Section 8(d) defines the duty to bargain: what the parties must do, what they need not do, and one deadline confused with three other numbers.
The 60-day notice
A party seeking to terminate or modify a collective bargaining agreement must serve written notice on the other party 60 days before the expiration date, or 60 days before the proposed change if there is no expiration date. A contract expiring December 31 means notice by November 1.
Confusable numbers, each real but attached to something else:
- 30 days is the separate notice to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service under 8(d)(3), not the notice to the other party.
- 90 days and 10 days correspond to the special health-care institution variants, not the general rule.
What good faith does and does not require
The duty is the mutual obligation to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith over wages, hours and other terms and conditions. Section 8(d) expressly does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or make a concession.
So an employer that met on time across fourteen sessions, exchanged proposals and explained its positions bargained in good faith even after refusing the union's wage demand outright. Hard bargaining is not a violation. There is no rule that refusal after ten sessions shows bad faith, no requirement to concede a mandatory subject, and the obligation is mutual.
Mandatory subjects
The NLRB describes mandatory subjects as rates of pay, wages, hours and other conditions of employment, including pensions for present employees, bonuses, group insurance, grievance procedures, safety practices, seniority, procedures for discharge, layoff, recall and discipline, and union security.
Not mandatory: board composition (corporate governance), the identity of the union's chief negotiator (internal union affairs), the choice of advertising agency (a business decision).
Eight months into a three-year contract, moving represented employees to a cheaper group insurance plan with no management-rights clause covering it means serve the written notice and bargain the change. Do not implement first, do not poll employees around their representative, and do not assume expiration removes the obligation.
Carry this in: 60 days to the other party, 30 to FMCS, and confer without any duty to concede.