Bargaining

Welcome to our bargaining page. For many of the workers we represent, this is the first time in their careers that a Collective Bargaining Agreement has been negotiated. For that reason, we wanted to explain what the CBA is, where the concept comes from, and why it's important to get this right.

History & Legal Background

In the Federal Government, workers are able to organize under the terms of the Federal Sector Labor-Management Relations Statute, which can be found in Title 5 of the United States Code (USC), Chapter 71. Like most federal laws, there is also an agency that implements the Statute, in this case the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). The FLRA has issued regulations to implement the Statute at Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Parts 2411-2473. The FLRA is also a board of three officials who interpret the law as applied to specific cases. The FLRA rulings, along with Federal court rulings, form a body of case law that informs how agreements are bargained and enforced.

When workers elect to have a union, they are choosing for themselves an "exclusive representative" - one united voice with a legal entitlement to negotiate with management on the working conditions of those in the bargaining unit. This differs from an unorganized workplace, where workers have to attempt to make change individually, or hope for leadership that shares their values and understands their needs.

The Statute establishes in Section 7114(a)(4) that management must negotiate a "collective bargaining agreement" with the union (which, of course, consists of worker-members and represents all of the workers) in good faith. This agreement is a document that memorializes the compromises made by both sides - workers and management - regarding all negotiable issues that the parties wished to bargain on. By bargaining an agreement with a defined term and a wide scope, the workers have a more equal playing field to reach agreement with management on the overall conditions of their workplace. The contract also ensures stability and fairness in how the workers will be treated during the term of the agreement.

Agreement Contents

While the agreements may cover any topic that does not impermissibly infringe one of the rights reserved to management by the Statute, in practice every contract has its priorities. However, there is one basic concept that should be in every federal-sector labor contract.

Grievances and Arbitration: Section 7121 of the Statute requires CBAs to include a process for settling grievances. In practice, this is how the contract, along with almost all of the other rights that federal workers have on the job, is enforced by the workers. Most workers don't realize that the DoD has an Administrative Grievance Procedure that is the default for workers who don't have a union.  It has only one step, and if you get a disappointing result, there is no appeal or further review. In contrast, Section 7121 specifically requires that negotiated grievance procedures include a process for binding arbitration - a third party to settle disputes between workers and management. Most negotiated grievance procedures also have multiple levels of appeals within the local management structure.

Other topics: These are the agreements on all other issues - 

• Working conditions issues like safety, leave, travel and per diem, job descriptions, and training;

• The nuts and bolts of how the union and management work together such as union dues allotments, use of facilities, mid-term negotiation procedures, and official time; and

• Other specific-issue processes like disciplinary and adverse actions, reduction-in-force procedures, employee assistance programs, drug testing procedures.

• Alternate Work Schedules such as flexible and compressed schedules are also specifically required by law to be negotiated with the workers as a union. The natural place to memorialize those agreements is in the CBA.

Negotiation of the CBA

The workers and management negotiate "ground rules" for how the CBA negotiations will occur. These negotiations are typically in-person, and involve some combination of passing proposals back and forth, and meeting to discuss questions and to try to explain the issues and reach compromise. As the parties agree on a given topic, they will typically note a tentative agreement on that topic, and move to another. Often, compromises involve more than one topic, with one side giving ground on an issue, to gain ground on an issue that's a higher priority to them.

Ratification of the CBA

Once management and the workers reach a tentative agreement on all issues, management is required to send the agreement for "agency head review" - in our case, the Department of Defense. On the workers' side, we will hold a vote of the dues-paying members to ratify the contract. Once the workers and the agency have ratified the agreement, it goes into effect.

Enforcement of the CBA

The negotiated grievance procedure and arbitration are explained above, but a big part of any successful contract is language that is enforceable, and then the workers being organized enough (enough workers volunteering as stewards to handle the workload) and well-resourced (to be able to afford the expertise of legal representation, arbitration fees, and training for the workers who do step up to serve as stewards.)

Another critical aspect of the CBA is that it needs to be understandable, and every worker needs to be educated on what the contract is, where to find it, and how to be in contact with the union reps who can handle a potential case. 

The votes are in...

Local 777 Members have ratified the CBA!

Approximately 75% of all non-abstaining members (100% of those voting) voted to ratify. Congratulations to all of our members for a successful CBA bargaining. Next, the CBA will be signed by the union and management, and then will be sent to the Pentagon for approval. Once it is approved (or in 30 days), the CBA will be effective for all bargaining unit employees!

We have a Tentative Agreement! In addition to the items we listed in the previous update, we won a 12-year term, and some pioneering language on Government Shutdowns and Productivity. We also got a side memo executed that commits to negotiating Time and Attendance (incl. 4-10s and remote work), Travel, our local training gainsharing proposal, and our production time/focus time proposal.

Click Here to read the tentative agreement! 

Dues-Paying Members will receive an electronic ballot to vote on ratifying the contract; details will be sent by email and discussed at the monthly union meeting.

At the end of Day 2 of negotiations, we are very encouraged by our progress - both in terms of amount of content covered, and on the advances we've won.

Fought off management proposals that would have wiped out our ability to bargain on most changes in working conditions before those changes went into effect. We keep a respectable 3-week window to put together our proposals when changes are proposed.

Secured a right to negotiate at any time on topics the CBA doesn't cover. The flip side of this is that all Time and Attendance and Travel issues will be negotiated in separate LRC policies, not the CBA. But the lack of a "zipper clause" in the CBA means we retain our power to force meaningful good-faith negotiations on these topics.

• Secured 11 hours of union "office hours" per week that guarantees us the ability to perform research and prepare for future grievances and negotiations and stay current on changes in labor law. 

• Secured access to the same labor-law database management uses, leveling the playing field when it comes to defending our members. The trade-off here is that management increased the amount of paperwork we will have to file to get information from management.

• Secured annual safety inspections of all facilities with a guaranteed union rep present. Secured boot reimbursement at $250, safety prescription eyewear at $275, and eye exams at $50, all increased by 3% each year for the life of the contract.

• Secured a requirement for management to post ALL job openings, including direct hire authority positions, for a minimum of 7 days, with weekly emails to the whole district listing all openings. This will stop the practice of hiring a person by name with little to no announcement the position was even open, as is currently happening.

• Secured consideration of cross-training or working at other USACE facilities for a week in lieu of PROSPECT or similar training, for those who have completed all required training for their position.

• Secured a 45-day window to file a Step 1 grievance - bringing it in line with the Equal Opportunity Employment complaint timeline, making sure everyone has full use of their EEO rights, and reducing the risk of missing the opportunity to file grievances on any topic.

• Secured a minimum response period of 7 days for ALL proposed adverse actions (suspensions of 14+ days, demotion, termination).

Still to bargain are Drug Testing, Government Shutdowns, Reductions in Force (layoffs), a new union proposal on methods to increase productivity (e.g. a right to take a productive 2-hour block with no emails or messages or phone calls), the duration of the contract, and the preamble.

I am so proud of the work our negotiation team has put into this - it is really paying off.

We submitted our comprehensive proposal for the Collective Bargaining Agreement and the Time and Attendance Policy. Here's a summary of what we asked for in the CBA:

• A three-step grievance procedure with a longer 90-day initial filing deadline

• A new mediation article as a cost-effective option for resolving a grievance, but before filing for arbitration.

• A mandatory 60-day notice requirement prior to the initial proposal for any disciplinary or performance-based adverse action (like termination, demotion, or long suspensions), and a uniform 30-day response period for all adverse actions.

• A new article on government shutdowns, which would improve communication and require management to provide the criteria used to determine who is furloughed and who is exempt.

• An annual requirement for safety inspections of every Corps facility, with union representation on the inspection team.

• Annual safety boot and prescription eyewear cost increases by 10% each year for the life of the contract.

• A provision to allow workers to use the Government Travel Charge Card for local travel expenses.

• A "gainsharing" provision to allow workers who attend training in their local area to receive a payment equivalent to the GSA-determined lunch and dinner portion of the M&IE for the local area for each day of the training.

• A requirement for management to post all job vacancies internally for 14 days before public announcement.

• An option to cross-train at another Corps facility for a week in lieu of traditional training courses like PROSPECT.

• Two days per week of "office hours" for the union, so workers can know when the union rep(s) are available.

• A 15-year term on the contract to protect against dramatic changes in the treatment of federal workers by commanders, congresses, and presidential administrations.

In the Time and Attendance Policy, we asked for:

• Narrowing the "core hours" of the District by an hour, to 0930 to 1430. This would allow schedules starting at 0600.

• A new compressed work schedule option allowing workers to adopt a four 10-hour day per week schedule.

• Keeping the existing compressed work schedule option to work eight 9-hour days and one 8-hour day per pay period, with a regular day off every other week.

• Implementing the voting leave that President Biden directed the agencies to give all federal workers.

• Implementing leave for blood donation and use of the employee assistance program.

• A fair and equitable - and as objective as possible - process for deciding what positions are eligible for telework, from situational telework (unscheduled) up to remote work (100% telework, where the official duty station changes to your telework location).

• A requirement that supervisors make remote work and telework decisions fairly and equitably, even when considering the person involved (not just the duties of the position).

• Protections for remote workers during IT outages, and for remote workers' participation in programs like the Leadership Development Program.

As you can see, our Bargaining Committee worked very hard to put together a wide-ranging proposal that will improve the working conditions of every Chicago District worker. We will fight for all 20 of these items at the bargaining table, and will compromise where needed to secure the best CBA and Time and Attendance Policy possible to bring to the dues-paying members for a ratification vote.

Management's counter-proposals are due June 8th, and the first bargaining session is scheduled for June 26th-30th.

The bargaining team is still working on our proposals for the new CBA. The biggest development this week was about Telework and Remote Work. First, we received a draft of some updates to the LRC Time and Attendance Policy that would spell out how employees may request remote work. It was very subjective and would be difficult for the union to enforce. We will be negotiating better language on this policy while we are negotiating the CBA.

It's important to understand that we are relying heavily on our attorneys to advise us as we craft our proposals. We need dues-paying members to be able to afford these legal services. Now is the time to sign up as a member if you haven't done so yet. When we all band together, we can come to the table on an equal playing field with management.

An aside: The IFPTE requested national consultation rights with the USACE headquarters, giving us a direct voice in the policy-making process. USACE denied our request, so now we have to appeal to the Federal Labor Relations Authority. The dues that our members pay are funding the legal services we need to assert our rights. If you aren't yet, here's another reason why now is the time to sign up to show your solidarity with all USACE workers.

We are also aware of the new memo out of the Biden Administration that effectively tries to get agencies to implement the failed "SHOW UP Act" that forces employees back to the office, despite how productive and flexible federal workers have been through the pandemic. This is yet another example of why we need everyone to join as members - so we have the resources to get the legal advice we need to negotiate strong language, and to have the legal advice we need to enforce those provisions when USACE is pressured to change the deal.

We have officially started our negotiations with management for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Union will spend the next three weeks preparing our proposals, and then management will have three weeks to respond. Then we will meet for a week of in-person negotiations. If needed, other negotiation sessions will be scheduled after that.

For those that don’t know, in Federal-sector labor law, there is a list of some topics that are “management rights” that we cannot bargain over. Everything related to our working conditions that is not on that list is fair game for us to bargain over.

We are looking to maximize flexibility both in schedules/tours of duty, and in telework/remote work, as our top priority. We have some ideas that we have heard from you all that we think we can win. Things like a four 10-hour day work week, remote work, narrower “core hours,” and more. We want to show management how universally the LRC workers want – and often, need – this flexibility.

This will be the first new contract in almost 20 years, and the first to deliberately include all of the workers who became LRC employees in the re-org 3 years ago. We are very excited to fight for what is best for us, while still respecting the missions of the Chicago District. Our solidarity is what will win the best working conditions we can get. We can make real change in this contract, but we will need all the support we can get from everyone in the bargaining unit.

Bargaining Unit Employees: please refer to Colin's email from this date in your work email. If you have ideas about how we can make work better for you, your families, your co-workers, and even your community – please let us know as soon as you can. We will do everything we can to add it to our proposed contract, or to our legislative advocacy agenda.