How CBAs are negotiated

1. Preparation.The union surveys members, analyzes grievance history and remittance data, costs current benefits, and elects a bargaining committee. The employer costs its own proposals. Months of work before anyone sits down.
2. Notice & ground rules.Statutory notice is given (in the U.S., notice to FMCS before modifying an expiring agreement). The parties agree on schedules, sidebars, and whether tentative agreements are binding as signed.
3. Proposals & counters.Non-economic language usually moves first; money moves last. Each settled article is initialed as a tentative agreement (TA).
4. The endgame.Package deals, supposals, marathon sessions against the expiration deadline. Benefits articles pull in actuaries and fund counsel — the pension contribution rate is rarely settled early.
5. Ratification.The committee recommends (or doesn't); members vote. No deal until the unit says yes. A voted-down TA sends everyone back to the table with less trust and less time.

Good faith, impasse, and pressure

Both sides must bargain in good faith over mandatory subjects — wages, hours, terms and conditions. Neither must agree. If genuine impasse is reached in the U.S. private sector, an employer may implement its final offer; the union's counter-pressure is the strike, and the employer's is the lockout. Mediation (FMCS in the U.S., conciliation in Canada) exists to keep the parties off that cliff — and in several Canadian jurisdictions a first contract can be settled by arbitration when bargaining fails.

First contracts are the hardest

The first agreement after a new organizing win routinely takes a year or more; there is no prior text to amend, no relationship, and every article is a fight. This is where new locals most often inherit chaos: membership lists in spreadsheets, no grievance history, benefits promises with no administrative machinery behind them.