I took the usual Southwest flight that left Oakland airport at 7:10am. This meant I had to be up by 4am, and on BART by 5. I got to the Coliseum station just past 5:30, and after a few minutes, I was on the AirBART shuttle to the airport. Before 6, I was entering Terminal 1, then proceeded to a kiosk to print my boarding pass. Twenty-four hours earlier, I had confirmed my flight via my mobile application, and secured my boarding position.
For an ungodly hour, there was a fairly long line at security screening. But it moved pretty fast so it wasn't an issue. Lots of time to spare. Once cleared, I got coffee and a pastry at a Starbuck's next to my departure gate. It wasn't crowded. I was relaxed. On the same flight with me was our Labor Relations lawyer, Walter, who was a member of our negotiation team.
Walter and I shared a cab to our meeting. On the way, we chatted and shared some experiences about work and our current negotiations. Call time was 9am, but by the time everyone got settled, it was past 10am. Our lead negotiator even arrived late, considering that her office was just a few floors above.
The lead negotiator for the union was a lady named, Veronica. The prior lead wasn't available, so she took over. When the meeting started, it seemed like nobody knew what we were suppose to do or talk about. We went back to the job description and tried to recall what the last discussions were. It revived the whole concern about the driver's license requirement, only to find out that management has struck it out of the final revision of the job description. Aha, we forgot about that. Next?
The other issue centered (again) on the Compliance verbiage. At the last meeting, the union was informed that it was standard language that could not be revised or edited. We gave them a sample, and they were suppose to do their own due diligence. I guess someone forgot to do it, so everyone was scratching their head and looking lost. They then asked for an actual copy of an NCAL union job description so they can confirm. I got a copy sent to me, and it was sent to them. But, like always, this whole issue was set aside for further discussion and confirmation for the next meeting.The next topic was about the contractors. Again, both leads looked at each other, as if surprised, and waited for what needed to be discussed. Our lead reminded them that management had already provided a counter-proposal to their proposal, and that the ball was now on their court to respond. Somehow they managed to get away from their predicament by saying that we owed them some information (they earlier requested), and that they could not respond to the counter-proposal without that information. Ergo, another stall, to be discussed in the next meeting, provided we send them the information they asked for.
Another impasse.
Our lead reminded them again that they (the union) specifically requested certain topics to be discussed at the meeting, but it seemed like no one knew or remembered. Even the substitute lead negotiator was not informed nor briefed. Personally, I think that was just plain rude -- to come to a negotiating meeting, with topics you specifically wanted discussed, and not be prepared. So what's new? When we told them that the wages discussion was their idea, they looked stunned and confused. We were expecting them to provide us with a proposal, as a normal process, since they raised it. Immediately, they called for a caucus. It was almost 11am.
They returned from their caucus just past 11:30. In an unusual manner, one of the reps said that they agreed with an earlier pay rate scale I proposed. Management was a little bit surprised and confused because, to our recollection, there wasn't any new or recent proposal from our end, so we didn't really know what they were referencing as "our proposal". We found out that this proposal was made back in February 2012. Holy Toledo !!! The lady lead began rattling off conditions and terms of their proposal as she recalled it from memory. She was interrupted by our lead, and was requested to have their proposal in writing. Another caucus. Since it was close to noon, we all agreed to take a lunch break and resume at 1pm.
The union team departed, while our team remained in the conference room and chatted about this so-called "proposal". Then, we all left and got lunch.
By the time we resumed it was almost 2pm. The union walked us through their proposal, as we tried to visualize them. We said that we will look into this, and that both parties will cost out said proposal for our next round of discussions. We calendared our next meetings for August, again in SCAL. Two back-to-back days were set aside to, hopefully, get resolution and agreement on all pending items. One union rep suggested if management's counter-proposal could just be emailed, instead of meeting in person, but it fell on deaf ears. We adjourned at 2:30pm.
Walter and I took a cab back to the airport. I had called for taxi service during lunch because I had to leave the meeting at 2:45pm to get back to the airport for a 4:30pm flight back to Oakland. Walter had a later flight, but decided to just wait at the airport. He said he would try to get on an earlier flight if he could, which he did. Meanwhile, I sat comfortably at my gate, but was informed that my flight would be delayed by 15 minutes. An earlier flight was leaving at 3:55pm and had room. So I took my chances, and was able to get on the earlier flight -- the same one Walter was on. I was home sooner than expected, which was all good.
Can you imagine? Flying all the way to Pasadena for a 90 minute meeting? How productive and efficient can we be.....???
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