Documenting Labor Inside and Out
Collective Bargaining
Negotiations

Introduction

The Archives of Public Affairs and Policy

Archives and Labor Records

Who Uses Labor Records?

Internal Documents

Organizing

Publications

Union Members

Union Democracy

Collective Bargaining

Political Action

Solidarity

Labor Culture

Conclusion

Additional Resources

Paper-strewn tables may not be visually exciting, but it is in countless meetings and negotiating sessions that the terms of any agreement between labor and management are worked out.

As any one who has ever haggled over the price of an automobile knows, negotiating can be a delicate process, trying to get what one wants without paying too high a price, while trying not to let the other side know too much about what one is willing to compromise on. The same situation exists for labor organizations in their negotiations with management.

Minutes of meetings of a union's negotiations team or communications between team members can provide some of the frankest discussion of the union's goals in negotiations, and suggest on what issues it has some flexibility and on which issues there is no room for discussion. Internal correspondence on these subjects are also informative.

Negotiations are also documented with the records of the actual negotiations sessions between labor and management. At the beginning of negotiations, each side provides the other with its list of contract demands. These proposals provide a starting point for negotiations and, from a historical perspective, allow researchers to understand the expectations that each side brought to the bargaining table. Minutes of the actual negotiating sessions further document each side's position, as well as the approach that each side took towards the other. Depending on the detail with which minutes of negotiations sessions are kept, they can also provide some insight into the personalities of the individuals from each side involved in the negotiations as well as the general attitude of labor towards management and vice versa.

Labor-management meetings are another form of negotiations that labor organizations engage in and minutes from those meetings can be equally informative on the positions of both labor and management on various issues as well as the attitudes of each side towards the other.

As noted in a postscript to the minutes of a labor-management meeting between UAW Local 930 and management at Ford Motor Company's Green Island Plant held in 1944, just three years after UAW Local 930 was formed, it can take time for both labor and management to "learn the fine art and disciplined skill of listening to one another" and of "communicating effectively." The records of negotiations held by labor organizations can help document this evolving process.