Glossary of Terms

Inspired by (and sometimes borrowed from) the UIUC GEO “Bargaining Basics” guide: https://www.uiucgeo.org/bargaining, UConn GEU’s “What is Collective Bargaining?” https://uconngradunion.org/bargaining-process/, and many other sources on and offline 🙂 

Arbitration: A method of settling a labor/management dispute over a grievance or contract negotiations. An impartial third party, or arbitrator, comes in to make a decision. The decision of the arbitrator is almost always legally binding. 

Duty to Bargain/Bargaining in Good Faith – Under the NLRA as well as state labor law, the employer and the union have an obligation to bargain in good faith. This means they have to approach negotiations with a sincere desire to reach an agreement, and to sign any agreement that is ultimately reached and ratified. More specifically this means allowing for proper representation (i.e. recognizing the union as the exclusive representative of the workers), meeting at reasonable times and places as frequently as needed, avoiding unnecessary delays, and (in the case of the employer) providing requested information and data needed for negotiation. 

Bargaining in Bad Faith – If a party bargains with no real intent to reach agreement, or fails to meet any of the obligations covered by the duty to bargain, they are considered to be bargaining in bad faith. This means failing to engage in negotiations; failure to offer counterproposals over mandatory subjects of bargaining; cancellation of bargaining sessions; artificial delays to the process; failure to meet at appropriate and scheduled times or places; regressive bargaining; surface bargaining; or general conduct designed to impede the actual process of reaching agreement. 

Caucuses – A meeting of either side (union or management) during contract negotiations or a grievance hearing without the other present. It is a work meeting in which the parties consider a proposal, change the tone of the meeting, formulate a counter-proposal, or discuss and analyze what is happening at the table. Either party may call for a caucus. 

Collective Bargaining – The process of negotiations between a group of workers, working through a union, and the employer, over various terms of employment such as wages, benefits, leave, and working conditions. Parties can sometimes be composed of different groups, e.g. a group of labor unions forms a coalition to negotiate a single agreement (as in the Coalition of American Red Cross Unions.)

Collective Bargaining Agreement (aka “contract”) – A written agreement, active for a definite period, that is the result of negotiations between an employer and a union. It sets out the conditions of employment (wages, hours, benefits, etc.) and ways to settle disputes arising during the term of the contract (grievance procedure). Contracts may also include provisions regarding permissive subjects of bargaining. 

Concerted activity – Actions taken by a group of employees in order to improve their working conditions or benefits. All concerted activity is protected from retaliation or reprisal by law—and by the GEO contract. 

Contract Expiration – The GEO contract has a clause in it which stipulates that the contract remains in effect after the expiration (Article 54, “Duration”). So for GEO members, nothing happens when the contract expires except we no longer receive raises, and time-bound memoranda of understanding may no longer pertain. 

Counterproposal – A proposal made by one party in negotiations as a response to a proposal made by the other party. An essential part of the negotiation process.

Impasse – The point in negotiations at which one or both parties determine that no further progress can be made toward reaching agreement at that point in time. The Union could challenge a premature declaration or a false impasse by: filing an unfair labor practice charge and/or waiting with passage of some time. The “duty to bargain” remains on both parties nonetheless. In many states with public sector collective bargaining, a declaration of impasse is often a part of the process that leads to mediation and/or fact-finding or other dispute resolution methods. Impasse is almost always bad for the union and good for management. And management will often try to artificially force negotiations toward impasse if they think they can get away with it. (GEO has not let UMass get away with this for at least the last decade.) 

Mandatory subjects of bargaining – According to US labor law, employers are only obligated to negotiate over subjects that directly impact wages, hours, and working conditions. This includes rates of pay, raises, benefits such as health insurance, paid time off including holidays, layoffs, discipline and discharge, and the grievance procedure. Provisions such as union security and dues check-off are also considered mandatory subjects.  Mandatory subjects may be bargained to impasse.

Permissive subjects of bargaining – Permissive subjects of bargaining are things that may be brought to the table, but over which neither party is required to negotiate. These include ground rules for negotiations (a favorite topic of management), unit scope (recognition, i.e. the inclusion of NWFs in GEO), and managers’ terms and conditions of employment. In the past, GEO (and other grad unions) have brought permissive subjects of bargaining to the table including: police presence on campus, housing, and food insecurity. Permissive negotiations may not be bargained to impasse. 

Package proposals – Sets of proposals presented at the table as a group, so that the other party is asked to accept or reject all of them as a whole (rather than negotiate over the individual proposals). The other side can make counter-package proposals. 

Ratification vote – After a tentative agreement has been reached between the union and the employer, the Bargaining Committee brings that agreement to the membership in order to put it to a vote. 

Regressive bargaining – If a party moves backwards on an issue, offering less than they previously had on a proposal (e.g. wage increases). For instance, once admin has proposed 6.64% wage increases for the life of this contract, as they did in 2022, they are not able to offer us anything less than that. 

Right to strike – According to Massachusetts state law, public-sector employees do not have the right to strike. GEO members are included in this. But this has never stopped GEO from developing creative ways to build pressure and escalate during and outside of bargaining. 

Surface bargaining – If a party goes through the motions of submitting proposals and counters, but does not actually intend to reach agreement or engage substantively with the other party. NB: Even Wikipedia rightly notes that telling the difference between surface bargaining and bargaining in good faith is “extremely difficult.” 

Tentative Agreements (TA) – Issues that are agreed to during bargaining on a labor contract and that are set aside as tentatively agreed upon, subject to agreement on the rest of the contract. Tentative agreements have no force or effect until and unless all of the issues on the bargaining table have been resolved and are therefore not implemented until all issues have been settled and ratified. Once a tentative agreement about a proposal has been reached, it is no longer open for discussion during that round of bargaining and no more changes can be made to it. 

Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) – An action by an employer or a union that violates federal and/or state labor law. These include: interfering with organizing, discriminating against an individual for union activity, making unilateral changes to wages, working conditions, and/or benefits without notifying the union and allowing them the opportunity to bargain over the changes, and bargaining in bad faith. For GEO and other public-sector shops, ULP charges are filed with the state of Massachusetts (or the appropriate state labor relations commission); for private-sector unions, charges are filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). 

Wage reopener – A provision in a contract that would allow the union to resume negotiations over wages during the duration of an otherwise-closed agreement. During negotiations in the summer of 2022, UMass proposed extending our contract’s duration from 3 years to 5 years with 2% wage increases for the additional 2 years (2023 and 2024), with the possibility of a wage reopener only if another on-campus union received more than 2% yearly wage increases during that period of time. Needless to say, the proposal was dead on arrival.

Mediation – A process used to settle a dispute in contract negotiations if the two parties are unable to come to an agreement in a reasonable amount of time. The mediator is a neutral third party appointed by a labor board to facilitate negotiations in an effort to resolve any and all remaining disagreements between parties. If the parties still cannot agree in a reasonable amount of time, the mediator may recommend that the parties enter into fact-finding.

Fact-finding – Another method of settling a dispute in negotiations if two parties remain at impasse even after mediation. Like a mediator, the fact-finder is also a neutral third party appointed by a labor board, but a fact-finder has more authority over negotiation proceedings. In fact-finding, both parties present their statement of the issues that have prevented agreement, and the fact-finder decides what information is relevant to resolve these issues. The information requested can be anything from prior negotiation sessions between the parties to the living conditions of the employee(s) or parties. From this information, the fact-finder drafts a report with their recommendation on how to resolve each issue raised. The fact-finder cannot report on issues involving non-mandatory subjects of bargaining.