Negotiations Advisor User’s Guide

The Resource:

The Negotiations Advisor is the most comprehensive, up-to-date guide to effective negotiations preparation and contract administration. It contains over 70 concise, insightful and current articles on all aspects of the bargaining process, from the organization of bargaining units to impasse procedures, as well as the NJSBA’s clause-by-clause analysis of the NJEA and PSA Sample Agreement. The Negotiations Advisor also contains information on personnel issues that arise in school districts, such as discipline, continuing education and mentoring. These articles are continuously updated to provide access the latest and most current changes affecting school districts’ labor relations.

The Negotiations Advisor is organized into a number of sections which cover the following topics:

• The Structure of Negotiations: a series of articles describing the environment which affects your local bargaining process. New Jersey’s requirements for public sector negotiations, state and federal regulations affecting terms and conditions of employment and management’s traditional function are included in this section.
• Bargaining Skills: a number of articles examining techniques, behavior, attitudes and approaches that result in effective and productive negotiations.
• Bargaining Units: articles in this section address PERC’s rules and standards for determining appropriate bargaining units, the dynamics of changing unit structure, and the bargaining considerations which are associated with unit composition.
• Selected Contract Clauses and Bargaining Proposals: an approach to help you analyze common contract clauses and to draft board proposals and counterproposals on a variety of issues.
• Selected Topics Affecting Negotiations: a series of articles addressing major and recurrent topics which can affect your local bargaining process and personnel administration.
• Impasse Procedures and Beyond: a number of articles exploring the statutory procedures designed to assist the parties when face-to-face negotiations are deadlocked, including advice to boards on how to respond to bargaining impasses and union reactions to stalled negotiations.
  Salary Guides: a number of articles explaining the significance of salary guide structure and helpful, easy-to-follow guidance to help you analyze current and proposed guides.
• An Analysis of Sample Agreements: NJSBA’s clause-by-clause analyses of the NJEA and PSA latest sample agreements to assist your analysis of your current contracts and your unions’ bargaining proposal.
• References: a compilation of references that gives you quick and easy access to information that may be necessary to your bargaining preparation and at-the-table negotiations, including statutory and case law cites as well as an easy to use guide to negotiability. This section also includes an index of the topics covered in The Negotiations Advisor.

How To Use The Resource:

For a Quick Overview of New Developments:
Click on the “What’s New” entry in the left hand column of this page. This page will highlight: recent changes stemming from: new legislation or case law emerging from the courts, PERC, and the School Ethics Commission; arbitration awards with state wide significance; and other developments affecting negotiations and contract administration.

For an Overview of All Articles:
To obtain an overview of the contents of The Negotiations Advisor, click on the Table of Contents in the left hand column of this page. Scroll down the page to view an annotated table of contents which provides you with a quick description of each article contained in The Advisor.

To Review the Contents of a Section:
Click on the section name listed in the left hand column of this page and you will be provided with a list of articles related to the general topic. To view an article, click on the title of your choice.

To Locate a Specific Topic:
Enter the topic of interest in the Search Box on the front page of The Negotiations Advisor and click on the Search button. This will give you a page that identifies all articles in The Negotiations Advisor which address or mention your designated topic. For the best and most helpful results, select the “Sort by Relevance” option. To access the article, click on the named article. You can also click on the “Index” entry in the left hand column of this page, find your topic and click on the name of the appropriate article.
To Print or Download an article:
All articles (except the analyses of the NJEA and PSA agreements) are in a PDF format and require the use of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have the Acrobat Reader, or are unsure if you have it, you can return to the NJSBA home page, scroll down and download it using the link provided in the corner of the right hand column.