Collective bargaining

Collective bargaining is the process of negotiation between trade unions (or labor unions, as they are called in the USA) and employers (represented by management) in respect of the terms and conditions of employment of employees, such as wages, hours of work, working conditions and grievance procedures, and about the rights and responsibilities of trade unions.

The term is reputed to have been coined by the British academic Beatrice Webb in the late 19th century to describe a process alternative to that of individual bargaining between an employer and its individual employees. Other writers have emphasised the conflict-resolution aspects of collective bargaining, but in Britain the most important refinement was that made by Allan Flanders , who defined it as a process of rule-making, leading to joint regulation in industry. The term is usually seen as necessarily containing an element of negotiation and hence as distinct from processes of consultation, from which negotiation is absent, and where outcomes are determined unilaterally by the employer.

In Britain collective bargaining for many years has been, and has been endorsed as, the dominant and most appropriate means of regulating workers' terms and conditions of employment, in line with ILO Convention No. 84. However, the importance of collective bargaining in Britain and elsewhere in the industrialized world has been declining considerably since the early 1980s.

See also

• Mutual gains bargaining
• National Labor Relations Act
• National Labor Relations Board
• Right of recall

References

• Buidens, Wayne, and others. "Collective Gaining: A Bargaining Alternative." PHI DELTA KAPPAN 63 (1981): 244-245.
• DeGennaro, William, and Kay Michelfeld. "Joint Committees Take the Rancor out of Bargaining with Our Teachers." THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 173 (1986): 38-39.
• Herman, Jerry J. "With Collaborative Bargaining, You Work WITH the Union--Not Against It." THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 172 (1985): 41-42, 47.
• Huber, Joe; and Jay Hennies. "Fix on These Five Guiding Lights, and Emerge from the Bargaining Fog." THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 174 (1987): 31.
• Liontos, Demetri. COLLABORATIVE BARGAINING: CASE STUDIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Eugene: Oregon School Study Council, University of Oregon, September 1987. OSSC Bulletin Series. 27 pages. ED number not yet assigned.
• McMahon, Dennis O. "GETTING TO YES." Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Association of School Administrators, New Orleans, LA, February 20-23, 1987. ED 280 188.
• Namit, Chuck; and Larry Swift. "Prescription for Labor Pains: Combine Bargaining with Problem Solving." THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 174 (1987): 24.
• Nyland, Larry. "Win/Win Bargaining Takes Perseverance." THE EXECUTIVE EDUCATOR 9 (1987): 24.
• Smith, Patricia; and Russell Baker. "An Alternative Form of Collective Bargaining." PHI DELTA KAPPAN 67 (1986): 605-607.

External links

• Collaborative Bargaining in Education
• Graduate Student Unionization in Higher Education