Good Faith Bargaining
The Biden administration is committed to economic growth through union jobs.
Recent years have seen anti-worker legislation undercut the union movement and collective bargaining. The weakening of the union movement has resulted in “rising income inequality, stagnant real wages, the loss of pensions, exploitation of workers, and a weakening of workers’ voices in our society.”
There will be push back to Biden’s labor agenda from employers, Republican governors, and hostile state legislatures.
We will be hearing plenty of labor related terms in coming years.
One of those terms is Good Faith Bargaining.
Employers have a legal duty to bargain in ‘good faith’ with their employees’ exclusive representative union to reach a collective bargaining agreement. Such and agreement results in a Collective Bargaining Agreement, or CBA.
Bargaining in good faith encompasses many obligations.
Good faith requires the employer to actually bargain with the union. Refusing to bargain collectively with the union is an unfair labor practice.
The employer must agree to meet with the union at reasonable times for the workers and at reasonable intervals.
Surface bargaining. or ‘going through the motions’ is bad faith bargaining.
‘Take it or leave it’ demands are also bad faith bargaining.
The employer may not make changes without bargaining.
Employers are not allowed to deal directly with individual employees.
An employers refusal to furnish, or unreasonably delay in furnishing, information relevant and necessary for bargaining requested by the union is bargaining in bad faith.
The employer may not refuse to bargain further, claiming that an impasse exists, when a valid impasse has not been reached.
(NOW IF ONLY CONGRESS HAD ENFORCEABLE GOOD FAITH BARGAINING REQUIREMENTS!)
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/bargaining-in-good-faith-with-employees-union-representative
https://www.local1222.org/index.cfm?zone=/unionactive/view_article.cfm&HomeID=42683&page=Steward20Toolkit
https://joebiden.com/empowerworkers/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-infrastructure-republican-propsal-dismiss/
Thanks and a tip of the hat to Donkey Hotey for the image. See more of Donkey Hotey’s art at https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey.
