If you are a working professional in the performing arts, you should own up to a secret truth: some of you may not be well versed in the world of entertainment labor unions, and are probably unprepared to sit toe to toe across the bargaining table from your local union representative. Outside of real world experience, labor negotiating skills can be difficult to acquire. Labor unions differ significantly from the typical employer/employee relationship and from other forms of negotiations. The formal nature of labor negotiations means that aspiring managers rarely get the chance to be the fly on the wall.
The principle instrument of the management/labor relationship is the collective bargaining agreement (CBA). These agreements are the result of negotiations between representatives of the labor union and the employer. They encompass a range of critical elements that govern the relationship between employees and their employers, including wages, benefits, and working conditions. Negotiations often reflect the fundamental tension between labor and management—while employees seek better compensation and benefits, employers aim to control labor costs to maintain operations. Not for nothing, labor leaders have a very different set of challenges; they are at the intersection between the demands of the members and the reticence of management to meet those demands.
Generally speaking, arts administration programs offer only the basic level of management/labor relations, since you also have to learn the fundamentals of marketing, finance, philanthropy, and a panoply of other subjects. Professional training programs such as the IAVM Certified Venue Executive (CVE) program offer relevant study materials, but the program assumes you have already been a working professional for many years.
My own training in labor relations was a little unorthodox. UC Davis did not have an arts administration program (still does not, to my knowledge). So a colleague of mine and I developed our own program and pursued it with the approval of the Dean of Fine Arts. In addition to the core coursework from the drama department, we took classes from the School of Law, School of Management, and even the Department of Food Science and Management. The course in labor relations was taught by a visiting professor, Jack Barbash, from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Jack Barbash turned out to be no ordinary instructor. One assignment was to write up the history of a particular union. In my case I chose the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE, or "IA"). I thought I knew a thing or two about unions in the entertainment business, and specifically the IA. I was a little naive. He graciously gave me an A on the assignment, but he also filled the margins with so many questions and thought provoking comments that it was clear he had more than an academic level of understanding about the IA. It was also clear that I had a lot to learn.
Jack Barbash instantly came to mind as I was thinking about this post. Thanks to the ubiquity of Wikipedia, I'm able to better understand the depth of his expertise. Not only did he sit on both sides of the bargaining table, he was a key player in negotiating the merger of the AFL with the CIO in 1955. This unassuming professor (to me anyway) was the author of 20 books, was an economist for the National Labor Relations Board, and was at one time the head of the Labor and Employment Relations Association.
Jack passed away three years after I completed my degree. Had I known then what I know now, I would have made an effort to glean everything I could from this man. Or at least that's what I tell myself. Recently I picked up an aged copy of his 1961 book Labor's Grass Roots: A Study of the Local Union. I can also dig out the old textbook that he wrote for the class. But it's not the same. My secret truth is that I had to learn the hard way pretty much through experience like everyone else. There just doesn't seem to be a shortcut. But I will say, if you are presented with the opportunity learn from an expert, latch on.