They say a Labor Relations meeting is the only place where people can spend two hours arguing about labor law or contract language without ever reaching a resolution—it’s like watching a group of people try to agree on where to go for lunch, except the lunch menu is 400 pages long and written in legalese. To members, seeing union leadership meeting with Labor Relations (LR) every two weeks might look like we are “getting too cozy” with management. From the vantage point of UMPSA’s statewide President and Vice President, these bi‑weekly meetings aren’t casual coffee chats—they’re focused on enforcement, intelligence gathering, and prevention.
If we only spoke to management once every three years during contract negotiations, they would inevitably make mistakes that our members would end up paying for. This regular schedule is a mandatory tool in the union’s belt for several critical reasons. One of the primary functions of these meetings is stopping “contract creep” in real time. Management often has a habit of interpreting contract language in ways that favor its bottom line or do what it wants. By meeting every two weeks, the union can catch these misinterpretations before they harden into official university policy. For example, if a supervisor in a specific department starts assigning everyone to be an essential employee without a plan for how that would work, we are at the table with LR to remind them of the contract language’s intent. Without this frequent contact, a single violation or misinterpretation can quickly become a “past practice” that is much more difficult to challenge in arbitration later.
These sessions are also vital for clearing the grievance backlog, because justice delayed is truly justice denied. When a grievance is submitted and denied without a meeting, they shouldn’t be forced to wait 6 months for a resolution. Many grievances stem from simple misunderstandings or a lack of training by a mid-level manager, and these bi-weekly sessions allow the union to present facts directly to LR—the people who have the authority to overrule a rogue supervisor. We use this time to quickly settle informal grievances, which gets members back to work and keeps the legal costs of formal arbitration down for everyone.
Furthermore, these meetings serve as a hub for intelligence gathering. A union is only as strong as its information, and Labor Relations usually knows what university leadership is planning months before the employees do. Regular communication forces management to disclose operational and policy changes, such as changes to space utilization, safety protocols, and training. This gives the union the necessary lead time to organize a response, recommend changes, file information requests, or demand the right to bargain over the effects of those changes before they become working conditions.