The agreements are printed, delivery has been arranged, and Local 4 members can expect to have a copy of their new collective agreement in their hands within two weeks.

GSU prints its own collective agreement booklets for members. This helps us keep costs down by allowing us to print for large or small groups and print additional booklets throughout the agreement term if necessary. It also gives us the chance to include our new member resource guides to help members interpret and apply the agreement to their specific situations.

It can feel like a long wait from the time a tentative agreement is reached until the finished booklets are actually in your hands. That’s because there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes once a tentative agreement has been reached and bargaining is over.

“We have to take the new terms and blend them into the previous agreement, then make sure both the union and the company agree on the exact wording,” says GSU staff representative Jordan Cousins. “It sounds like it should be quick, but getting that final sign-off can take a while. We generally wait until everything is officially signed before we go to print, but we’ve put out draft versions a few times in the past if the process was taking too long.”