Fortune Article Shares Insight from Joseph Richardson on a Union’s First Contract Negotiations

In an article in Fortune magazine, Willig, Williams & Davidson attorney Joseph Richardson discusses the dangers newly unionized employees face when negotiating first contracts with their employers. In a recent string of victories, workers at Starbucks, Amazon, and Chipotle have voted to unionize, but the fight for improved working conditions and higher pay does not end after the election.

Richardson explains that employers often use questionable tactics to draw out negotiations until employees can vote to “decertify,” or expel their union: “It can take the form of bargaining that walks right up to the line, perhaps a little bit over, in terms of what is allowed.”

Failing to negotiate a contract can have other consequences as well: “Not having an agreement means that the parties have to negotiate every individual circumstance affecting terms and conditions of employment: each schedule change, each pay raise, each major discipline, each work rules change,” Richardson says. “This imposes huge transaction costs on both sides.”

Read the full article online: Workers at Amazon, Chipotle, and Starbucks are winning union elections. But it might take years before they see a contract (Subscription is required.)