On Thursday November 22nd, representatives of the Board of Governors and ULFA met to discuss the details of ULFA’s proposal for an “expedited” round of bargaining. According to this proposal, ULFA would agree to suspend and ultimately withdraw its ongoing complaint at the Labour Board regarding the Board of Governors’ failure to apply COLA on July 1 as required by the Labour Code in exchange for agreement by the Board before the end of the year on a package of articles and schedules focussed on issues that are key to the ULFA membership (You can read more about the issues at stake and background to the bridging dispute here. The history of our discussion and the involvement of the Labour Relations Board can be followed here, here, here, here, here, and here).
You can see the articles and schedules involved in the package and follow the progress of negotiations here. The red tab (first sheet) presents details of the status of the “expedited” bargaining process; the green tab (second sheet) presents the status of the regular negotiations which have been temporarily suspended to pursue this expedited process. Should the expedited process fail, the sides will resume negotiations where they left off on November 15.
The Board of Governors will present their response on November 27th. Because the expedited process involves tradeoffs among salary, benefits, and language, it will be necessary to understand the position each side holds with respect to all elements of the package before article-by-article level exchanges can take place.