From ALPA's "The Negotiating Process":
Management’s Expectations
The second reason that the negotiating process moves slowly has its roots in a phenomenon that
was previously mentioned, and that’s ―expectations.‖ Because creating, forming, and managing
management’s expectations is so important to understanding this process, we must spend a few
minutes discussing it in a more detailed way.
An ―expectation‖ is an individual’s view of what’s likely to happen at some point in the future,
based on the probability that certain events will occur. Expectations are significantly different
from hopes or dreams. The latter are what you desire and may wish for, but expectations are
what you think you’ll get. Thus, your expectations about the future will have a significant effect
on your emotional response to an event.
Probably 95 percent of your time as a negotiator in the second phase of the collective-bargaining
process will be spent on destroying, creating, and/or maintaining the management negotiators’
expectations regarding what the future contract will look like when it’s concluded.
Like you, the management team has been prepared for this round of negotiations for an extended
period of time. By the way, don’t be surprised if the management negotiating team includes one
or two Delta pilots. Many of the processes they’ve used to get ready are almost identical to the
ones you’ve used. Like you, they’ve developed some fairly firm ―expectations‖ about what is
possible to accomplish in this round of talks.
Unfortunately, no matter whether you’re the pilot group negotiator or the management
negotiator, this expectation-setting process tends to be somewhat biased. Management sets its
expectations in the context of the company’s needs, and you set your expectations in the context
of satisfying your members’ needs.
You’ll have to use all sorts of techniques for changing expectations, e.g., providing factual
evidence in support of your position, logic, exposing internal contradictions in a management
position, emotion, and demonstrating unity. But the one technique, if it can be called a technique,
that both you and management will use is simply the passage of time and the firm repetition of a
particular position.
My guess is that 95% time estimate was waaaaaaayyy off.