Salaries and benefits after the election

After a union election, what happens to our existing salaries and benefits?

Answer:  After the election, while negotiating for a contract, we continue to have the same salary and benefits that we have before the election.  But there’s nothing to keep MGB from working with us to develop new policies or practices, before a new contract is ratified, including salary increases.  Providing raises solely to non-union employees but not to union employees could be discriminatory and be challenged as an unfair labor practice before the NLRB.

It would be illegal for MGB to announce a raise, new on-call program, or any other initiative before union cards are filed with the NLRB and then retract any of them after the card filing.

Employers sometimes claim that their hands are tied when it comes to raises, citing such things as restrictive market rates, Stark Law, and not-for-profit status, suggesting that unionizing might not make much of a difference. However, unionizing can provide transparency, helping us understand how MGB pays us, who they’re comparing us to, and whether these restrictions are genuinely necessary or are simply being cited as barriers.