Collective Bargaining in the Workplace Essay Example For Students

Collective Bargaining in the Workplace Essay Britain has one of the most developed systems of collectivebargaining in the world, especially amongst manual workers. Itssophistication is one of the main reasons why British workers traditionallypressed less for the statutory provision of basic rights in the work placethan their Continental colleagues. Most trade unionists prefer to put agrievance through procedure rather than go to an industrial tribunal. Dubin has described collective bargaining as the great socialinvention that has institutionalised industrial conflict and by theDonovan Commission as right which is or should be the prerogative of everyworker in a democratic society. It could be also defined as a method ofdetermining terms and conditions of employment through the process ofnegotiation and agreement between representatives of management andCollective bargaining does not require a comprehensive collectiveagreement for a stated period of time. It requires only the recognition ofthe bargaining agency and the principle of action that mutual problems bejointly considered and jointly decided. The desire of each party to beassured about the others future conduct that is, the desire forstability and security makes the comprehensive collective agreement for aterm the normal concomitant of collective bargaining. It requires eachparty to think into the future, to anticipate situations and to determinesolutions before situation s arise. It requires the making of policy which,when agreed upon, becomes the collective agreement. The heart of the collective agreement indeed, of collectivebargaining is the process for continuous joint consideration andadjustment of plant problems. And it is this feature which indicates thedifference between the collective labour agreement and commercial contractsgenerally. Commercial contracts are concerned primarily with end results;collective agreements, with continuous process. Workers organised intotrade unions and bargaining with employers provides a measure ofcountervailing power to the powers of management, and that is fundamentalto industrial relations. The collective bargaining process provides aformal channel through which the differing interests of management andemployees may be resolved on a collective basis. The collective agreementis not made between parties who seek each other out for the purpose ofentering into a business transaction and who can shop around amongcompetitors for the most favourable connection. It is made between partieswho find themselves alre ady in a joint enterprise and who have little orno choice in selecting each other for the relationship. The union does notchoose the employer and the employer does not choose the union. Both aredependent on the same enterprise and neither can pull out withoutdestroying it. Even when a dispute between them results in suspension ofoperations, they must strive so to adjust the dispute as to resume theirWhilst undoubtedly the process of collective bargaining has becomemore formalised at the organisation level, many arrangements (agreements)are still made between managers and shop stewards in respect of operationalsituations at the departmental or workgroup level. Collective bargaining through collective agreements places socialconstraints upon managerial discretion. One type of constraint consists ofthe labour standards or norms established by collective agreements relatingto pay and hours which are translated into the terms and conditions ofemployment for employees represented by trade unions. Such standards limitmanagerial discretion in setting wage, hours and other substantive terms ofemployment. At the same time these standards also offer the advantage tomanagement of harmonising labour costs throughout the industry. The second constraint is related to the bargaining over the rules,which govern the continuing relationship between unions and employers. These rules are often recorded in procedure agreements or the proceduralclauses of collective agreements: negotiating procedures, bargaining rightsand management rights clauses, shop stewards facilities, redundancy,disciplinary and grievance procedures. This is the so-called contractualAlso collective agreements can provide a joint policy forredundancies or the introduction of new technology providing consultationrights for trade union representatives as well as rights governingseniority, job guarantees and measures to avoid redundancies. Collective rather than individual bargaining with an employer isnecessary for effective voice at the work place for two reasons. First,many important aspects of an industrial setting are public goods, whichaffect the well being of every employee. As a result the incentive for anysingle person to express his preferences, and invest time and money tochange conditions is reduced. Safety conditions, lighting, heating, thefirms policies on dismissal, work-sharing, promotion, its formal grievanceprocedure and pension plan all obviously affect the entire work force inthe same way that defence, sanitation, and fire protection affect allcitizens of a town. Public goods at the work place require collectivedecision-making. Without a collective organisation, the incentive for theindividual to take into account the effects of his actions on others, orexpress his preferences, or invest time and money in changing conditions,A second reason collective action is necessary is that workers whoare not prepared to exit will be unlikely to reveal their true preferencesto their bosses, for fear of some sort of punishment. The essence of theemployment relationship under capitalism is the exchange of money betweenemployer and employee in return for the employers control over a certainamount of the workers time. The employer seeks to use his employees timein a way that maximises the value of the output the employee produces. As aresult, the way in which the time purchased is utilised must be determinedby some interaction between workers and their boss. Since the employer candismiss a protester, individual protest is dangerous. In a unionised setting, by contrast, the union takes account of thepreferences of all workers to form an average preference that typicallydetermines its position at the bargaining table. Through collectivebargaining employees can achieve better terms because the employer cannottake advantage of the individuals differing personal circumstances andneeds. As Harbinson stated, the important difference between individual andcollective bargaining lies in the fact that the latter is strictly arelationship between organisations and therefore an indirect regulation ofthe relationship between management and employee. There are three basic functions of collective bargaining:(a) A market or economic function it determines on what termslabour will continue to be supplied to a company by its presentemployees or will be supplied in the future by newly hired workers. In this context the collective agreement may be regarded as aformal contract and the grievance procedure as a non-legal meansfor ensuring the employers compliance with its terms. The processis primarily concerned with determining the substantive terms onwhich people are being employed. (b) A governmental function in which collective bargaining maybe regarded as principally a political process based on themutual dependency of the parties and the power of each to vetothe acts of the other. The content of collective bargaining isconcerned as much with procedural issues and the distribution ofpower and authority as it is with substantive issues and the(c) A decision making function which allows workers, throughtheir union representatives, to participate in the determinationof the policies, which rule their working conditions. Thecollective agreement is in effect, a formal memorandum of thedecisions that have been reached and is a limitation onmanagements freedom and discretion to act unilaterally. Here is important to note the necessary conditions under which collective(a) the employees themselves are prepared to identify acommonality of purpose, organise and act in concert; and(b) management is prepared to recognise their organisationand accept a change in the employment relationship, whichconstrains its ability to deal with employees on an individualThe determinants of conflict between the management and the workersunion in an organisation are easy to see when we consider the objectives ofboth sides. Managements objective in collective relations may fall intofour broad categories: first, the preservation and strengthening of thebusiness enterprise; second, the retention of effective control over theenterprise; third, the establishment of stable and businesslikerelationships with the bargaining agents; and fourth, promotion of certainThe union may threaten the survival and growth of the enterprise inseveral ways. It may press demands, which impair the financial health ofthe b usiness, or it may undermine managements efforts to build a loyalOn the other hand the of the union leadership fall into thefollowing categories: first, the preservation and strengthening of theunion as an institution; second, the carrying out of the formal purpose ofthe union to get more for the membership; third, the acquisition of agreater measure of control over jobs to implement the first two objectives;and fourth, the pursuit of certain broad social and economic goals. Holy Year of Jubilee Essay(b) From the management point of view it allows organisationsto present a collective response to trade union pressure; itstabilises the wage costs for all organisations at a uniformlevel and prevents unfair competition between organisationsbased on differing wage levels. However, the wage rate set atthe national level in many private manufacturing industriestends to be that which can be afforded by the least productiveand profitable within the industry. The increased emphasis on organisational bargaining in the private sectorfrom the 1960s onwards is a result mainly because of the inability, andinappropriateness of formal industry agreements to regulate the increasingrange of issues which were becoming subject to collective bargaining, suchas changes in working methods and improvements in productivity, which aredifficult to be regulated effectively from the national level, given thediversity of organisational requirements. Organisational bargaining covers a variety of different levels and(a) Company or group-level bargaining where all employeesof a given type within the organisation, irrespective oftheir place of work, are covered by a single bargaining(b) Plant or site bargaining in multi-site organisations. Thislevel of bargaining is particularly important in thoseorganisations, which are multi-industry as well as multi-siteand therefore the nature of the work, and process involvedwill vary between the sites and require different terms and(c) Departmental or workshop bargaining relating to such issuesas bonus schemes and work arrangements. It is important to say that organisational bargaining is not confined toone or other level but may take place at a combination of levels. Inaddition to any industry-level bargaining, there may be bargaining at thecompany-level (pensions), the site-level (enhancement of nationally agreedterms) and the departmental level (the employees actual workingOrganisational bargaining has two important advantages:(a) It encourages management to develop a more positive approachto industrial relations within its organisation particularlyin respect of wage bargaining. Industry-level bargaining tendsto weaken managements control of its wage costs in that thedetermination of wage rates is outside its direct control andmay be inappropriate to its circumstances. Management, bybargaining at the organisational level, is better able to linkwages with changes in work methods and increased productivity. (b) Both management and employee representatives becomeresponsible for, and committed to, the agreement they reach. The terms of the collective agreements are no longer decidedfor them by people outside the organisation and over whomthey have little direct control. However, organisational-level bargaining may also present some problems:(a) In the area of pay bargaining, it may provide greater scopefor comparability inflation. The granting of a pay increasein one organisation, because of changes in work methods caneasily give rise to expectations that similar increaseswill be given in the future or in other organisations. Itprovides the opportunity for the development of a keybargaining strategy on the part of trade unions; that is,selecting one organisation which can afford the pay increaseand than trying to achieve the same level of pay in other(b) The existence of too many small bargaining units, each withits own separate agreement, can lead to constant comparabilityclaims between the various groups. (c) Because of the multiplicity of negotiations and agreements,organisational bargaining is less susceptible than industrybargaining to external verification and regulation duringSo far as industry bargaining is concerned it is important todistinguish between three potential roles for industry-level bargaining:(a) It may determine actual rates to be paid as in the(b) It may act as a floor. Elliot explains this situation asfollows: when national rates rise all workers who currentlyenjoy rates in excess of the nationally agreed rate havetheir rates adjusted upwards either to re-establish somefixed relationship with the nationally agreed rate or becausethe change in the national rate provides the agreed signal fora change in workplace rates. (c) It may act as a safety net. Elliot states that in thissituation the industry level provides only some agreed minimumbelow which nobody will be allowed to fall and therefore anyincrease in the national rate will only affect those who weremarginally above the old national rate but are now below theLegal support for trade union recognition was introduced quite latein Britain. Even as late as the 1960s the TUC could argue that tradeunions in Britain have succeeded through their own efforts in strengtheningtheir organisation and in obtaining recognition, not relying on theassistance of government through legislation. However, by that time,changes in the labour market away from manual to non-manual employment andthe decrease in employment in industries with high trade union densitiesindicated that the historical base for trade unionism in the private sectorThe repeal of the statutory recognition procedure in 1972 did notdramatically affect the statutory trade union rights to disclosure ofinformation, consultations over redundancies, transfers of the undertaking,health and safety pensions as well as the right to time off for trade unionduties and the right to appoint safety representatives. For while all theserights presuppose that a trade union has been recognised by the employerfor the purposes of collective bargaining, it is not necessary for therecognition to have been granted under the s. 11 procedure. The Employment Protection Act 1975 also included a statutory tradeunion right to disclosure of information for the purposes of collectivebargaining, which has been retained. Contained now in s 181 of TULR(C)A,this trade union right requires employers to disclose information inconnection with collective bargaining. One reason for this legislation is that it is not simply anadvantage for trade unions in the bargaining process. It is also useful toprompt employers to present information in such a way as to produce morerealistic demands by trade unions by convincing them to take into greateraccount the economic problems of the firm. Employers do not have to provideoriginal documents, or even copies of original documents, but are entitledto prepare information in a special form to be disclosed to trade unions. A recognised, independent trade union is entitled to allinformation relating to the employers undertaking as is in his possession,which applies to any stage of collective bargaining. Another statutory right of trade unions is the right for collectiveconsultation over redundancies. Employers are required to consult withrecognised trade unions to notify the government in advance of redundancies. Under s 188 of TULR(A) an employer who proposes to make one or moreemployees redundant has an obligation to inform and consult about such adecision with a trade union which has been recognised for collectivebargaining for that grade of employee. In addition to the obligation to consult recognised trade unions,employers are required to notify the DE when they propose to dismiss ten ormore employees for redundancy (s 193). The idea behind this provision is toput the DE in a position to help to place redundant employees in new jobsor in government retraining courses. Section 168(1) of TULR(C)A entitles employees who are officials ofan independent recognised trade union to have reasonable time off with payto carry out any duties, as such an official, which are concerned witheither negotiations with the employer related to collective bargainingmatters for which the trade union has been recognised (s 168(1)(a)) or theperformance of trade union functions agreed with the employer (s 168(1)(b))and to receive training in issues of industrial relations relevant to hisduties concerned with the collective bargaining matters in s 168(1). TheCode of Practice clearly indicates that the purpose of the section is toextend the rights of trade union representatives at work place level withina framework agreed between management and the union. It promotes the ideathat managers should give shop stewards facilities including office spaceand that employers should allow paid time off for a wide range of tradeIn conclusion we may say that legislation still prones obsta cles inthe way of trade union renovation in new areas and increasing trade unionmembership. More precisely, the narrowing of trade union immunities hascreated difficulties for trade unions to use secondary industrial pressure. Moreover, it encourages employer policies of derecognition andWhile the scale of collective bargaining in the 1990s is underthreat owing to the changing attitudes of employers who take inconsideration the centrality and significance of collective bargainingarrangements with their organisation, it is still the case that more than60% of the work force are covered by collective arrangements. Bibliography: