Important Notes

• Articles which are tentatively agreed to by the Union bargaining team and the company must still be approved by NSLU membership before going into effect. 
• Articles here are in no particular order. Article numbers are omitted and will be worked out at the end of negotiations.   
• Notes are to help the members interpret the contract language, but are not part of the contract.  

Articles Tentatively Agreed To as of 7/20/2023:

SEVERABILITY

Section 1.
Nothing contained in this Agreement is intended to violate any Federal or State laws, rules or regulations made pursuant thereto. If any part of this Agreement is found invalid by a court, government agency, or is invalidated by federal, state, or local laws or regulations, the remaining parts of the Agreement will still be valid and enforceable.
Section 2.
Both Parties agree to immediately renegotiate any part of this Agreement found to be in violation pursuant to Section 1 and to bring it into conformance within sixty (60) days after notification, unless the time limit is extended by mutual agreement. 
The parties agree to interpret the invalidated provision based on its original intended purpose and strive to reach a revised provision that closely aligns with that purpose.

Bargaining Team Note: This is another standard contract agreement in which both parties agree to renegotiate any article that is found to violate the law, without invalidating the rest of the contract.

NON-DISCRIMINATION AND HARASSMENT

Neither the Employer or the Union will engage in discrimination or harassment based on race, color, religion, ethnicity, genetic information, native language, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, marital status, disability, veteran or military status, age, union membership, or any other status protected under all applicable federal, state or local equal opportunity laws. Both the Employer and Union will comply with all equal employment opportunity laws. The Employer and the Union will work to the best of their abilities to jointly prevent and effectively address allegations of discrimination and/or harassment in the workplace.
The Employer’s policies on non-discrimination and harassment in its Employee Handbook will continue to apply to bargaining unit employees covered by this Agreement.

Bargaining Team Note: This is a standard contract agreement in which the Employer and the Union agree to not engage in discrimination or harassment based on any type of protected status (race, color, religion, ethnicity, native language, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, etc.). NSLU sought to expand the types of status included in the agreement to go beyond federal definitions and sought to include housing/economic as a protected status, but New Seasons disagreed and redlined this out. Despite NSLU insisting on this protection, in discussions it became clear that NSM had no interest in contractually agreeing to not discriminate against employees experiencing housing insecurity or financial hardship. NSLU ultimately agreed to leave this protection out of this article and we plan to address the issue in other parts of the contract.