Labor Negotiating Terms
Learn about some of the terms you may hear during the labor negotiations process.
Bargaining Unit
A group of union represented employees who bargain collectively with the employer. The unit may include all the employees in a single location or in a number of locations.
Base Rate
The straight time rate of pay, excluding premiums and incentive bonuses. Rates can vary by role and seniority as well as market demand.
Collective Bargaining
A process which employees, through their union representatives, bargain as a group with their employer to determine wages, hours and other conditions of employment. Normally, the result of collective bargaining is a written contract that covers all employees in the bargaining unit.
Duty of Fair Representation (DFR)
A union’s obligation to represent all people in the bargaining unit as fairly and equally as possible. This requirement applies both in the creation and interpretation of collective bargaining agreements. A union is said to have violated its Duty of Fair Representation when a union’s conduct toward a member of a collective bargaining unit is arbitrary, discriminatory or in bad faith.
Contract Extension
Agreement by AdvanSix and the union to extend the current agreement to continue negotiations.
Good Faith Bargaining
Negotiations in which two parties meet and confer at reasonable times with open minds and the intention of reaching agreement over a new contract. Bargaining in good faith does not require either party to accept the proposals of the other party. It requires that both parties meet and negotiate and make effort to reach an agreement.
Impasse
In general usage, a term referring to a situation where two parties are deadlocked and cannot agree on a solution to a dispute. In collective bargaining, if impasse is reached, the employer is legally permitted to unilaterally implement its latest contract offer.
Informational Picketing
Picketing done with the express intent not to cause a work stoppage, but to publicize either the existence of a labor dispute or information concerning the dispute.
Injunction
A court order which either party imposes restraints upon action or directs that a specific action be taken and which is, in either case, backed by the court’s power to hold disobedient parties in contempt.
Lockout
Decision by AdvanSix to prohibit employees from reporting to work.
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA)
Federal law guaranteeing employees the right to establish unions and to participate in protected concerted activities. This act provides the right to participate in a strike. It also provides the right to not participate in a strike.
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
Agency created by the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 to define appropriate bargaining units, hold elections, determine whether a majority of employees want to be represented by a specific union or no union, certify unions to represent employees, interpret and apply the Act’s provisions prohibiting certain employer and union unfair practices and otherwise administer the provisions of the Act.
Ratification
Vote held by bargaining unit employees on whether to accept a tentative agreement.
Strike
Decision by the union to ask employees to stop reporting for work. Employees have an equal right to participate in a strike or elect to continue to report to work.
Strike Authorization Vote
A vote taken by the members of a union (often before bargaining is concluded) giving the union the full authority to determine if a strike is to be called, and if so, its duration.
Tentative Agreement (TA)
An agreement reached between the company and the union at the bargaining table that is subject to ratification by employees.
Working Without an Agreement
Employees may work without an agreement when a contract expires with no formal contract extension in place, and when no strike or lockout has been called. Employees continue to work under the terms of the expired agreement.