Preview
Collective Bargaining:
A Great Social Invention?
Discuss.
"There's strength in numbers"
This is a cliché, or could even be called a proverb that most of us have heard at some stage
in our lives. It also lies at the heart of collective bargaining, and it provides a
reasonable, although simplistic reason for the use of collective bargaining, and also gives
us an indication of where and for whom it is most useful.
Collective bargaining's origins lie in one of man's primary instincts; defence. In an
industrial relations context this is defence of proper working conditions, secure employment
and proper pay. Collective bargaining allowed this by gaining pay increases through the
increased power of the workers as a joint force. In this context I see collective bargaining
as more of an economic and political invention which has had an influence on the social
aspects of employment and living. Because of this I would have to say that collective
bargaining is not a great social invention simply because it was not a social invention. But
it does have social benefits, by providing more economic stability for those who partake in
it among other things which I will discuss in this essay. Collective bargaining also has its
disadvantages which I will also discuss. These advantages and disadvantages fall on both
sides of the collective bargaining fence; the employees and employers.
But what exactly is collective bargaining? The answer to that depends on ones viewpoint.
What are the social benefits of collective bargaining? And who do these benefits affect?
These are but a few of the questions I intend to answer in the course of the next 2000 or so
words.
To put this essay in context I must say what I feel collective bargaining is and what its
purposes are.
I see collective bargaining, in its most basic form, as the process by which an organised
group of employees, in the form of trade unions, negotiate with employers, their
representatives or their associations in relation to any aspect of employment within the
employers organisation. The reason that collective bargaining and trade unions are used is
the reason cited in the first paragraph; "There's strength in numbers". The individual
threat by a single employee to withhold labour is not very great. But when the majority of a
workforce in an organisation threaten to strike, or threaten any other form of industrial
action this threat becomes altogether more substantial. Collective bargaining gives redress
to the imbalance of power between individual workers and employers (Gunnigle et al, 1995).
This is the main purpose that collective bargaining is used in industrial relations, and
essentially gives collective bargaining a political purpose; the equalisation of power. Once
this extra power is attained, collective bargaining is then used for primarily economic
purposes. It is only in recent times that social issues have been included in the
negotiations in collective bargaining. As this process tends to lead to equal pay for all
workers doing the same work, there is as a consequence a social benefit; equality amongst
the workforce. While this can have its downside, namely complacency among the employees as
there is little incentive to do better in work, this disadvantage has been partly eroded in
recent times with the advent of productivity deals, which I will discuss in more detail
later in this essay.
Collective bargaining is also a political institution in that it regulates and defines the
interaction between trade unions and management. In a social context, the consequences of
this is a system for regulating industrial conflict. This can help ensure that any
industrial conflict is kept within reasonable bounds, and that in most cases the more
militant elements in trade unions are kept under control by virtue of the fact that the
majority of the workforce see an alternative avenue of dealing with disputes. I believe that
this .. seen in the case of the national wage agreements..
Collective bargaining is not however, and never will be, a revolutionary force.
As Fox wrote in 1985:
"Collective bargaining... emerges as a process through which employee collectives aspire,
not to transform their work situation, but to bend it somewhat in their favour" (Fox,
1985;153) In conclusion then, while I believe that collective bargaining has many good
social influences, it cannot hope to change society in any dramatic way.
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