EMPLOYER REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH; DEFENSES – In General

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After a mid-contract accretion, the parties have a right to bargain over terms and conditions of employment for newly added employees. Depending on the length of such bargaining, one or more of the employer’s wage adjustment cycles may occur before post-accretion negotiations are complete. To maintain the status quo during a cycle that occurs during post-accretion negotiations, the employer must normally afford newly added employees all contractually mandated wage adjustments. However, if it is unclear how one or more of the contract’s wage adjustments apply to the newly added employees, then the status quo for that cycle is the adjustments the employees would have received had they remained unrepresented. Here, it was sufficiently clear how to apply the contract, and the University correctly implemented both the across-the-board increase and the contract’s incentive award program (IAP) provision. (pp. 2-3 & 10-14.)