Do you have what it takes to negotiate a first collective agreement or to negotiate a revision? Read some of the LRB decisions affecting employers who didn't.
Negotiators are not born equal, if you have not worked in labour then the cards are stacked against you.
Why would chance losing control of your business? No matter what the out come, you lose when you negotiate your own agreement. consider this:
You take a shot at negotiating and get some serious language into the agreement, Union tells staff that you don't care about them etc,etc etc. you are the bad guy, try and work with your staff after that, when we leave after negotiations we are the bad guys because we tell you not to agree;
You take a shot at negotiating but do not understand the long term implications of the language since you do not know how arbitrators have interpreted the language, the Union does and so do we. You will find out, only after you find out that everything you thought you could do, you can't;
You take a shot at negotiating and get yourself into a jackpot with unfair labour practices filed against you for bad faith bargaining;
The reasons are many why in the long run you lose every time when you negotiate your own agreement, you just cannot match a seasons Union negotiator if you do not have the same experience level.
