XI. Management Viewpoint – Preferences
The screen shot below shows the initial negotiating ranges for each of the issues. For example the negotiating range for Class size limit was 17 to 35 students. Preference analysis resulted in a relative importance rating being assigned to each of these ranges. For example, the relative importance assigned to Class size limit was 44. Notice that no importance is assigned to Healthcare Plan. Management decided that it didn’t really care which Healthcare plan was chosen, since they were all about the same cost and they expected to be contributing only a small portion of the premium. The final outcome confirmed this assumption.
Satisfaction graphs were developed for each issue. The following satisfaction graph for Class size limit shows that most of Management’s satisfaction on this issue would come from an outcome of about 30. The difference between 30 and 35 would be very little because, with an average class size of about 22, the need for such a large class is very rare.
The discussion around the Metal Detectors issue was particularly interesting. As a result of the discussion in the joint sessions, the options were expanded from (all, none) to (all, ad hoc, none). Prior to this change, Management had a very strong preference for “none”. After the change, Management specified indifference between “ad hoc” and “none” as illustrated in the following screen shot.
Switch to Labor view to see Labor’s private response to the change in definition of the Metal Detectors issue.