguments and positions. Understanding, that the limitation of the unions information and recognizing the school board will have different information. Health Care: Given the continued rise in cost of health insurance boards are seeking some means to addressing those costs at the bargaining table.
In order to be informed and effective persuader in negotiations it is crucial that board team meet with an insurance consultant prior to the onset of bargaining. 2. PRCTA (Pleasant Ridge Classroom Teacher Association) consider a reasonable settlement in which both party in negotiation labor have a win- win situation. As per PRCTA, other factors like political, economic, social, and technical etc. very low impact on negotiations because the real negotiations have not created any chance of unreasonable settlement. Only self-interests if ignore while negotiations then win or integrative bargaining may be achieved.
3. The fact finding is carried out by a neutral member from the qualified labor relations professional, along with one member each from the district management and the union. The fact-finder committee uses the information from both the parties as their evaluating criteria. This information is the comparative data and arguments. “Thus, fact finders facilitate integrative bargaining through the proposal of solutions and encourage interorganizational bargaining by legitimizing positions the principle negotiators may be willing to raise bur see as unacceptable to the memberships”. (Fossum, John A 2014, pg.
416) The recommendation should be in the favor of teachers, as there is no visible future for the increase in student intake and earnings of the Pleasant Ridge Board of Education. The growth of the school depends on the short-term projections, political outcomes/decisions, etc. Hence, in this case the teachers should not suffer for the gains of the board, which are yet to materialize. 4. I think the board should go to arbitration if an agreement cannot be negotiated due to not coming up with an agreement in a timely manner to get the kids education back on track.
“Arbitration is a quasi-judicial process in which parties agree to submit unresolved disputes to a neutral third party for binding settlements.” (Fossum, John A pg. 509). The board of education will have to approve the contract if arbitration is not used to solve the difference that they are having problem resolving. 5.
Collective bargaining negotiations between labor unions and corporate employers constitute a specialized area in the field of general negotiations but the underlying legal and relationship aspects make them distinct. Unlike a general business negotiations and law suit negotiations that are not regulated by statutory provisions, a collective bargaining negotiation is mandated and governed by external laws. Many different statutes come into play during the negotiations process. Private sector bargaining encounters are regulated by the national labor relations act for most workers and by the Civil service reform act, while state and local government personnel are under state public-sector bargaining laws.
Under the applicable statutes, employees have the right to organize and to select exclusive bargaining agents to negotiates collective agreements defining their wages, hours, and working conditions, they may engage in concerted activity for mutual and protection. For private sector workers, this allows them the protected right to strike. Although federal workers and most state and local employees are prohibited from striking, several states do permit non-essential personnel to participate in work stoppages. Individuals who engage in lawful economic strike may not be dismissed or otherwise disciplined for such protected activity, nut under the Mackay Radio decision of the supreme Court they may be permanently replaced. After they have been replaced, they maintain preferential recall rights and must be rehired as positions become available before outside persons are hired.
Labor unions are chosen by a majority of workers in an appropriate bargaining unit, which may consist of homogeneous skilled workers or heterogenous industrial workers, become the particular bargaining agent for all of the individuals within that unit. They have the right to demand bargaining over the wages, hours, and working conditions of the affected employees. On the other hand, the NLRA specifically indicates that the duty to bargain does not require either party to agree to specific proposals of to make concessions. They are merely obliged to meet at regular times and to discuss the pertinent issues in good faith. One aspect of labor-management negotiations that is different from many other types of bargaining interactions involves the on-going relationships between the parties.
After collective discussions are completed, the parties must continue to deal with each other. Union and management negotiations must continue to meet to resolve disagreements that may occur with respect to the application of bargaining agreement provisions, employees and managers must work together to produce profitable goods or services of the film is to be successful. If union negotiators drive a hard bargain that unduly inflates labor costs, workers will be displaced by new technology or have their jobs transferred to lower cost areas of the U.S. or to developing countries like Mexico, China, or India. If the company treats its workers badly, morale will suffer, and good workers may seek employment elsewhere. Employees may also be less committed to firm success, causing a decrease of productivity or a reduction in work quality.
A factor which makes collective bargaining interactions relatively unique entails the many issues that have to be addressed. 6. Arbitration is the process in which the disputing parties will mutually appoint an arbitrator in order to resolve the dispute, the arbitrator can be a business consultant or a retired judge. In case of final offer arbitration, both the parties will present their final offers to the arbitrator. The arbitrator selects one of the offers.
Thus, each party’s offer for the arbitrator would have to be their final offers. Each party’s offer is aimed at problem solving. Settlement in such are determined by the negotiating parties themselves. So, each part’s offer should have the coverage of all outstanding issues, the desired solutions to those issues.
