Is it usual during negotiating planning meetings spending the vast majority of the time

[tavalon]

basing what were going to bring to the table on "what management would be willing to agree to"? I'll admit I'm new to this but this just doesn't make sense to me. Let management handle management and we will represent the nurses. Management certainly won't represent the nurses so I see no reason to do their job either. :grr: :nuke: :grr:

I feel like I've spent the last few weeks in the accidental den of the DLC.

[cloudbase]

1. What the union negotiators should bring to the table is

what the union's membership wants; actually, a bit more, and the original demands can be negotiated down to that point. They should also know management's finances better than management, so that your people can't be poor-mouthed.

[Gman]

2. In some industries

management expects the union to bring in proposals that both parties know could never be agreed to because the company understands the union has to present the bargaining items the union's members approved.

I take it you're on a bargaining committee. The question a bargaining committee has to answer is "will the membership strike and stay out over this issue?" Issues of wage and benefits are issues everyone should be willing to strike over. But issues that may be regarding, for example, the work schedule in some small work group usually are not. The members will say, "Why should I strike just because they don't like their work schedule."

Furthermore, this is not the political environment in the country that is conducive to striking. Not with the NLRB like it is. Any bargaining committee right now should be going for a contract to keep what they've got (I hate those words, but that's the reality of things right now) and a contract length that can stretch into a Democratic administration and hope for a better political environment.

Any union member that gets elected to a bargaining committee that comes in thinking he/she is going to kick the company's ass is naively ignorant and has another thought coming. And the last bargaining committee members want is a loose cannon as a member.