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Contract Negotiations in Ann Arbor

Fri, 02/24/2006 - 12:44 — mothernight

Today we opened the talks for renewing or renenegotiating our contract at #001. Borders Lawyer (Mark Shiffman), District Manager (Fritz),HR (Jenny)
sitting across the table from 4 UFCW 876 reps and 3 members.

It was pretty congenial; contrasting nicely with the chest thumping that went on in '03. Mark gave us a handful of language changes Borders would like and we gave them about 20. We will get to economic issues after we iron out most of these changes.

We will meet again on March 9.

I hope this entry raises awareness that you can organize and you can sit down with your employer and you can have productive talks...But first you have to organize, so talk to your coworkers.

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Fri, 03/03/2006 - 16:32 — redandblack

whatre the language changes borders wants? and whatre the ones y'all want?

Sat, 03/25/2006 - 22:56 — Warsaw

mothernight-
i was on the negotiating committee at store #27 in Minneapolis. I would like to talk to anyone on the current nego team in A2, if possible, regarding a project that some of the former workers at #27 are currently engaged in. we would love to have some current input from someone at #001.
venceremos,
jason

Sun, 03/26/2006 - 23:33 — Warsaw

was wondering, is information from the A2 negotiations going to be as closed as they were 2 years ago? or has your local finally adopted the idea of total transparency?

Sat, 04/01/2006 - 03:47 — tihodes

Would any current employee be open to discussing their experience at Borders and the current feeling during these contract negotiations. Further would anyone be willing to discuss the strike that occured 2 years ago. I am working on a group project for my school on psychological contracts. If anyone is willing to help it would be greatly appreciated and we can set up a meeting somewhere in Ann Arbor. Thanks. Please respond to this message if you can help.

Fri, 04/07/2006 - 17:25 — e50e

I have to say congratulations for all of the hard work that each of you put in to arrive at this point. Having worked at the apathetic #27, I don't even believe they would have made it to this December's negotiations even if the store was not prematurely closed. It's a terrible thing to say, but for 1 1/2 years hardly a single employee recognized or contributed to their union out of fear or the feeling that they didn't need it in the first place. Some wanted to place the focus on other retail workers such as those at Wal-Mart, believing that they as booksellers were better off. I believe it was an issue of status, considering that all of my coworkers held at least one degree. I guess the fact that they were making substandard wages in an often times degrading retail environment was too much too swallow. Good luck.

Sat, 04/15/2006 - 15:19 — fencesitter

I'm on vacation this week but will be in a nego session on friday. I will be in town so send me a private message if you want to get together over coffee. Sorry I don't have the internet in my home so I will check back next time I'm at the Library. Sorry if this reply is too late to help you

Borders will be presenting a proposal for how the new MI minimum wage change will affect people above the new minimum.

Thu, 04/20/2006 - 16:50 — fencesitter

Friday 4/21 we will finally get Borders counterproposal on economics.

I understand everyone else has already gotten their raises and ours will be retroactive to April 1. So... what was the percentage ya'll got?

In exchange I will now post the negotiation highlights or lowlights.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT ALL THIS IS TENTATIVE AND SUBJECT TO MY VERY HUMAN ERROR.

1. Borders wishes to include initiation fees as well as dues they collect for the union. We would also like them to collect arrears.
2. Borders wishes to change the work week from the old mon--sun to the current sun--sat. We agree.
3.Borders wishes to more tightly define how and when they post job openings. We would prefer our members have more time to put in a bid.
4.Borders would like to include in the contract the fact that the employee handbook is in effect on all issues where the contract is silent. We agree with reservations.
5.Borders would like to eliminate the milestone program. We would like to see what they offer instead.

For our part we had some administative and language changes we would like to see.
1. We feel Borders should submit changes in the handbook before they take effect even if the contract is silent on the issue.

2. We would like contract benefits to begin sooner for new members.

3. We would like a smoother process for joining the union; Borders has tentatively agreed to allow a union info packet to be given on the new employees 10th day at work.

4. We would like a more regular review of employee status. Borders has tentatively agreed to allow the Steward to review quarterly with store personnel.

5. We would like our union reps to have access to the store not dependant on managements permission.

6. We asked for full-time benefits at 32 hrs/wk. Borders agrees or was going to do it anyway.

7. We wanted to lengthen the amount of time guaranteed between shifts. ie. close one night and open the next morning. Borders will continue to try not to do this.

8. We wanted the schedule to be consistently posted earlier. Borders has agreed to Wed. 3pm. Occurance notification at the same time.

9. We would like promotions to be based on seniority where skill and ability is equal. Borders would like no change in the language.

10. Economics. With Michigans Minimum Wage Law taking effect in October we felt that our members should maintain some measure of differentiation -vs- a minimum wage job. We will see. We will see.

Please Know that all this is tentative and subject to my human error.

Mon, 05/01/2006 - 17:46 — fencesitter

We've negotiatd in good faith and Borders has negotiated in good faith. Unfortunately Borders Faith includes a belief in poverty for the people actually doing the work. Borders will continue to run the stores with employees who MUST work 2nd jobs and/or DEPEND on their parents and/or DEPEND on their partners for basic survival. Retirees and part-timers are also encouraged to apply.

The companys mantra for the present is "We're all Booksellers".

(but you cashiers, baristas, IPT and sellers should not depend on the company to pay a wage you can survive on.)

Mon, 05/01/2006 - 18:43 — Magus

I believe that Borders should evaluate their pay scale by region matrix. I mean in WV the Borders wage is enough to make a living, buy a house and such but in these other areas it is not even close. DC metro area is about 3 times the cost. The issue is that the matrix does not have a range that can support such a difference, 6.00-7.50 per hour. We are all trapped in this pay scale depending on our geographical location but the ranges are not enough to support the higher cost living areas. It is pretty sad that you can work at Rockville MD store at 7.50 an hour but if you travel 5 miles south on the same road you can be a cashier that hardly speaks english and makes 10.50 an hour. Plus no raises for this area from Borders means that all of these employees will be losing money from their wages based off the increase in inflation, ~3%.

Wed, 05/03/2006 - 09:54 — farmboy

The Contract Proposal
that our UFCW Rep. Derek Peters left copies of in the break room Friday morning is the FINAL OFFER of BINC in our negotiations with the company for a new contract.

Because our previous contract has expired and we and BINC still have not reached agreement on all points, NLRB law required that a Mediator be brought in to observe whether negotiations were being conducted “in good faith” at our earlier April meeting. He decided, to his satisfaction, that they were and since both sides stated that no more concessions could be made, BINC was required to make a “Final Offer’ and we, the membership, are required to vote it up or down on Friday, May 5.

This “Final Offer” still contains some provisions that the committee and the UFCW representatives (Fred Westphal, Tom Rekuc and Derek Peters) did not and do not agree to. When we met Wednesday to receive this “Final Offer” the 3 of us on the committee, in turn, verbally stated to Mark Shiffman, the BINC “union avoidance” attorney, and the others, Fritz and Jenny, that we would not recommend the contract as a whole as proposed by BINC--and we still do not. The fact that our Rep., Derek, brought in the detailed listing of all the proposed changes is part of the process as set down in law and does not imply that the “Union Bosses” are trying to cram a bad contract down our throats.The opposite is true.

As annotated, the proposals on the first page or so are minor language changes, or changes that really didn’t affect much. We agreed to all of these eventually. The change from 35 to 32 hours for “full time” status we wanted ourselves because it extends full time benefits to more people. There were also things that we proposed that were rejected and do not appear on the document, because it is BINC’s offer not ours.

The major disagreement is in the financial proposals and the highlights of our problems here can be summed up as follows:

1. When the October change in Michigan minimum wages goes into effect, entry level cashiers will get a raise that will put them 5 cents above the minimum. This ain’t enough.

2. Employees at higher pay scales will receive little or no change due to the new law. If other companies aren’t so backward in this regard and we lose good people, what will happen to our CSI and Recommend scores then?

3. Senior employees who helped build this company, who gave years of service and sometimes understand as well as management how a Borders store should be run, will receive no increase in their wages even from the annual percentage increase.

VOTE NO AGAINST THIS CONTRACT

WE NEED BETTER THAN THIS

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