Getting to Yes: How Do Parties Resolve Contract Negotiations?

Getting to Yes: How Do Parties Resolve Contract Negotiations?

See the proposed Memorandum of Agreement here.

The proposed contract, officially the Memorandum of Agreement, is online, and ballots are arriving in schools, the ratification vote will take place in schools and the ballots will be counted by the American Arbitration Association.

Read the MOA, weigh the pluses and cons, make your own decision.

I conducted a totally unscientific poll, contacted a dozen teachers, not union activists; and asked them their opinion of the MOA.

All were happy the negotiations were completed; they loved the “retention bonuses,” and the elementary school teachers especially appreciated,

Wherever administratively possible, elementary teacher programs should have no more than three consecutive teaching assignments and no more than four consecutive working assignments (including professional activities).

Elementary school dismissal must now be structured so that UFT-represented employees do not perform dismissal duties beyond their instructional day.

One of the caucuses urges a negative vote and the union prepare the membership for a strike. “Preparing for a strike” is a two-way strike, as the union prepares for a strike so does management.

In the private sector management controls revenue and expenses, and either the owner or in a public company the board determines all decisions. The current Writers Guild of America strike is an example; the issues are crucial to the survival of writers

The strike is over the future of writers, “Strike Issues Dividing Writers Guild of America and Hollywood Studios” read here

The strike is in its second month with no end in sight.

The public sector is far different, while New York City controls expenses, revenue, namely taxes, are determined by the state. The Citizen’s Budget Commission (CDC) and the Independent Budget Organization (IBO), budget watchdogs, begrudgingly recommended 3% salary increases and foresaw increasing budget deficits in the next budget cycles.

Under the Taylor Law 2:1 penalties, loss of dues checkoff for the union, fines, possible court injunctions would be fatal for unions, the Triborough Doctrine, all contracts remain in “full or and effect” until the next contract is negotiated has eliminated public employees strikes. There are thousands of public employee unions in New York State and no strikes. Yes, contracts commonly extend past the expiration dates, the successor contracts compute pay raises from the expiration dates.

Aside from the DC 37 and PBA contracts United University Professors (SUNY) and Professional Employee Federation (PEF), over 100,000 state employees just negotiated contracts, all within the same salary parameters as the pending UFT contract.

Management does not roll over fearful of a strike, somewhere out there, maybe Elon Musk or a doppelganger, is preparing an Artificial Intelligence “friend” who can convert state reading and math test results into an individualized instruction online “buddy” every student.

See here.

Bargaining is not banging on a table and demanding; if you follow that path the “other side” will walk away. You begin by addressing the “low handing fruit,” the easier to resolve issues and work your way up to the more contentious issues. The negotiators on both sides of the table have to determine when a contract is resolved, and the “endgame” can be complex.

Hanging over public employee contract negotiations is politics. I know, the very word is looked upon as designating corruption, back room haggling, it has negative connotations. Mayor Adams wants to resolve pubic employee contracts before his next election (June, 2025) and maybe garner endorsements, the city’s economic status is shaky, mayoral control will be a major issue in Albany during the next session, and on and on, and, Adam’s battles with Albany are growing increasingly hostile.

As a union rep back in the day a local political club controlled school board elections in my district: picked the superintendent and the principals, I joined the club, (“Better inside the tent peeing out than outside the tent peeing in”).  I could use “politics” to get someone a leave who missed filing date, or resolve a pay problem,

Our history is replete with “politics,” from LBJ using his political skills to pass the Civil Rights legislation of the 60s, to Lincoln giving Congress members patronage jobs in exchange votes to ratify the 13^th amendment.

Representative Thaddeus Stevens commented that “the greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption aided and abetted by the purest man in America.”

Governor Hochul held up the state budget for a month over her desire to eliminate the regional charter cap, wanting to add 100 charter schools to New York City, the loss of thousands of teaching positions. Bloomberg spent $5 million on TV ads to promote Hochul’s budget in exchange for removing the charter cap, the cap barely survived, only the UFT “friends” in Albany preserved the cap  Read “Bloomberg Buys A Governor: A Romance or a One-Night Stand”) here.

Bargaining demands emanating from a membership survey, a 500-member bargaining committee, many public school advocates and politics resulted in a tentative contract agreement.

Remember to vote on June 27^th in the Democratic City Primary. 

UFT Endorsed Candidates here .