This incredibly helpful new manual for union negotiators explains both the fundamentals and the details of costing a collective agreement to prepare for and conduct your contract negotiations. It describes the principal ways that contract costs are calculated and expressed by negotiators, and guides you through the process of accurately calculating average wages for your bargaining unit – for contracts with step progression and those without. Chapters in the manual explain how to analyze and calculate the value of contractual benefits: overtime pay, shift differentials and other hourly premium payments; holidays, vacations, personal days and leave time; health, dental, disability and life insurance plans; pensions and savings programs; and other kinds of benefits found in many union agreements.

The manual guides you step-by-step in constructing your own costing spreadsheets to calculate the value of wages and benefits in your agreement, aided by pre-formatted MS Excel worksheets on an accompanying CD. It uses a realistic union contract to illustrate the techniques to develop baseline costing details as well as a summary of the package of wages and benefits. It shows how initial proposals of both union and management negotiators are costed as well as counterproposals made by both committees, carefully explaining how to analyze and estimate the cost of each proposal using the baseline information and the computer software in the most effective way. Readers need only a basic familiarity with this software program, as the author provides clear explanations of all functions and gives many useful tips on how to use Excel efficiently.

Traditionalists who prefer costing with paper and pencil or with a hand-held calculator will find the methodologies, tips and cautions in the manual very helpful, including the section on the union’s right to receive information from the employer and a sample informational request. Those who wish to master the software skills to match their management counterparts will benefit from the instructions on how to most easily build spreadsheets using the pre-formatted MS Excel workbooks and the extensive examples from the fully-costed union contract.

The author has extensive experience as a union negotiator and was a faculty member at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies (National Labor College) for a number of years.

"Contract Costing for Union Negotiators is a great service to the labor movement. This book takes the mystery out of contract costing for the union bargaining committee. It will make a difference to any negotiator coming to the table to confront the employer’s numbers. Donald Spatz had taught costing to a few of our locals with great success, using some of the material in this book. Our committees have felt more confident and empowered. "
ROBERT WECHSLER, EDUCATION AND RESEARCH DIRECTOR, TRANSPORT WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO