Children’s Therapy Center Waiting for Movement

On January 14, we met for our fifth bargaining session with Management at CTC to continue negotiations on our first contract. We first met with the Employer at 11am to receive their counterproposals, as we had provided them with responses to everything in our previous session on December 12. As Management presented their proposal, we were disappointed with the lack of movement in most sections in their proposal. The Employer agreed to our proposal on No Strike/No Lockout language, which outlines that we cannot go on strike throughout the duration of the contract and they cannot lock us out during the duration of the contract. A lockout would be if the company prevented you from coming back to work due to a labor conflict, Management’s version of a strike. By establishing a no strike no lockout clause, we focus on resolving issues through the grievance procedure, as both sides are prohibited from their versions of strikes to force the other side to agree. While this is important, the Employer held on pretty much every other section in the contract to their last proposal, which felt like a let down from the progress we had been making.
 
We spent the rest of the day working on a proposal to get back to the Employer, however, we did not want to rush our response and decided that we would present our proposals first thing in the morning at our next bargaining session on January 23.
 
As our next session is next week, we are waiting to have our next Contract Action Team Meeting until after our session on the January 23 so that we can talk about both sessions at once. Please be on the lookout for the meeting invite in our next update!

Our Union Bargaining Team: Ronda Duluoz-Infant Mental Health Provider, Lindsay Gilbert-Family Resource Coordinator, Megan Rupert-Special Educator