Negotiations Update for January 11, 2013

UNITED MECHANICS NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE, PROTOCOL AND OTHER AGREEMENTS MADE

January 11, 2013

The negotiating committee began the new year with formal meetings the week of January 7. These meetings started off with a day and a half of training, courtesy of the National Mediation Board. The Board required training for the expedited facilitated problem solving – or FPS – process and placed the company and the union in the same room, listening to course instructions lead by Senior Mediator Pat Sims and assisted by mediator Michael Kelliher. The purpose of these exercises was to get negotiators familiar with facilitated problem solving. Training was well received by both parties and all participants including upper management and union leaders took part.

The first step towards beginning the process is for the parties to come to an agreement of guidelines. This Protocol Agreement was completed by the parties just prior to the start of negotiations. Click here to read the full protocol agreement.

According to the agreement, these talks will be divided into two phases. The first phase is the reconciliation phase and will include the process of taking the differences in the contract books for the three companies and amalgamating them in to one. It is this first phase that will consume the majority of our initial meeting time with the company. To accomplish this phase, we have divided into small groups of negotiators and Business Agents who are tasked with certain articles. These small groups meet with similar company groups and the two parties run down the entire article. In many cases the language is taken as is and agreements can be made immediately. Combining three contracts, however, will obviously bring about some points of disagreement.

The points that are not immediately agreed to are worked out using the process taught through the training earlier in the week with the goal of resolving the differences. Each of these subcommittee meetings have been presided over by members of the Board to help move the process along. The specific articles discussed this week were articles 2, 8, 9, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and the Savings Clause.

In phase two of the negotiations, the parties will discuss new work rules as well as the entire economic package.

The progress that was made in these last few days ordinarily may have taken months and we look forward to continuing the sessions next week. One Teamster resource that should not go unnoticed is the Legal Department. Our IBT Legal Representative, Ed Gleason, has been personally on hand and available during the entire process to help us when needed. The entire negotiating team has progressed with the help of his expertise and dedication.

Agreements on principles of non-economic issues were reached on Definitions, Holidays, Vacations, Grievance Procedure, Arbitration, General and Miscellaneous, Apprentice Mechanics and Transportation. Negotiations are scheduled to resume next week in Chicago followed by the week of the January 21. The week of January 28 will be used for internal committee work. For the entire month of February, the parties are scheduled to meet every week in Chicago.