Budget Contract Report

Language Issues Hang Up Budget Contract Negotiations

Negotiations for a first contract between Local 201 and Budget Rent A Car continued to move forward at the most recent February 24^th session. Discussions have reached a point where the Union feels the most recent economic proposals by the Company are substantial enough to take to the membership once a full tentative agreement can be reached. However, contract language in two important areas is holding up a tentative agreement.

Our members at Budget have gone almost 2 years without any pay raises plus they withstood a misguided decertification effort. They understand the importance of the couple of remaining contract language issues on the table The first is the Company’s insistence on including the right to “subcontract any work” in the Management Rights article, and the second is their desire to deny the Union the democratic right to even informational picketing in the No Strike-No Lockout article.

Given the recent events at the non-union Maine and Rhode Island Budget locations, where the company brought in sub-contractors to perform substantial amounts of work that had previously been done by Budget employees, the Union knows that the issue of sub-contracting and our ability to speak out freely to defend our jobs are both vital and connected. These fundamental union issues have the potential to garnish major public support from many other labor unions in the area.

Reaching a first contract is hard and inevitably involves compromise on both sides. Hopefully the last hurdles can be overcome soon and the Company can agree on the Union’s last counter proposals.