How to negotiate? Anybody an ACTIVE member of their local union?

[daveymark]

Union-haters need not apply.

I'm in a Union, and up until now, I thought they were a waste of my money. However, now that I see how much health insurance might skyrocket, I'm glad I have the union to back me up for lower premiums. Kinda. The problem is, we have a local contract with Hilton which expires at the end of the year, and we're renegotiating. We don't have too many people in on the negotiations, and one rep from the local union that doesn't do much, so I volunteered to help out in negotiating. I know our benefits package is going to increase in price, but I just want to find out what kind of leverage I might have to make the increase as small as possible.

So far I've learned that if we want one thing, i.e., lower premiums, then we need to give something up, like say the cashing in of sick days. What other kinds of leverage can we use?

I also learned about getting copies of other contracts from other Hilton hotels.

Right now I pay around $60 a month for medical benefits. The price is supposed to go up to $400 a month unless we can find a different health plan or something.

The problem is, most of the employees just bend over whenever management wants to do something. So of course I'll be a fly in the ointment here.

Anyway, is there any kind of forum online or somewhere I might go to get some ideas on negotiating, or does anyone have some tips on negotiating something like this?

 

[HappyPuppy]

It doesn't matter what research you do, you are going to lose. I understand your desire to maintain your cheap insurance coverage but those days are over. You are going to be paying much higher premiums in the future regadless of your efforts.

The non union public has no sympathy for your plight. They have been paying much higher premiums for years and earning less. If unions survive at all they will be no more than puppets of management.

This is coming from a lifelong union member who understands that times are changing. There will be no more free meal tickets.

 

[OJ]

You don't sound like you have much time to take classes, but I had to take labor law and negotiating classes, (with simulated negotiation labs that had to end in agreement) during my manufacturing engineering degree program. These classes were much more informative than I expected, you might check your local colleges.

 

[Daaavo]

I'm kind of curious what kind of union you belong to? A craft or industrial union?

*edit*


After re-reading your post, in your case it doesn't really matter what kind of union you belong to. If the membership is willing to assume the position at the management's request, you are screwed!

 

[TechBoyJK]

there is actually a tape called negotiating for dummies, I listened and it is good. At Borders.com

 

[kranky]

Negotiating is a skill that can be taught, but you probably don't have time to take a class now. These are the basic points which are covered.

I think the most useful thing you can do now is find out what the insurance plan options are. Find out why the cost is going up so much - is it because of higher-than-expected use? Or just the general increase? Do they have proposals from other insurance carriers to compare to?

What can be done to keep the employee's share from going up so much? Higher deductibles? Higher co-payments? Changing the plan from a full-coverage to a PPO or HMO? Dropping certain benefits which greatly affect the cost? Can you offer different options like employee-only, employee and spouse only, and entire family? That way a single employee won't have to pay so much. Can the employee's contribution be tiered to salary, so that people who make more pay more? Can employees opt out of the plan totally and pay nothing? Can employees with a lot of vacation sell back a week's worth to help offset the insurance costs? Do they offer Flexible Spending Accounts, which reduces taxes on money spent on medical expenses?

What will the members accept? Are they mostly young? Mostly older? What features of the insurance plan are most important to the members?

 

[Turin39789]

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
It doesn't matter what research you do, you are going to lose. I understand your desire to maintain your cheap insurance coverage but those days are over. You are going to be paying much higher premiums in the future regadless of your efforts.

The non union public has no sympathy for your plight. They have been paying much higher premiums for years and earning less. If unions survive at all they will be no more than puppets of management.

This is coming from a lifelong union member who understands that times are changing. There will be no more free meal tickets.

unions were not free

 

[tm37]

The question is what do you offer that your non-union brethren don't.

Thast has to be you big neg. point. If you are "replacable" then the hotel has no "need" to pay for benifits. Somecompanies can offer greaqt benifits due to the amount of employees they have, I work at a company that does. Also I make less "MONEY" than I might elsewhere yet my benifits are awesome, which outweighs the the additional pay I might get elsewhere. I also am not "easily" replacable which makes my negotiating stace good should I need to.

How much do you make compared to others in your field, and what type of benifits do they receive?

Regardless of your skill as a negotiator you go in without that info and you will fail. Negotiating is alot like sales and you need to have WHY they should give you what you want. No one ever boufght anything from me because I wanted them to they always buy because they see a benifit. A good salesperson will show that benifit. You need to do this. You need to show why you deserve this benifit and why they can't let it go. The employer needs to see a real loss before they spend money. I recenlty helping get our equiptment budget approved. WE did not get cut by one dollar because we SHOWED what the benifit of spend that money gave the guy writing the check you need to do that. Numbers are your friend here.

 

[sciencetoy]

I've actually been on both sides of the union-nonunion negotiations.

Number one, information. Get as much as you can. Go WAY overboard. Every hilton contract, every other contract in the universe. Info is king here. Start researching insurance costs, talk to your insurance carrier and their lawyers, talk to the competition.

Number two, realize that you are being set up as a fall guy. As other people have pointed out, this is a losing issue - insurance costs are through the roof. There is no way you will be able to negotiate a contract that will make anyone feel good. Your peers on the negotiating group know this, and they're better politicians than you. It will be easy for them to blame you. It will be easy for every member of your union to associate you with the horrendous increases they will have to pay. You, sir, are in a bad situation. Sorry.

Number three, negotiating itself. It's a game, a very serious game. Learn the rules. Never put your cards on the table. Never budge until the other guy is giving up more than you are. (This is where information becomes important - you have to know your own issues, and you have to know your opponent's issues.) Never let emotion enter into it, because then you give away your positions. Verbal agreements don't mean a thing - read the fine print before signing anything. I once got a contract signed by having the opponent sign a preliminary agreement that was really the contract. Idiot didn't read it before signing. His problem. Don't bother with books, especially anything about "win-win." You basically want to find out where your opponent hurts, where he's possibly going to concede something, where he's not going to budge, what his negotiating history is, what his vulnerability is (Hilton probably can't tolerate bad publicity or a publicly bad relationship with the employees who service their customers, for example) and then start your game.

Good luck.