TABLE OF CONTENETS
1) INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………… P3
2) THE CHARACTERSTICS OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING .......................... P3
3) THE LEVELS OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ................................................ P4
4) THE STRUCTURE OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ........................................ P5
5) COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN BRITAIN .......................................................... P5
6) COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN JAPAN ............................................................... P6
7) DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BRITAIN AND JAPAN .............................................. P7
8) CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………….......... P8
9) REFERENCES ……………………………………………………….......…………... P8
1) INTRODUCTION:
Collective bargaining is the process whereby workers organize together to meet, converse, and compromise upon the work environment with their employers. It is the practice in which union and company representatives meet to negotiate a new labour contract that contains agreements on specific provision covering wages, hours, and working conditions. Collective bargaining includes not only negotiations between the employers and unions but also includes the process of resolving labour-management conflicts. Thus, collective bargaining is, essentially, a recognized way of creating a system of industrial jurisprudence. (Blyton, P and P. Turnbull 2004).
Collective bargaining is the term used when employers deal directly with the trade unions representing their employees in order to regulate the conduct and terms of their work. (Edwards, 2003)
Collective bargaining still occupies an important position in industrial relations. Flanders (1975) argued that it was best seen as a political rather than an economic process, observing that collective agreement does not bind anyone to buy or sell any labour. It sets out the terms and conditions that will prevail if and when labour is engaged. He considered a more appropriate term for collective bargaining to be joint regulation of work. Pay rates are only a part of the resulting web of rules, which usually also covers issues such as job descriptions, hours of work, and often, explicitly or by implication, working practices, disciplinary standards and effort levels. Collective bargaining is thus concerned with the joint governance not only of pay but also, to a greater or lesser degree, of many other important determinants of labour productivity.
Milner (1995) argued that it is also important to remember that the relationship between collective bargaining coverage and union density is not a simple one of where union affiliation is high, coverage will be extensive, and where membership is low, coverage will be more limited. The lower levels of collective bargaining coverage in countries such as the UK (35 percent) and Japan (20 percent), in part, a reflection of the predominance of organisational level bargaining within their systems.
2) THE CHARACTERSTICS OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING:
Collective bargaining is a group process, wherein one group, representing the employees, and the other, representing the employees, sit together to negotiate terms of employment. Negations form an important aspect of the process of collective bargaining i.e., there is considerable scope for discussion, compromise or mutual give and take in collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is a formalised process by which employers and independent terms and conditions of employment and the ways in which certain employment-related issues are to be regulated at national, organisational and workplace levels. Collective bargaining is a process in the sense that it consists of a number of steps. It begin with the presentation of the charter of demands and ends with reaching an agreement, which would serve as the basic law governing labour management relations over a period of time in an enterprise. Moreover, it is flexible process and not fixed or static. Mutual trust and understanding serve as the by products of harmonious relations between the two parties.
It is a bipartite process. This means there are always two parties involved in the process of collective bargaining. The negotiations generally take place between the employees and the management. It is a form of participation.
Collective bargaining is a complementary process i.e., each party needs something that the other party has; labour can increase productivity and management can pay better for their efforts. Collective bargaining tends to improve the relations between workers and the union on the one hand and the employer on the other. Collective bargaining is a continuous process. It enables industrial democracy to be effective. It uses cooperation and consensus for settling disputes rather than conflict and confrontation. Collective bargaining takes into account day to day changes, policies, potentialities, capacities and interests. It is a political activity frequently undertaken by professional negotiators. (Van Ruyssveldt and J. Vanhoof , 1995).
3) THE LEVELS OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING:
Collective bargaining operates at three levels. These are National level, Sector or industry level and enterprise level.
National bargaining is a bipartite form of negotiation between union confederations, central employer associations and government agencies. It aims at providing a floor for lower-level bargaining on the terms of employment, often taking into account macroeconomic goals.
Sectoral bargaining, which aims at the standardization of the terms of employment in one industry, includes a range of bargaining patterns. Bargaining may be either broadly or narrowly defined in terms of the industrial activities covered and may be either split up according to territorial subunits or conducted nationality.
The third bargaining level involves the company and/or establishment. As a supplementary type of bargaining, it emphasizes the point that bargaining levels need not be mutually exclusive. (www.1)
4) THE STRUCTURE OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING:
Collective bargaining structure refers to the regularised patterns of union-management interaction. There is single uniform structure of cb, variations between countries. It happens by three major aspects of cb.
Cb may be conducted at different levels within the industrial relations system, this results in the employee`s terms and conditions of employment containing elements from more than one collective agreement.
There is variation in the coverage of the bargaining units. In the organisation or industry, a group of employees to be covered by a particular collective agreement.
The process of cb may vary in respect of form (written agreements to unwritten understandings), scope (wage rates and hours), and depth (influence unions or employee representatives). (Salamon, 2000).
5) COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN BRITAIN:
Collective bargaining in Britain, the situation of multi-unionism tends to occur through consolidated single table bargaining arrangements, with only a fifth of unionized workplaces sustaining discrete negotiations with each union representative. There is also some evidence of the increasing popularity of single union deals where the employer confers voluntary recognition on its preferred choice of union bargaining partner. To the extent that multi-unionism leads to friction and inter-union disputes this is a damaging tendency, although there is little evidence of this in recent industrial relations experience. The practical problems are also likely to diminish in significance with the recent trends towards union merger.
Collective bargaining in Britain is voluntary. There is no legal obligation on employers to negotiate with trade unions, although there are areas, such as health and safety, where there is a legal requirement on employers to consult with recognised trade unions. Some commentators suggest that collective bargaining is dwindling in importance in the 1980s as employers turn to other means of dealing with their employees. Evidence suggests both a slight reduction in the scope of collective bargaining where it is established, and a growing disinclination among employers in the growth industries to bargain with trade unions. Britain has a much decentralized bargain system. (Edwards, 2003).
As the Corus case clearly illustrates, changes to the level, scope and processes of cb. It has been the important instruments driving the restructuring of industry in recent years.
6) COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN JAPAN:
Collective bargaining in Japan is normally conducted at enterprise level. Japan is the three pillar system of industrial relations. Which are single enterprise trade unions, lifetime employment, and seniority related wages. The enterprise-based bargaining structure is closely intertwined with the structure of workers and trade unions. The emergence of the enterprise union form of organization after the Second World War and the importance attaching to its role in the industrial relations system has its economic basis in the practice of lifetime employment for key employees.
One sort of explanation such practices as lifetime employment and seniority wage systems as being related to Japan’s unique cultural traditions and the carry-over to modern industry of patterns of social relationships and obligations which characterized feudal Japan. Since lifetime employment is not a practice of very long standing in Japan. In face, the system developed during the transition to industrialization in the early part of the present century. Training became internalized within the structured organization of the firm itself and to reduce turnover an internal labor market system of workforce allocation and promotion, along with a wage structure was developed. Their acquired skills were largely non-transferable. Therefore, employees had a vested interest in remaining with their firm since job mobility was restricted, and employers wished to retain skilled labor so as to recoup their investment in training costs.
The most significant feature of collective bargaining in
To compensate for the weakness in bargaining power and lack of industry or nation-wide impact, trade union leaders devised in
Japanese employment relations are relatively stable, and relations between the parties can generally be characterised as cooperative. Collective bargaining is not legally binding. Collective bargaining in the public sector in Japan, however, remains more underdeveloped and problematic. (Bamber, 1998).
7) DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BRITAIN AND JAPAN:
Bamber (1998) and Edwards (2003) arguments that, Japanese employment relations are relatively stable, and relations between the parties can generally be characterised as cooperative. Where as Britain Evidence suggests both a slight reduction in the scope of collective bargaining where it is established, and a growing disinclination among employers in the growth industries (private services and high technology industries) to bargain with trade unions. There has also been some de-recognition.
Collective agreements prescribe minimum standards in Britain, however, in Japan it prescribe actual working condition.
In Japan use spring wage offensive system, in Britain is use Single Table Bargaining.
Employer’s duty to bargain collectively in Japan. If an employer refuses to bargain collectively with union without proper reasons, it constitutes unfair labour practice. For Britain, there is no law that compels an employer to bargain with trade union, even if such collective bargaining takes place and the parties reach agreement, such agreement is not legally binding, the law does not regulate the strike, there are no provisions governing the coverage of collective bargaining and son on.
8) CONCLUSSION:
Collective bargaining continues to have an important role regulating the terms of the employment relationship. It is not just concerned with the economic process of determining pay but, equally importantly, it provides a means of constraining managerial prerogative and allowing employees to influence organisational decision making. Multi employer bargaining, a traditional feature of most European countries.
Collective bargaining and the right to strike are recognised in Japan but serious restrictions exist. Since Japan has been in recession and deflation, with union membership falling, the value of shunto and the automatic wage increases associated with it have come under threat. The concern has become to protect existing pay structures and jobs.
Changes in the structure and coverage of collective bargaining, and declining trade union influence in wage setting, have permitted a marked increase in wage inequality in Britain since 1980. Statutory measures to support union recognition for collective bargaining and the introduction of the national minimum wage constitute important changes to the institutional landscape of pay determination in Britain. Whether their long term effects will serve to reserve the rise in wage inequality remains an open question.
9) REFERENCES:
Ø Bamber, J, Greg. And Rusell D. Lansbury (1998). International & Comparative Employment Relations. 3rd ed. London: Sage. Pp 249-261.
Ø Blyton, P. and P. Turnbull (2004). The Dynamics of Employee Relations. 3rd ed. Newyork: Palgrave macmillan. Pp 217-236.
Ø Edwards, P (2003). Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Blackwell. Pp 198-204.
Ø Flanders, A. (1975). Management and Unions. The theory and reform of Industrial relations. Vol. 11, no.2. Pp 220-237.
Ø Milner.S (1995). The coverage of collective pay setting institutions in Britain: British journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 33, no.1. Pp 69-91.
Ø Salamon, M. (2000). Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice. 4th ed. London. Pp 346-368.
Ø Van Ruysseveldt, J. And J, Van Hoof. Comparative Industrial & Employement Relations. London: Sage. Pp 135-154.