We met with the company on Thursday, April 3rd and presented counter proposals on all outstanding articles for the contract.

Summary:

• We came down on wages and other, less-costly economic proposals. New Seasons’ current proposal is below inflation, and about half of staff would only get a $0.50 raise.
  
  

• New Seasons continues to insist on two-tier insurance eligibility, which violates the principle of equal pay (and benefits) for equal work. We resubmitted an article that maintains the status quo.
  
  

• New Seasons refused to improve their offer on attendance, which is worse than the old point-based system from a couple of years ago.
  
  

• We are stuck on several articles that management is insistent on that would impede our ability to enforce the contract and our current working conditions, such as “management rights” and “bargaining unit work”. These proposals are extraordinarily bad compared to the industry standard, preventing us from bringing a tentative agreement to membership. 

The full text of all articles can be accessed on our bargaining trello board.  

Attendance Policy

The sticking point on this article is the company’s continued insistence on having the ability to fire members who are not at fault for their absences or tardies. The company’s proposal violates the principle of ‘just cause’ discipline, and allows employees to be fired for circumstances completely outside of their control.

The company offer is worse than the current system would be under our collective bargaining agreement. This is because under a union contract, the company will only be allowed to fire members for just cause. However, this no-fault policy could be exempt from the principle of just cause unless specifically written in. 

The company is also proposing fewer points per year than the old point-based policy. This is a take-back. The company’s proposal is 16 points every 12 months, and the previous policy was 10 every 6 months. Our proposal is 21 every 12 months, similar to the old attendance system, but with full consideration of mitigating or extenuating circumstances.

The bargaining team is in agreement with the principle of separating tardies from missed shifts, but the company’s current proposal would be the worst attendance policy that NSM workers have ever worked under. 

New Seasons indicated that this was essentially their final offer on attendance, so defeating this take-back may require a no vote from membership with the option to strike over these terms along with the rest of the outstanding articles in the contract. 

Wages

New Season’s most recent offer was an $18/hr starting rate for clerks, with no COLA for most members. This is a pay cut relative to inflation from the previous pay scale created in 2021.

In the company’s proposal, hundreds of members would receive a flat raise of only $0.50 upon ratification, instead of being adjusted to their same position on the new wage scale. 

We countered their offer, coming down about 75 cents per hour for most positions. Our most recent wage proposal ranges from $22/hr to $26.50/hr starting for clerks and grade 5 ADM’s respectively. Top rate would be between $27/hr and $32.50/hr for pay grades 1 and 5 respectively. Our offer keeps members at the same position in the adjusted pay scale, so all members would see significant raises under our proposal.

We also came down on COLA, from a fixed 4% to a variable COLA based on the consumer price index. Combined, these concessions on wages and COLA would save the company about $1.1 million on year one of the contract and an average of about $2 million per year thereafter vs our previous position. 

Insurance

New Seasons’ last proposal is a take-back on cost splitting of insurance, allowing them to pass on up to 50% of cost increases to members, and creating two tiers of membership for current and future employees.

We submitted a counter offer at the bargaining session that maintains the existing 80/20 cost split between the company and members, and rejects creating membership tiers, keeping us and our coworkers working under the same conditions.

Two-tier is harmful to our ability to negotiate a strong second contract, because it creates a wedge between old timers and new employees that the company can exploit in future negotiations. Equal pay (and benefits) for equal work is a basic principle of unionism. 

Bargaining Unit Work

New Seasons’ proposal allows for unlimited subcontracting of bargaining unit work, and performance of bargaining unit work by non-unit employees. This is virtually unheard of in union contracts and has been rejected by the bargaining team.

We resubmitted our previous offer on bargaining unit work, which would allow department managers and store managers to perform our work consistent with past practice. In most union contracts, supervisors may not perform any work whatsoever. Our position is more permissive than that because we think that allowing DMs to perform bargaining unit work will result in better understanding of the job from supervisors. However, our proposal limits any subcontracting or other attempts to cut up and weaken our bargaining unit.

Management Rights Clause

New Seasons resubmitted a 2-page management rights clause that would completely eliminate our ability to enforce working conditions. This proposal is outrageous. The industry standard is either no management rights, or a 1-sentence clause that states that management reserves rights not modified by the agreement.

“Zipper Clause” 

New Seasons attempted to include a ‘zipper clause’ in the contract, that would nullify all existing agreements between NSLU and NSM and further kneecap our ability to bargain over terms and conditions of employment. They did not offer anything in exchange for this clause, and we have rejected it. As of now this clause appears to simply be intended to make it harder for us to reach a CBA with management. 

Next Session

We are waiting to schedule a follow-up session this week, due to the absence of the company’s labor relations director from the last bargaining session.