What You'll Learn

Collective bargaining used to be simple. Everybody understood the process. You drafted a list of demands. You downplayed the demands of the other side. You asked for more than you really wanted, traded concessions for concessions, depended on informal back-channel conversations, waited for the other side to blink, went right down to the deadline … and hoped you could walk away with a deal.

As a senior leader with union or management responsibility for the labor contract, how do you address complex issues in today’s bargaining environment without becoming embroiled in escalating adversarial battles?

These are among the questions we will address in Negotiating Labor Agreements. This highly interactive conference will help management and union leaders like you to:

Develop and improve bargaining processes that will meet your unique needs, whether or not you are in partnership with the other side; and

Acquire the skills to make these new approaches work.

Led by a senior faculty of labor experts who pioneered many of the mutual gains principles of interest-based bargaining being used in collective bargaining today, this program features skill-building exercises and practical simulations that will improve your ability to:

Prepare effectively for negotiations
Negotiate agreements on ground rules and bargaining schedules
Develop and deliver pre-bargaining briefings for the union membership and management governing bodies
Shape opening statements that set a constructive tone for difficult negotiations
Establish and effectively utilize joint task forces
Negotiate agreements on highly contentious issues

We’ll Explore Proven Strategies for Building Better Relationships and Getting Better Results

In this seminar, you’ll learn more effective collective bargaining strategies for negotiating when it’s not just business as usual.

We focus on negotiations when:

Fundamental changes in wages, hours and working conditions are on the agenda

Unions and employees have deep concerns about security and institutional survivial

Technology change is being proposed that would alter work processes or possibly replace workers

You are bargaining amidst the introduction of workplace innovations such as quality

improvement teams or pay-for-performance systems

You’re trying to make a new bargaining process work, but:: Your constituents are skeptical about anything that deviates from tradition; A lack of trust exists between the two sides – yet you need to jointly collect data for the negotiation; Both sides are unable to disagree constructively – yet neither wants to completely sink the bargaining process; You don’t know how to build a robust cooperative relationship that can address tough issues; You want to develop new strategies for “bargaining over how to bargain”– aligning the collective bargaining process with the demands of the new economy