Labor
RelationsCornell

Certificate Program

This course will help build your skills in the “nuts and bolts” of effective labor negotiations. You will start by identifying the organizational goals central to your bargaining strategy, then see how to move from these business goals to negotiation goals. You'll take a look at the impact of external factors and share your analysis of these factors in a discussion with your peers. Your deep understanding of the collective bargaining agreement, the unit, and the employer will lay the groundwork for success. This course provides a combination of theory and practical applications, down to expert advice on how to manage the administrative aspects of negotiations. Finally, you will choose an appropriate collective bargaining strategy for your organization. Will you take a fostering approach or a forcing approach? And how do you determine which is best? How do you mix the two approaches effectively, and what are the pitfalls you need to avoid? And lastly, you'll evaluate behaviors and styles that make negotiating so challenging. This course includes a negotiation simulation with peers.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Collective Bargaining

The parties in any collective bargaining contract negotiation are seeking to balance costs and benefits in order to achieve mutual agreement. Developing proficiency in assessing relative value and costs of a benefit improves your ability to compare apples to oranges. Costing a contract entails a comfort with the fundamentals of workplace math and statistics, as well as the ability to effectively communicate this aspect of negotiation. Are you prepared to estimate numbers and explain them?

The importance of this foundation is often underestimated. This course fills gaps for both management and labor by developing a new mindset for costing a contract. You will use basic costing tools to calculate the value of a collective bargaining contract with a focus on calculating and communicating relative value and costs. You will explore the six key principles to estimate costs in order to create agreement proposals.

At the conclusion of the course, you will have applied the tools and principles to a sample proposal and counterproposal. You will have practiced the skills to assess the contract's impact to employees and developed strategies for educating stakeholders. Whether you‘re making a counterproposal or you're ready to get a contract ratified, you will be better able to explain your numbers with the confidence and experience gained from this course.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Collective Bargaining

When grievances occur, taking a strategic approach is the key to productive outcomes. It takes preparation and a solid grasp of the facts and context of a situation to conclude whether a complaint is a grievance that should be heard and resolved. A complaint becomes a grievance when the issue is specified in the contract language. By reading the grievance clause carefully, you can determine whether a complaint should be heard as a grievance and consider resolution possibilities from the perspective of both parties.

This course will advance your ability to read grievance clauses effectively. You will explore the specific language included in these clauses and recognize meaning provided by common rules of interpretation. With the tools needed for solving problems and the confidence to employ them, you can overcome potential obstacles in the grievance resolution process.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Collective Bargaining

For a variety of reasons, workplace grievances aren't always resolved through negotiation and require arbitration. The outcome of the arbitration hearing is determined by the arbitrator, but as a participant in an arbitration you have a critical role in the process and the results. In this course you will review the typical components of a hearing and, using proven processes and tools, practice the steps of arbitration.

You'll discover what a hearing looks like, how a hearing proceeds, and who participates. You'll analyze cases to identify facts critical to your argument and develop a theory that will lead to an issue statement. By becoming familiar with strategies for questioning witnesses, you will be prepared to present your opening and closing arguments.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Collective Bargaining

Symposium sessions feature three days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today’s most pressing topics. The HR Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

Join us for the next Symposium, in which we’ll share experiences from across the industry, inspiring real-time conversations about best practices, innovation, and the future of human resources work. You will support your coursework by applying your knowledge and experiences to some of the most pressing topics and trends in the HR field. By participating in relevant and engaging discussions, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections with your fellow participants from across the industry.

All sessions are held on Zoom.

Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.