More Money Less Problems

This election will determine if I will be a part of the upcoming 2025 contract negotiations. However, I was involved in the 2023 negotiations. As a hall employee and negotiating team member I worked hard to ensure we were as prepared as possible using all available tools and information in ways to help the team get the best possible outcome for us in the 2023-2025 contract. Negotiations can be difficult. Sometimes you want to move forward into an agreement of mutual benefit and the effort is cut short by a retelling and subsequent rekindling of old feuds of who did what to who over a decade ago. Sure we should remember the past, but I don't want to live there. I don't want to bring up old fights to start new ones. Its counter productive and doesn't help us in the long run.

It can be likened to running a project. Sure, if as General Foreman I fight tooth and nail with the General Contractor and try to bend them over at every opportunity the job will get done and we might make a profit, but they will be trying to do the exact same to me every step of the way. Not to mention what that does to jobsite morale, nobody enjoys working like that. On the other hand when the G.C. and the G.F understand that we share the same goals in finishing the job and make a real effort to work together and help each other...that's a job that runs smoothly and is generally more profitable. More money less problems, that's a job everyone wants to be on.

The plan is to build a solid relationship with our business partners. To get away from the tic-for-tac way of doing business that leads to resentment and pettiness, bad contracts, "gotcha" type practices and benefits not being agreed upon just out of spite. That hurts us. There's other ways of doing business, like proper professional behavior and communication that builds mutual trust and respect. When two groups are able to effectively and respectfully communicate their needs instead of wasting time arguing, it opens the door to those needs being met. Sure there's times that require a strong confrontation, but not everything is a fight.

I believe our efforts are better spent on learning, creating and using tools and information that would help us negotiate intelligently. I know this works first hand because of long nights personally spent building the first L.U. 278 negotiation matrix critical to the 2023 negotiation. It allowed us to plug in data and proposed wages in real time, helping us better understand our negotiating position and bargain precisely and effectively. There's no reason we can't do it again.