Negotiations Update 1
All negotiations will be happening via video conference. We had out first meeting on Monday, November 30th. The IAEP and AHEMS have traditionally done negotiations via an Interest Based Bargaining (IBB) process. This is a process where both sides declare their interests and compare and contrast them. If you have mutual interest than you speak on it right away and do a pros and cons and eventually come to an agreement. This can be a tedious process but it has worked for us and kept the negotiations cordial over the years. This year, the union again prepared for this style of negotiations. AHEMS stated once negotiations opened on the first day that they have no interest in doing negotiations that way and that they have a proposal for us. They than proceeded to lay out their proposal as mentioned by Director Miller in his email. This proposal style of bargaining is more confrontational and can take a very long time to get things done.
The union showed interest in bargaining over wages (night, weekend diff, reduction in call hours, CC pay for regional staff), retirement, tuition, healthcare issues (gym, bridge to medicare) moving job classes and keeping seniority, increases in holidays, parking stipends for Grand employees. These are just some of the interests that were brought up by you the members.
Where we go from here is the union has to go back and make formal proposals of all our interests. Again, this is the more confrontational way of bargaining and the union was willing to continue the very good history of using IBB that we have used in the past. This will be done by the next meeting on December 4th.
We are working hard to make sure our interests are made and understood by AHEMS.
Your L167 negotiations team