Mandates, Negotiations and Keeping Your Cool

An Interview with Dr. Wendy Josephson, Chief Negotiator for the Main Unit Bargaining Team

By Dr. Roewan Crowe, UWFA Member-at-Large

Pictured: Main Unit Bargaining Team (left to right) Dr. Richard Jochelson, Dr. Wendy Josephson, Ms. Lisa McGifford, Dr. James Currie

RC:  Can you tell me about your role as Chief Negotiator for the Main Bargaining Unit? How long have you been in this role? What does the position entail?

WJ: The UWFA Executive appointed me as Chief Negotiator for the Main Unit at the end of January, so I’ve been in the role for just over two months.

The Chief Negotiator leads the Negotiating Team throughout the process of negotiating a collective agreement and speaks on behalf of the Association at the bargaining table. So far, I’ve been participating in the Collective Bargaining Committee’s consultations with the Main Unit membership about what Members would like to see in the next collective agreement. Once the iterative process of establishing a mandate from the Members has been completed, I will work with the rest of the team (James Curry, Richard Jochelson, and Executive Director Lisa McGifford) to draft proposals in contract language and lead the team in negotiations with the Employer’s bargaining team. It will also be my responsibility to keep the UWFA Executive informed about what’s happening at the table.

RC: What led you to assume this responsibility?

WJ: It was a chance to participate in improving the situation in our workplace and looked like a really interesting thing to do.

RC: What attributes make for a good bargaining representative?

WJ: I’m not sure there’s a definitive set of attributes. We’ve had a lot of really good Chief Negotiators and Negotiating Team members through the years and I don’t think they were all that much alike in their personal attributes. Some of the things I really value about the members of the current Negotiating Team are that they all seem really determined, hard-working, and committed to getting a good deal for the membership. They also have particular strengths that they bring to the team individually, such as a background in labour law, especially well-developed communication skills, or skill in quantitative analysis.

RC: What are some of the rewards and challenges of this role?

WJ: I’ve enjoyed working with the members of the Negotiating Team and the rest of the Collective Bargaining Committee, and it’s been really interesting to talk with so many of UWFA’s Main Unit Members in our consultation meetings, so far. I also know from being on the Negotiating Team in the past that it’s remarkably rewarding every time the team is successful in getting agreement on something at the table.

Having had a chance to listen to Members’ experiences directly, we develop an especially strong sense of the practical implications of the proposals that form our mandate.

There are a lot of challenges, too, of course. There’s reason to believe that negotiating financial matters may be especially challenging this time around. There are some personal challenges to deal with as well. There are usually some times when team members need to keep their cool when things get a bit nasty at the table. Negotiators don’t usually get everything they’re trying for, so we’ll have the challenge of dealing with our own and Members’ disappointment in those areas where we may not be completely successful. It can also be a challenge to maintain confidentiality in the way that is expected of Negotiating Team members. According to the CAUT guidelines that UWFA follows, communications to Members about bargaining come from the Association Executive or the President. That’s valuable to ensure a clear and consistent message going to all Members of the Association at the same time, and it keeps members informed without elevating the risk of revealing our negotiation strategy to the Employer. So, although I’ll be making regular reports to the UWFA Executive about negotiations, and the Executive will ensure that regular reports go out to the membership, the Negotiation Team has to respect the Association’s reporting structure and not just answer colleagues’ questions about what’s happening at the table from our own point of view.

RC: Can you discuss strategies you use to handle disagreements/conflict in this context?  

WJ: In bargaining, there are bound to be important areas where UWFA Members’ interests are in conflict with the Employer’s interests.  In those matters, we expect to make trade-offs, sometimes having to give up things that are lower priorities for our Members in order to make gains from the Employer on things that are of particular importance to our Members. That’s one of the reasons why the information from our recent consultations and the Member survey about priorities is so important for the negotiation team. There are also areas where UWFA Members’ interests and those of the Employer overlap.  On those, negotiations can be more like problem solving, and both sides may benefit from the same solutions.

RC:  Thanks so much Wendy for taking the time to answer these questions, and a big thank you to you and the negotiating team for representing us all at the bargaining table.