Your first contract can be harder than the union recognition fight itself. This is because it us in admin's interest to stall:

• Dragging their heels means they can try to let momentum die down and for your bargaining ability to be weaker due to disengagement.

• Slower means they get to maintain the status quo longer, saving time and money.

• If they're particularly competent and assholes, they can eventually push to undo the union itself and will just avoid a contract until they think they'll win decert.

I say all of this because you need a campaign just like you needed one for unionization and the exact same tactics apply:

• You need an organizing committee/structure to ensure the work gets done and you can beat admin.

• Keeping lists and using them. Always track who shows up to what and always contact and invite non-anti-union people first.

• Build enthusiasm and lists by organizing meetings and actions. Both of these are also structure tests. If you get 90% turnout to a meeting and folks are on your side, you're basically ready to strike and just need a forceful campaign to convince them it's necessary.

• A competent admin will force you to strike, but nobody actually wants to strike. When the time comes, your position is always, "we are trying in good faith but they're screwing with us, it may be our only option".

• Do surveys / ask questions about what matters most to your membership for a contract. Track the results. Remember that pay is always important no matter what the answers say. Take the most important issues and turn them into initial demands. Your initial demsnds need to be more than you expect to get because bargaining will be about "compromise", effectively by law. Be creative with your demands. Is childcare important? Demand a very large childcare fund based on projected cost of living in your area and frame it in equity terms. When admin balks, take note of it for when you need to organize a strike: "look what those bastards wouldn't negotiate".

• Pay very close attention to bargaining time and scheduling. Demand to bargain any time, anywhere.

• Expect to need a lawyer and to file ULP. This is mostly useful for convincing your members it's time to strike. The state will not actually punish the employer.

• Constantly give updates to membership. A feeling of participation is very important for your strength. Updates should tell this overall story over time: (1) it's amazing that we won our union but the fight isn't over! (2) take our surveys / come to meetings to share what's important to you (3) here are our great demands in X issue that we presented to admin on [day], (4) here's how bargaining is going (good things you achieve/TA and things about how admin is fucking around), (5) take part in X action!, (6) the bargaining committee needs your authorization to strike because admin isn't bargaining fairly, (7) it's time to strike, here's all the info you need, here's how you will survive during this time, and here's our first action and picket.

• If you are a small union without a good strike fund, begin making connections with other unions to build yours up. When it comes time yo strike you can leverage a strong network to bring in thousands of dollars.

You may not need all of this if you are already very powerful, i.e. have high engagement. You can stomp admin if you present your demands as articles, move ahead rapidly in the horrible bargaining process, and scare them with actions.

Basically... you just organize, same thing you've already been doing. Cross your Ts and dot your Is during negotiations, but otherwise treat this as the same fight. Be prepared to use direct action, particularly around when it is time to strike.

Feel free to ask questions and/or PM me.

usually larger unions like the CWA or Teamsters have people on staff to help small unions with stuff like this, maybe reach out to them

sorry im late just discovering this website exists. There is a lot of good organizing advice in this thread already, so I will stick to the contract. I’ll try and keep this as general as possible since it will obviously vary state to state/country to country because of employment law.

If you are in a large union there are staffers who should be assigned to help you, you will need advice from a professional negotiator. If you are a small union, reach out to a big one and ask for assistance. Having a professional negotiator at the table is powerful as the negotiator can challenge your employer in ways that the bargaining unit may feel intimidated to since the power relationship is unbalanced.

Ask your union if they can train people in contract interpretation. Additionally ask about how to go about getting union stewards; union stewards are your coworkers who can act as a representative of the union. It is extremely important you start training those people up now; the employer will be resistant to change their practices to align with a unionized environment and you will need to enforce on the floor. Even before you get your contract I believe employment standards will protect the right to representation in some capacity; anything you start enforcing before you get the contract will show the employer you mean business. Stewards should be someone who is not afraid to stand up to management, someone your coworkers respect, and someone who is good at their job. They should be fair and objective, and not afraid to have difficult conversations. Usually things like this that are dictated internally by the union should be covered in your constitution if you have one.

I think someone else mentioned this, yes monetary gains are really important and most people will care about those the most, however there are other areas members will not even consider that are equally if not more important. 3 of those areas are mgmt rights, the grievance procedure, and discipline/dismissal.

Management rights is an article that will be in every collective agreement that basically states anything not covered in the CA falls within management's operational rights; i.e. if it’s not in the CA, the employer can do what it wants. If you are a social worker and your employer demands you clean toilets all day instead of doing social work, so long as they pay you the agreed to wage in the CA, that’s within their rights unless you have certain classifications/duties covered in the CA. This is important because the scope is very expansive and the employer likes to use this language as an excuse anytime they may break the contract. You will never get this out of the contract, but it's important to understand how it works and why it's there.

The grievance procedure is a procedure to get redress from the employer in case the employer breaks the contract. Outside of organizing this is one of the only avenues that rank and file members can seek redress from the employer. It’s sort of like fake court; you explain why the employer broke the contract, the employer explains why they didn’t, and the appointed hearing officer will decide who is right. The grievance procedure usually involves several steps, each step escalating in the authority of the hearing officer to grant the redress. Sometimes the last step will be binding arbitration.

Discipline/dismissal will dictate how the employer goes about that. It can have timelines on how long an event occurred that an employer can go back and discipline you for, how long the employer needs to give you notice before investigating you, if they need to provide you with allegations about the incident, etc. This is where people live and die in the bargaining unit - anything the employer can use to reduce the bargaining unit needs to be heavily scrutinized.

You should coach your bargaining committee to be completely non-reactive at the table - no one has any reaction good or bad to any proposal from the employer in front of the employer. You do not want to reveal any tactics or any indication on how the bargaining unit thinks.

I think that's a good start, dm me if you have questions. People negotiate as professionals so this process is understandably intimidating, but your employer probably knows less than you about unionized environments based on my experience lol so don't let them push you around. No I will not be taking any questions from anarchists at this time.

@CARCOSA@hexbear.net could we please feature/pin this post (maybe without federation people being able to see it even)?

we just won union recognition

How did the non-profit nature of your work affect your unionization push? I can see that making it much tougher because (presumably) workers see their work as intrinsically important, and genuinely bad things happen when it isn't done.

Doesn't directly address the contract aspect or the NGO angle but you could do worse than reading Wages so low you'll freak by Mike Pudd'nhead for general left union ideas. Although I only read the first book of several in the series so maybe it comes in later.

First of: Thanks for doing what you do comrade!

Try to contact the fine folks at the IWW, try to contact some of the already organizing labour campaings, have a look at the - not ideal, but somewhat useful - "No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age" or an "Organizing for Power Seminar" i.e. Jane McAlvey's, something for the people after you that could be relevant are "bargaining unit seminars", too.

For help with contracts you need unions who already have contracts or political lawyers.

Remember that moving forward means to somewhat include the workers in your company.

If you have a contract don't exclude the right to strike during bargaining agreements for too long and/or include points for which you can strike even when an agreement is going on for points that weren't part of the previous ones (this is legally contested depending on where you are).

Have a meeting with your workers about what are the most pressing needs. Companies will try to low ball you, dare to say: "We can take your suggestions and talk with our workers about them" and if they walk back on things make that transparent.

Often the company tries to enforce discretion about what is discussed in those meetings, trots often argue that you ought to say no to that and talk with the full worker base about stuff. If this works is contingent on a lot of things. Why I write that is mostly to say: While the techniques used against you are often similar, the path you and your workers take is unique. More than what would be the perfect solution is the one that is done.