Business Managers Report Fall of 2023

NW Labor Press Update From Garth Bachman 11.3.2023

As of this writing we have tentative agreements for our Inside, Sound and Comm, Residential, and Material Handler agreements. The ratification votes took place on Oct. 23 for both Inside and Material Handler agreements and were accepted by the members. An allocation meeting for the Inside wage and fringe increase took place on Saturday Nov. 4 at 9:30am.

I would like to apologize for a couple of things in regard to the negotiation process. First, I know that some members feel like they were not given updates on how the negotiations were going. That is true to a point, and I apologize. I did report at the general membership meetings, but did not put much on the website. The fact is that until the very end, we really had nothing to share. There were no written proposals until the very end. There were many "what ifs" and "supposals", which was how we agreed we would negotiate based on an interest-based bargaining approach. What I should have done was simply put on the website what I reported at the general membership meetings, even if it was very generic information. Lesson learned; I will do it differently in the future.

Secondly, we had a negotiations question and answer Zoom meeting. I did not realize that our Zoom account only allowed for 100 participants. We were able to upgrade the account, but it took some time to get it done. A robo-text was then sent out informing members that they could then get into the meeting. I apologize that this happened and feel this was very embarrassing. Another lesson learned.

I would like to acknowledge all of the members of the various negotiation committees. You all did a great job and always had the interests of our membership at heart. Thank you so much and also thank you to our membership for all of your support.