Page 166 - DMGT106_MANAGING_HUMAN_ELEMENTS_AT_WORK
P. 166

Managing Human Element at Work



                        Notes          may provide ways in which wages could be adjusted to meet increase in the cost of living,
                                       in which event they will constitute an agreed policy on this issue. They may link a part of
                                       wage increase to productivity increase or provide for productivity gain sharing in other
                                       ways, in which event they represent policy on aspects of productivity. Methods of dispute
                                       settlement would reflect a desire for the peaceful resolution of disputes. In a more general
                                       sense, collective bargaining (which has its supporters as well as its critics) is a critical
                                       element in pluralism. As Harry Arthur’s explains:
                                       “Why does pluralism place collective bargaining at the centre? Because, as adherents and
                                       critics agree, in the pluralist vision, labour and management, as autonomous interest groups,
                                       can and should jointly fix the rules of employment upon terms which represent an acceptable
                                       compromise between their competing interests. But is this process of negotiation and
                                       compromise a good in itself? Pluralists believe that it is, although their rationales vary:
                                       collective bargaining replicates the processes by which conflict is and should always be
                                       resolved in a democracy; it projects democratic values into the workplace; it preserves the
                                       autonomy of social forces as against the pervasive influence of the state; it is faithful to -
                                       but makes more acceptable by its mobilization of countervailing power - the conventional
                                       marketplace techniques of economic ordering in a capitalist economy; it ensures the
                                       participation, and thereby the moral commitment, of those most directly concerned with
                                       outcomes; it represents a significant advance over abusive and oppressive unilateral employer
                                       control.”
                                       Collective bargaining, in as much as it promotes democracy at the enterprise as well as at
                                       the national and the industry levels (depending at which level collective bargaining takes
                                       place), is an important aspect of a sound industrial relations system.
                                       7.3.5 Nature of Collective Bargaining
                                       The ILO Convention No. 98 (1949) relating to the Right to Organize and to Bargain Collectively
                                       describes collective bargaining as, “voluntary negotiation between employers or employers’
                                       organizations and workers’ organizations, with a view to the regulation of terms and
                                       conditions of employment by collective agreements.”
                                       There are several essential features of collective bargaining, all of which cannot be reflected
                                       in a single definition or description. They are as follows:
                                         • It is not equivalent to collective agreements because collective bargaining refers to the
                                           process or means, and collective agreements to the possible result, of bargaining. There
                                           may therefore be collective bargaining without a collective agreement.
                                         • It is a method used by trade unions to improve the terms and conditions of employment
                                           of their members, often on the basis of equalizing them across industries.
                                         • It is a method which restores the unequal bargaining position as between employer
                                           and employee.

                                         • Where it leads to an agreement it modifies, rather than replaces, the individual contract
                                           of employment, because it does not create the employer-employee relationship.
                                         • The process is bipartite, but in some developing countries the State plays a role in the
                                           form of a counciliator where disagreements occur, or may intervene more directly (e.g.
                                           by setting wage guidelines) where collective bargaining impinges on government
                                           policy.
                                         • Employers have in the past used collective bargaining to reduce competitive edge
                                           based on labour costs.









             160                               LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY
   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171