Creating An Effective Negotiation Team

Artesia employees are currently negotiating a new contract. One of the staples of having a union is the ability of employees to draw up a contract with their employer.

This contract, also known as an MOU (for Memorandum of Understanding), covers all the  major aspects of being employed, like salary and benefits; along with all the perks, like education reimbursement or bonus pay for certifications. An MOU also lays out the nature of discipline, firing, performance evaluations, step increases, safety, and many other important things. Basically, it covers all the stuff that entices you to continue working for a specific employer.  Being that our professional life is so intertwined with our personal life, the MOU is extremely important. It’s also one of the reasons why union employees are paid much better and enjoy more benefits than non-union employees. So, it’s important to have a great negotiating team.

The Negotiating Team

The negotiating team should not be too large. So, for small cities like Artesia with a unit of 30 people, three or four is a good number. For larger cities, four to six people would probably work better.

Chief Negotiator. In all negotiation teams, your Business Representative is going to be a key player, and will likely be the chief negotiator. Experienced business representatives have seen many contract negotiations, and they’ve seen many different styles of negotiation from the other side. They’re also familiar with the legal implications of certain proposals, and the procedures to take if negotiations go sour, or go to impasse.

The Tech. Another important person to have on a negotiation team is someone who is good with some specialized purpose. For instance, an accountant is an excellent person to have on a team. If anyone from the Finance Department is in your bargaining unit, try to get one of them on your team. He or she has valuable insight on the budget, and if they’ve done payroll they are also familiar with the effect your negotiations will have on salaries. But the technical person can be any person with some specialized skill that would be useful for a negotiation - research, marketing, observational skills, etc.

The Decision Maker. Another important member is the team leader. This is usually going to be someone like the Local’s president. The function of the team leader is basically to make the final decision. Ultimately, even if everyone else in the negotiation team agrees, the team leader can disapprove the entire contract.

Functionally, these three are vital to a negotiation team. But there are other considerations to take into account.

Other Factors of the Team

Even a unionized workplace has some level of suspicion of the motives of other employees, or of other departments. This is actually very normal. So, in order for the negotiating team to be trusted by as many members of the union as possible, it’s a good idea to create a diverse coalition. To do this, it’s important to have members of different departments, to actively communicate with the membership, and if your workplace is diverse ethnically - to also have members of different ethnicities, or at least by gender. Originally, Artesia’s negotiation team had members of three different departments (Administration, Finance, and Public Works), and members of different ethnic groups.

Interdepartmental. It’s generally a good idea to have members of different departments in the negotiation team. The advantage gained by having members from different departments not only reduces the risk of the appearance of one department dominating the session, but it also allows insight that might be overlooked from someone who works in a different department.

Communicating with Members. Usually, the inherent workplace suspicion between departments can be avoided simply by transparently and honestly communicating with members. An earnest conversation with a member will identify key issues that are inherent within a department, or by a certain group of people.  This communication can be in the form of general membership meetings, or by one-on-one conversations. The latter is especially powerful because it builds a personal relationship with members. In Artesia, this is easy because we are a small city. But in a union with thousands of employees, the general membership meeting is very important. It’s also important to have some sort of newsletter or regular communication in place.

Race, Gender, Culture. The issues addressed in the contract are the most important, but especially in diverse workplaces, there must be some good faith effort to include as many people of different backgrounds as is reasonable. People of the same culture often group together, but when it comes to contract negotiations, we don’t want that clique to be what controls something so important as an MOU, because that document governs everybody in the union.  The President of the Local, while creating a negotiating team, should be mindful of the different ethnic and gender makeup of the membership.

Personal Qualities

Each member of the negotiation team must be focused, be willing to put in work, and ultimately have the benefit of everyone in the union in mind.

By being focused, I mean all members should be ‘present’ and engaged in the conversation. A team member who checks out his/her phone while negotiating, or for whatever reason daydreams too much, is probably not someone you want on the team. Obviously, every once in a while a team mate might be asked to conduct real time research on a phone or iPad, but basically it’s common sense that all members be very aware, observant, and able to grapple with the topic at hand.

In between sessions, sometimes there is certain research that needs to be completed. It’s always good to split the work when possible. Therefore, it’s important that each member be willing to pull his or her own weight.

Finally, and most importantly, be wary of individuals who only have their own personal issue they want to pass through.  The single issue team member, or the selfish team member, can and will derail the overall harmony of the team, and can ruin a contract that ultimately governs every employee.  Please remember that this document is important to all members, and if members find out that the negotiation team conceded something good, just because one person really wanted something that benefited him or her, that stigma will come back to bite the negotiating team and the Local’s president.