The strategy would break a practice known as pattern bargaining, under which each of the city's municipal unions have for the last quarter century agreed to accept the same annual wage increases.
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Several union leaders said they would not be surprised if the new strategy were to turn into pattern bargaining, especially if the first union to secure a contract obtained a hefty wage increase.
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The most important thing about the arbitrators'award may be that it further fractured the tradition of pattern bargaining, under which the city has negotiated basically the same pay deals with all of its unions.
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"Pattern bargaining has weakened, " said Christopher Erickson, assistant professor of industrial relations at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA . " Even in 1989, other companies waited for Boeing to settle.
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They said it was significant because the award, for the first time in 25 years, breaks the tradition of pattern bargaining, under which the city negotiates virtually the same pay raises with all its unions.
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During negotiations for the renewal of its industry labor contracts in 2007, the United Auto Workers ( UAW ) union selected General Motors as the " lead company " or " strike target " for pattern bargaining.
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But the aerospace industry is no longer like the automobile industry, which still has pattern bargaining because the three dominant manufacturers took the economic performance variables off the negotiating table when they introduced profit sharing, Erickson said.
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You always said you wanted pattern bargaining, so why are you now wanting to break pattern bargaining ?'We'd say, ` If you don't match it, let's take it to arbitration .'Historically, arbitrators have usually followed what other unions obtained ."
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You always said you wanted pattern bargaining, so why are you now wanting to break pattern bargaining ?'We'd say, ` If you don't match it, let's take it to arbitration .'Historically, arbitrators have usually followed what other unions obtained ."
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Indicating another area of friction in future labor talks, leaders of the powerful teachers and police unions vowed to increase their efforts to scrap pattern bargaining, insisting that it has left their members earning considerably less than their suburban counterparts.
