A first union contract generally takes at least a year to broker following an election. To illustrate how poorly the Starbucks Workers United (SWU) saga is going, more than four years have passed without a contract, and a year of renewed negotiations for a contract framework still hasn’t led to a touchdown. However, a few other union contract “wins” recently made headlines, as we will soon discuss.
Considerations for employers: Big Labor can talk a good game. Union leaders delight in inventing falsehoods about “corporate greed” during contract negotiations, and that messaging can cause frustrated workers to wonder the following:
- Is my employer purposefully delaying a contract?
- Will the contract include what the union promised?
- What on earth is taking so long?
Once a workplace has been infiltrated by a union, that third party will influence much of what members hear on the topic. So, workers might not realize that although their employer is bargaining in good faith, the union is unfairly shaping the narrative. The reality is that first contracts are complex legal agreements that set the tone for a workplace’s future and must be evaluated by legal counsel every step of the way. Also, “give and take” will occur on both sides with the clock running.
When a tentative contract finally emerges, the document might barely resemble what a union promised. These results can disappoint workers and lower workplace morale, so it will be worth watching whether the news below will lead to buyer’s remorse:
The not-so-great outdoors: In early 2022, REI retail workers voted for the company’s first unionized location under the UFCW subsidiary RWDSU, with workers at ten more stores later joining the fold. This month – and three years after negotiations began – the union is claiming to have achieved “a tremendous step forward,” but notably, this is not a contract.
Instead, the parties arrived at a “national bargaining structure” for hammering out individual union contracts for each store. Sure, this “framework” is similar to what SWU has accomplished, but this is essentially an agreement to further agree in the future. In other words, this is much ado about not that much, yet.
An overhyped gambit: Raven Software, developer of the “Call Of Duty” game, saw 19 quality assurance workers join CWA in 2022. Three long years of bargaining set in and have now yielded 10% wage increases over two years. That isn’t much higher than a standard 3% annual raise customarily practiced by employers, especially since union dues will swallow a considerable part of the difference.
More first contracts:
- Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum workers ratified their first AFSCME contract after two years of negotiations, to the tune of underwhelming 13% wage increases over three years.
- The Hill journalists waited three years for their first contract between TNG-CWA and Nexstar Media Group, Inc. The union claims to have won protections against job losses, even though the reality is that unions cannot truly protect workers from layoffs.
Conclusion: The above lackluster results aren’t surprising for those who keep an eye on labor news, but those workers will likely feel sticker shock. Unions will also bend the truth at every opportunity about their own failures during negotiations, so employers will want to maintain a non-adversarial tone and remain committed to open dialogue to lessen the effects of the spin cycle.
