COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

What is the collective bargaining? Collective bargaining is a process of joint decision making in work places. It is the process of negotiation between ‘firms’ and workers’ representatives for the purpose of establishing mutually agreeable conditions of employment to enhance the harmonies working status at the work places. The technique of the Collective bargaining is adopted by two parties to reach and understanding acceptable to both through the process of discussion and negotiation. Collective bargaining is making an opportunity to workers to negotiate their desires with employer and employer also receive an opportunity to discuss with workforces to drive the business to success through this. Definition of the collective bargaining could differ from one company to another, but the general idea of this defined by ILO. International Labor Organization (ILO) has defined collective bargaining as “Negotiation about working conditions and terms of employment between and employer and a group of employees or one or more employee, organization with a view to reaching and agreement wherein the terms serve as a code of defining the rights and obligations of each party in their employment /industrial relations with one another.” Collective bargaining involves discussions and negotiations between two groups as to the terms and conditions of employment. It is called “collective” because both the employer and the employee act as a group rather than as individuals. It is known as “bargaining” because the method of reaching an agreement involves proposals and counter proposals, offers and counter offers and other negotiations. Thus collective bargaining is a collective process in which representatives of both the management and employees participate. The representative groups could be group of management and trade union of the company. Also it is a continuous process which aims an establishing stable relationship between the parties involves in it. Collective bargaining is not only involves the bargaining agreement, but also involves the implementation of such an agreement. It attempts in achieving discipline in the industry as well as company. Collective bargaining is a flexible approach, as the parties’ involves have to adopt a flexible attitude towards negotiations.

Some business critics argue that collective bargaining only has a limited role for professionals in the industry. This is some kind of truth, because the parties who involve this should has much more bargaining ability; than a power. The skill of bargaining is the key factor to receive some thing or not. The professionals of works- such as specialists in the fields are bargaining individually to receive their needs from the employer, and most of employers are willing to satisfy their desires, because of the specialty; but collective action takes different role in these situations. Collective actions has opened the doors to any parties to act on be half of them, to NGO s freelancers and any individual. Financial Times blog has describe this argument very briefly.