Bargaining update 6/21: Wages, bereavement leave, and more

Thanks also to all of our members who joined the bargaining sessions in some way over the past few weeks. Standing together, putting pressure on the company away from the table and boosting external support from the community is how we will be successful at the table. We’ve already made significant gains as a result of our solidarity, but the company also showed at the latest bargaining session that much more will be needed to win the fair contract we all deserve.

In Wednesday’s session, the company pressured us to “be done” with bargaining and accept their current positions on our non-wage proposals, so they would bring us their “final” economic counter. If we are not “ready to be done,” the company’s representative said, then they will not offer their economic counter proposal. In the company’s opinion, we demonstrate that we are “ready to be done” by withdrawing our outstanding proposals or agreeing to the language they’ve proposed.

We still have a lot to discuss when it comes to our economic proposals and we do not feel like we’ve gotten to a place where we can set things aside or withdraw proposals in order to satisfy the company’s desire to be done.

But in a heated exchange discussing the remaining items on the table, about 5 hours into bargaining, we did learn from the company’s representative where the company stands on some items:

Adding severance pay to the contract: “No.”

Restoring grant-funded employees’ grievance rights: “No”

Increasing the vacation accrual to three weeks upon hire (industry standard now): “No.”

Aside from adding Juneteenth to the contract, additional holidays/PTO: “No.”

Making your extended illness bank accrual available in the employee portal: “No.”

Allowing people on unpaid medical or parental leave to retain their medical coverage: “No.”

Protection and compensation for drone pilots: Likely a “No.”

We urged the company to consider some kind of proposal that enhances the state’s parental leave program and are awaiting their response.

The company’s representative also said: “Our next [wage] proposal is closer to our last proposal, not to your proposal.”

As a reminder, we counter-proposed across-the-board raises of 7% upon ratification, then 4% and 4% in the subsequent years of the contract, as well as raising the wage minimum scales from what the company proposed. The company had previously proposed a 3% across-the-board raise, followed by 2% and 2%, and wage minimum scales that included only a small percentage of our members.

We’ve made a lot of progress on items we refer to as “language proposals,” which are mostly non-economic, such as new hires qualifying for health benefits earlier, removing gendered language from the contract, and protections during the probationary period. We are proud of these improvements and updates and how quickly we and the company have come to an agreement on them.  

We cannot say the same thing about how bargaining around economic proposals has gone. It seems the company’s strategy has been to act benevolent around non-economic proposals so that they can hardline us on the economic ones, while claiming to have “given” us so much.

We were clear in our stance to the company: Show us your economic counter proposal and then we’ll see how close to done we are.

Remote work was also a part of the conversation. We’ve updated our proposal on remote work and believe we should retain the existing language as is. To use one of the company representative’s favorite phrases: “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”

The company wants to strike the line in the current memorandum of understanding stating that the company is oriented toward employee preference when it comes to work locations. In general, the company believes that we will return to a pre-pandemic-style, in-person workplace at some point. They say they would rather folks just come back instead of being mandated back, but they want the option to require in-office days or even full-time, in-person work. The company has yet to make a compelling argument for returning to in-person work. They’ve cited mentorship of younger employees as a reason and generally base it on “vibes” and “feeling” rather than actual data. Martin also made the claim that all of our mental health is worse because of working remotely.

We disagree with all of this and believe hybrid and remote work has been beneficial in many ways. We’ve heard from members that hybrid and remote work has been good for work-life balance, for child-care obligations, financially and for productivity and mental health. We’ve all found and continue to find what works for us in terms of working in the office or remotely and when. Clearly, the company has not heard us.

We have also asked repeatedly if the company even has enough space to mandate all employees return and the company’s representative says they have “enough to make everyone in the bargaining unit return.” This is not the first time that he has implied that they would make some employees return to work, not based on position or remote performance, but based on being a union worker.

In the first hour of bargaining, we were also joined by folks in the ads/sales department to discuss issues and ask questions that pertain uniquely to their jobs and compensation. That discussion provided some clarity on our priorities when it comes to wages in that department.

And we ended up providing the company with a drone counter proposal protecting drone pilots from liability in the event of an accident, lawsuits, fines or fees and providing one-time bonuses to those who have trained and been licensed as pilots, in addition to agreeing to a lot of language included in the company’s latest proposal. But the company has basically said “No” to any language that protects or compensates those of us who are piloting aircrafts for the company, though they say they are considering our latest proposal.

In the midst of our heated discussion, the company did give us one counter proposal from our overall economic package on bereavement leave — an issue our members have been mobilizing around.

Currently, the contract offers three paid days in the event of a death in an employee’s immediate family (parent, parent-in-law, spouse, child, sibling). In any other situation, workers must take vacation or unpaid time for bereavement. Our original proposal expanded the language around who in our lives qualifies for bereavement leave with the goal of being more inclusive of nontraditional families and extended family.

The company’s counter narrows that and states that we would be entitled to three days of paid bereavement leave for immediate family, people who live in your household, and up to three “chosen” or extended family members. The company describes “extended family” as grandparents, step-siblings, step-parents and several others. The company has expressed a great amount of concern that employees will abuse this benefit.

This is a step in the right direction — and we believe it’s likely that it would not have happened without our being vocal about this issue and its connection to Pride, which the company is participating in this year — but we want to hear from members about whether this new language meets our needs.

At the end of this long and frustrating bargaining session, we were left with these parting words from the company’s representative:

“Another benefit [of ending bargaining soon], you don’t have to listen to me patter on.”

Well that is something we can all agree on.

In several ways, the company has shown us that they recognize how organized and engaged we all are and they know we are ready to demand a fair contract that meets our needs. And we’ve only just begun to escalate the level of pressure.