Profile of the Practical Law What's Market Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) Database. Practical Law provides a continuously expanding database of CBA summaries that allows counsel to analyze and compare collectively bargained terms, including employees' compensation, hours, other employment terms and conditions, and rights and restrictions across multiple agreements.
A collective bargaining agreement (CBA) sets out the terms and conditions under which union-represented employees work and generally binds employers to labor costs and obligations for several years. CBAs can set the parameters for wages, hours, fringe benefits, and deferred compensation for between a few and tens of thousands of employees, depending on the size of the bargaining unit. CBAs can be hundreds of pages long and riddled with a mix of legalese and industry jargon.
Over the past year, Practical Law has decoded and succinctly summarized 130 CBAs and incorporated those summaries into its What's Market Collective Bargaining Agreement Database. Practical Law will continually analyze more CBAs, but it seemed appropriate to take a moment to reflect and share observations, both expected and unexpected, from the database's first year.
As with other What's Market databases, Practical Law anticipated that subscribers would use the What's Market:
Collective bargaining agreement summaries to quickly understand complex transactions.
Comparison tool to:
on the micro level, compare term-by-term, the CBAs they selected; and
on the macro level, identify trends in negotiated CBAs, across employers, unions, industries, and locations.
During the past year, subscribers have been able to use the CBA summaries to understand complex CBAs and the comparison tool to glean:
Employers' demand for types of workers and operational needs.
Market employment terms and conditions for work of a particular type in an industry or location.
Employers' and unions' relative leverage in bargaining.
Broader market trends by:
industry;
employer;
union; and
location.
Surprises From the Database's First Year
Subscribers' Alternative Uses for the Database
Subscribers also have used the What's Market Collective Bargaining Agreement database to understand complex labor relations machinery and anticipated labor-related expenditures for:
Merger or acquisition prospective targets.
Commercial transaction partners.
Industry rivals.
Multi-employer bargaining association participants.
Their own subsidiaries and divisions.
Moreover, the summaries have demystified various unions, including, for example, by identifying:
In which industries particular unions organize.
What types of workers a union represent.
In which geographic locations particular unions have a presence.
The terms and conditions that particular unions demand and obtain.
Uncovering Unexpected Worker-Union Associations
In the course of building the What's Market Database, Practical Law featured CBAs covering some surprising worker and union associations. It is clear that major unions have succeeded in organizing and negotiating CBAs for workers outside of their normal job classification demographics. For example, Practical Law has summarized CBAs of:
While analyzing CBAs, Practical Law has uncovered trends and fun facts from CBAs. We highlight ten of them below.
Somehow They Manage
Although there were many common elements in nearly all CBA management rights clauses, there were approximately 90 different variations of those clauses among the 130 CBAs Practical Law has so far summarized.
If you do not want to take Practical Law's word for it, you can quickly generate a report comparing any of the 60 points Practical Law has analyzed for each CBA in the database, including the management rights clause, by taking the following steps when visiting the What's Market Collective Bargaining Agreements Database:
Select which CBAs to compare.
Click the "Compare" button.
Check the box next to any of the points of analysis completed for every CBA in the database.
Click the "Compare" button.
If desired, change:
the layout of the Practical Law What's Market-Deal Comparison report by clicking the "Change layout" link; or
the CBA provisions to be compared by clicking the "Change comparison" link.
Export your customized Practical Law What’s Market - Deal Comparison report to:
Federal Enclaves: Islands for Union Security Provisions in Right-to-Work States
Twenty-six states have enacted right-to-work laws prohibiting employers and unions from negotiating union security provisions that require, as a condition of employment, bargaining unit employees to either:
Maintain membership in good standing the union.
Stay current with administrative fee payments to the union that represents them in collective bargaining.
However, when uncovering union security clauses in CBAs from established right-to-work state Alabama, Practical Law discovered that employees in federal enclaves within right-to-work states may be subject to enforceable union security clauses and discharged at their unions' requests if they do not join or stay current in payments to their unions. For more information, see Article, Welcome to Alabama, Right-to-Work State and Home of Agency Shops?
Through the What's Market CBA Database, Practical Law is tracking as parties negotiate CBA terms to qualify for these exemptions from, or waive coverage under, these local laws. For example, search for "sick" within:
Pay Minimums Are Hardly Minimal for Professional Athletes
From insurance benefits to staffing levels, grievance and arbitration procedures to drug testing, and revenue sharing to individual personal service contracts, professional athlete unions and sports leagues negotiate more CBA terms and qualifiers than in any other industry. Pay scales are just the starting point for distinguishing professional sports CBAs from all others.
There's Family, and Then There's Family
Most CBAs include bereavement leave provisions permitting employees to miss scheduled work days with pay. Many parties have negotiated for varying numbers of paid days off depending on the parties' view of what familial relationships are proximate or distant. For example, employees may have the following days off to attend funerals:
Three days for an immediate family member, as specified.
Two days for a:
grandmother or grandfather; or
son- or daughter-in-law.
One day for a:
brother- or sister-in-law; or
niece, nephew, aunt or uncle, if related by blood.
Tiers for tears, so to speak.
Some CBAs provide for paid bereavement leave when a co-worker dies, but only if the leave-seeking employee serves as a pallbearer in the co-worker's funeral.
Continuing the morbid theme, Alaskan unions and employers acknowledge the prospects of death on the job and earnestly negotiate about it more than employers and unions elsewhere. For example, acknowledging that employees often must travel to remote locations and work in extreme conditions, only CBAs from Alaska include provisions about: