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Unions Set Pacts at a Slower Pace As Clout Wanes, Employers Resist
By Kris Maher, Wall Street Journal
July 5, 2006
Unions are taking longer, as much as five years in some cases, to negotiate contracts after successful organizing campaigns, due to increased employer resistance and the weakened bargaining clout of unions, a development that could hinder efforts to attract and retain members.
Roughly 45% of newly formed unions fail to negotiate a first contract with an employer within two years, according to 2004 data from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a federal agency that mediates labor negotiations. Labor officials say they believe the figure has risen since then, as companies grow increasingly wary about health care and pension benefits that unions typically seek during first contract negotiations and that aren't offered by nonunion competitors. Some labor experts say companies also appear more willing to use delaying tactics that test the limits of bargaining "in good faith," essentially in a timely manner, as required by federal law.
"It's taking longer to get contracts, and there probably is an incremental decrease in getting contracts," says Richard Bank, director of the collective bargaining department of the AFL-CIO, which represents about nine million workers. "The name of the game is to drag the process out interminably and prove to the workers that the union can't get a contract," he adds.
In April, Ronald Meisburg, general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, sent a memo to the board's 33 regional directors asking them "to focus particular attention on remedies for violations" related to first-contract bargaining. He noted that nearly half of all charges alleging employer refusals to bargain in good faith occur during negotiations for first contracts.
About 330 workers at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. wire plant in Asheboro, N.C., joined the United Steelworkers in early 2004, but didn't get a contract until last month. In March, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers ratified a contract for about 300 engineers at UAL Corp.'s United Airlines after three years of negotiations.
In the Pittsburgh area, the Communications Workers of America recently won first contracts for a group of cable-industry workers after a five-year struggle. At one point, the union was certified to represent 1,000 workers in 10 bargaining units; only 400 workers in five units finally gained contracts starting last fall.
During the course of negotiations, several bargaining units voted the union out while others dwindled through attrition. In November 2002, the workers became employed by Comcast Corp., when it acquired AT&T Broadband. The union alleges the company didn't bargain in good faith.
D'Arcy Rudnay, a spokeswoman for Comcast, said the negotiations took so long in part because of the number of bargaining units involved. She also noted that the NLRB dismissed two charges brought by the union alleging that the company was not bargaining in good faith. "We negotiated complex and very difficult issues in good faith," she said.
Marge Krueger, who runs the union's Pittsburgh office, was relieved to get a first contract but says the long negotiations have already damaged organizing efforts because workers doubt the union's ability to get a contract for them.
"They think, 'You can't get contracts for the members you have now,' " she said, adding, "They don't want to go into a five-year battle like this."
Taking too long to reach a contract can cause a union to lose its standing as exclusive bargaining representative. Under federal law, a union has 12 months as an exclusive representative to reach a contract for newly organized workers. After that it risks facing decertification campaigns or challenges from rival unions.
Employers are required by law to bargain in good faith with unions. If negotiations drag on too long, the union can appeal to the NLRB and try to get the board to order the company back to the bargaining table. That process itself takes time. Another recourse for unions that believe the company isn't negotiating in good faith is to strike.
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