Should Unions Rethink First Contracts?

Veteran labor organizer Chris Brooks made a provocative argument: unions should radically rethink first contracts — going smaller, shorter, and simpler in order to win, then build from there.

Before digging into Brooks’ thesis, I recently completed bargaining for a first-ever 2-year contract. Initially company wanted 5 years and the union 3. Due to unrelated circumstances, the company wanted a 2-year contract, and the union capitulated.

The examples are hard to argue with. After 3 years of bargaining, the union representing employees at the only unionized Chipotle store in the country quit bargaining. Whole Foods Philly organized in January 2025 and is still bargaining; Amazon has refused to bargain for over a year. Hundreds of Starbucks is still bargaining after 5 years. Even successful first contracts take hundreds of days of negotiation.

Brooks looks at United Electrical Workers’ first contract with GE. After organizing 30,000 GE workers, the union proposed enshrining GE’s own employee handbook into a 1 year contract with two additions: an enforceable grievance procedure with shop stewards, and automatic inclusion of any future GE plant the UE organized. The CBA was 6 pages. It did not try to win every benefit issue in round one.

Brooks’s proposed framework for first contracts:

1. Shorter duration. 1 year contracts, not 3. Lets unions build on gains quickly and align contract fights across newly organized shops. In 1947, 75% of union contracts were one-year. By 1995, less than 1% were.

2. Embed the union and protect basic rights. Language recognizing the union, protecting against outsourcing, just-cause protections and progressive discipline, a grievance / arbitration procedure, and give union staffworkplace access.

3. Narrow management rights clauses. Avoid “zipper clauses” that let employers unilaterally change anything not explicitly covered. Lock in the employer handbook so it becomes subject to the grievance procedure.

Per Brooks, this changes the strategic calculus for employers:

1. The “drag out negotiations until decertification becomes possible” play may not work if unions pivot to one-year deals.

2. A first contract that codifies just-cause termination is fundamentally different from one that simply raises wages. Watch for that emphasis.

3. If you’re an employer that’s already published a comprehensive employee handbook, that handbook may end up being the union’s opening offer.

The deeper insight Brooks is making: density is destiny. Defending past union gains depends on growing the union’s size and capacity to disrupt corporate profits. Mini-first-contracts could be the bridge between successful elections and meaningful density growth.

Is the all-or-nothing first contract strategy actually feasible — or is it accelerating union decline? And how would you respond to a first contract offer to codify your own handbook?