Banning Summary: The Pros And Cons Of Collective Bargaining

In most cases, bargaining agreements governs wages, benefits, and the working conditions for the union coalition employees. The agreements also set common goals and ground rules for the employee 's and management. When management and labor employees have a difficulty coming into agreements, the bargaining process breaks down. To bring difficult negotiations to an end, unions may possibly decide to strike.

Collective Bargaining is important in the employment relationship as it recognises the TU’s right to represent its employees for consultative or bargaining purposes and represents a fundamental and irreversible change in the employment relationship (Trade Union Recognition Institute of Personnel Management 1977, p24).

Collective bargaining, as its name implies, is achieved when two or more parties come together to make a decision about something. Specifically, it is achieved when employers and a group of employees work together to decide important terms and conditions regarding employment. These terms and conditions include compensation as well as rights and responsibilities of employees, employers, and unions. They can also include guidelines for resolving problems such as grievances and disputes (Budd, 2010, p. 13).

I feel the labor relations system as currently constituted is effective for resolving disputes as long as both parties are committed to negotiating in good faith. Although, I feel the current system is effective a further explanation of the systems strengths and weaknesses will better explain the effectiveness of resolving disputes. It is in both the companies and the labor interest to negotiate with as little third party interaction to come up with an agreement. In times when there are disputes their different course of action that start from a least costly without giving up power in the decision to the possibility of becoming more costly to either party and give up the power in the decision. As discussed in the text when an organization and labor cannot come up with an agreement a third party may be asked to come in to negotiations to resolve a dispute which includes mediation, fact-finding, and interest arbitration.

Labour Relations Act 28 of 1956 includes as one of the aims of the Act, the prevention and settlement of disputes between employers and employees. Industrial councils were the primary institution for collective bargaining; generally they were system that involved a form of centralised bargaining in a particular industry or segment of an industry (Alan Rycroft, Barney Jordaan, 1992:146)

| (TCOs 1, 5) This type of bargaining occurs when unions shift from bargaining more for job security than higher wages.

The first law, which supports collective bargaining, is the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) or the Wagner Act, as it is also called. Robert F. Wagner put this Act into place in 1935, hence the Wagner Act. Prior to this Act taking form, employers were allowed given full control over the outcomes of numerous employees who questioned their labor practices and went on strike as a result. Employees were left without any protection from such occurrences and thus were left with little voice in regards to the terms and employment conditions. Once the Wagner Act was put into place, this labor law provided a significant amount of protection to employees everywhere and gave them the ability to not only participate in unions and collective bargaining, but to also be protected from injustice at the hands of their employers by prohibiting any loss of jobs in the union process.

In a unionized environment, employers exert their power mainly by working against union organizing. Their most important goal is to be union-free. Efforts to control organizational costs have also contributed to employer’s resistance to unions. The management may work towards sidelining union membership by designing work in such a way that it creates a work culture that increases employee commitment and job satisfaction. Employers use a variety of methods to refrain worker’s from organizing campaigns and unionize. Their efforts range from hiring consultants to distributing leaflets and letters to presenting the company’s viewpoint at meeting with employees. Some employers also

Employees think forming a trade union is a way of helping to achieve improvements in these different aspects of their work place- a trade union is a type of pressure group. Unions are representatives of employee demands at work and to challenge the management when needed therefore, are sometimes disliked. In this fast pace employers want to avoid and eliminate the waste of resources and try to utilise and maximize the productivity. Even after the past events including the formation of unions and strikes sometime business support trade union and sometime dislike

Collective bargaining sets monthly wages, benefits and working hours on the negotiation table, not through each worker's individual production or efficiency efforts. This may be negative for the hardest working union members as "Recent research suggests that productivity is substantially higher when employees' monetary incentives are based solely on individual effort."

According to Investopedia (N.D.), the term collective bargaining is the “Process of negotiating the terms of employment between an employer and a group of workers.” (Collective Bargaining, N.D.) However, this covers much more, such as compensation, personnel policies and procedures, employee rights and responsibilities, employer rights and responsibilities, union rights and responsibilities, and dispute resolution and ongoing decisions making. (Budd, 2012, Pp. 11- 12)

Labor Laws help protect the workers ‘union activity by helping to define those roles of employees and management. “The major process in today’s U.S. labor relations system-organizing new unions, bargaining contracts, and resolving disputes and grievances-are not entirely legal in nature, but labor law has defined important aspects of these processes” (Budd, 2013, p. 109) This leads us to look more in-depth at three U.S laws that support the effort of collective bargaining. We will peer into the Wagner Act, as well as the Taft-Hartley Act and finally glance into the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between employers and a group of employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions. The interests of the employees are commonly

Collective bargaining is the process by which conditions of employment are negotiated between management, and the labor organization representing employees in the bargaining unit. However, “collective bargaining refers to a situation in which union members and officials meet with an intent to resolve any issues or conflicts, in an attempt to maintain relationships” (Holley, Jennings, & Wolters, 2012, p. 243). The collective bargaining process relies on four aspects: recognition of the meeting, meeting with appropriate parties, bargaining in good faith, and incorporating the reached agreement (Adam, 1997). Nevertheless, collective bargaining activities are governed by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The NLRA requires bargaining

Prior to the arrival of unions in the workplace, conditions were considered unsafe and workers continuously moaned about poor wages and benefits. Unions pursued to improve the working conditions for members through fair and reasonable wages, quality healthcare and benefits; and safe working conditions and quality of life. The union represented the workers and through a collective bargaining process negotiated the interests of the workers. Collective bargaining helps work through tribulations with the organization. Collective bargaining is the process between employers and employees to reach an agreement regarding the rights and responsibilities of employees. This tool used to come to a collective agreement which concentrates on different things such as employees working hours, their pay their rights, rules and details of how to participate in company affairs. (Lewin, 2012)