I was told I was going to be fired.
“JT, Do you understand me?”
Terminated, let go, finished.

I had been hired a few weeks prior.
Wait, what? Fired? I just started.
I was in a state of shock.

If I didn’t do what my employer wanted,
when they wanted it done.
FIRED?

A little background.
I had retired a couple of years back. I still worked but on a contractual part time basis.
And then a new administration came into office. These guys meant business. As in “the government should be run like a business.”

So I got a call. “Would you consider coming back to work? Full time.
You will be responsible for negotiating the State’s labor contracts. Our chief negotiator.”

I said yes. That was in January. I started our negotiation with our largest union on February 9th.

It’s now almost the end of March.

My guy from the Governor’s office called me. On a Saturday.
Why aren’t we done negotiating? Clearly the union can see that our proposals are fair.
They must understand we have no money for pay raises, for step increases, for health insurance.

“So, why haven’t you wrapped this up?”

I quickly explained that we’ve only met with the union 4 times at the table.
At three of the sessions we discussed ground rules.
We had just finished exchanging our proposals.
The contract would expire at the end of June.
There was much discussion yet to be had.
We hadn’t even begun to talk about economic issues.

“We don’t care, you better wrap this up soon or

You will be fired!”

How do you work with an employer when their expectations break with past precedent?
When their experience level working with labor issues, union contracts, etc. is minimal yet they are committed to completely changing the labor status quo?

I was about to find out.

Or be fired.

JT

to be continued