For those of you who have heard the recent news that the Brattleboro Retreat and the United Nurses and Allied Health Professionals (UNAP) Local 5086 have reached a new two-year contract agreement, we would like to share with the community certain aspects of the negotiation process that did not make it into the press releases and news stories.
If there is a hidden headline here, it is this: Both sides agreed beforehand to try an innovative new approach that ended up transforming this year's contract negotiations into a genuine collaboration that produced results beneficial to both the Retreat and the 720 people who work for our hospital.
To begin, the union and management negotiating teams agreed to attend a series of pre-negotiation meetings in order to agree to ground rules for the negotiations and to allow us to better understand one another's concerns and needs.
We also agreed to do away with the early negotiation posturing that often puts people on an adversarial path from the start. That is to say, we started our official talks by all wearing our “reality” hats. No outlandish demands met by cold counter offers. No hidden agendas. No winner-take-all mentalities.