Question 1

Why collective bargaining should be made possible, especially for

the public sector in Zimbabwe. Discuss.
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiating the terms of employment between an employer and a group of
workers. The terms of employment include items such as working conditions, workplace rules, salary,
retirement benefits and health care benefits, (Purcell 2003). It is a process that allows workers and employers to
reach voluntary agreement on a wide range of topics. The collective  bargaining process may involve
antagonistic labour strikes or employee lockouts if the two sides are having trouble reaching an
agreement. One party's failure to reach agreement entitles the other to resort to certain legal tactics, such as
strikes and lockouts, to apply economic pressure and force agreement or find other means to coerce the other
part to accede to their demands. Collective bargaining has a great potential for minimizing
conflict, and redressing confrontational attitudes and acrimony inherently associated with the
employment relationship, thereby promoting industrial peace and ultimately economic
growth. On its own, it can serve as a mechanism for labour dispute resolution by setting out
procedures for resolution of labour disputes in collective bargaining agreements. One of the
virtues of collective bargaining is that disputes are solved at source, a factor that does not
leave the bitterness associated with such adversarial processes of dispute resolution as
adjudication.

Collective bargaining is an important way for workers to come together and let their voice be
heard in the workplace. Through collective bargaining, workers can earn and maintain
middle-class wages; have access to benefits, including health and pension; and bargain on
issues that allow workers to do their jobs right. One goal of collective bargaining is for
workers to be heard on non-compensation issues. Since agreements addressing non-
compensation issues are not written in a one-size-fits-all manner, the agreement reflects
issues of particular concern to the union members. Registered nurses (RN) typically bargain
for safe staffing levels in their collective bargaining agreements. Safe staffing in hospitals is
shown to significantly lower patient mortality and improve nurse retention.

The Committee recalls that the public service must be effective and efficient in order to
ensure the effective exercise of rights and improve citizens’ quality of life (public safety,
education, health, social security, culture, access to housing, law enforcement in the
numerous areas of competence of the public service.), as well as being a vital factor in
sustainable economic and social development, the well-being of workers based on fair
conditions of employment, and the progress of sustainable enterprises. This objective requires
the provision of high-quality services by public institutions – which are often essential and
highly complex – as well as sufficiently qualified and motivated staff and a dynamic and
depoliticized public management and administrative culture, with an ethical focus, which
combat administrative corruption, make use of new technologies and are founded on the
principles of confidentiality, responsibility, reliability, transparent management and non-
discrimination, both in access to employment and in the provision of benefits and services to
the public.

The Committee emphasizes that the different forms of social dialogue and, in particular,
collective bargaining between trade union organizations and the public service, are key to
creating the necessary conditions to meet the above challenges. In this respect, the public
service needs a sufficient number of qualified staff, with access to training and promotion and
a reasonable workload (this is particularly important in times of economic crisis and
structural adjustment ), and with fair and competitive conditions of employment with respect
to those in the private sector, including in terms of remuneration. Collective bargaining holds
advantages not only for public employees, as a means of ensuring motivation, social
recognition, respect and dignity, but also for the public service, which can harness the
commitments undertaken by trade union organizations to help them implement the above
mentioned core principles of public governance in democratic States, and to serve as an
effective instrument for sound human resource management to improve the quality of
services provided to the public.

In general terms, the right to organize and to bargain collectively is closely linked to the other
fundamental rights at work. It is the corollary of freedom of association. It is a constructive
means of promoting the protection of workers, often in vulnerable situations, and enables the
promotion of all of the fundamental rights. It is a key instrument in ensuring non-
discrimination and equality, including equal remuneration for men and women for work of
equal value, embodying in the world of work the guarantee of fundamental rights at work for
all, especially with a view to promoting social justice.
Global recognition of the right to collective bargaining in the public service is a long-standing
demand of the trade union movement, which has rightly criticized the unequal treatment of
public employees in this regard.

As a powerful instrument of dialogue between workers’ and employers’ organizations,

collective bargaining contributes to the establishment of just and equitable working
conditions and other benefits, thereby contributing to social peace. It enables the prevention
of labour disputes and the development of procedures to resolve specific problems,
particularly in the context of adjustment processes in the event of economic crisis or cases of
force majeure, as well as worker mobility programmes. Collective bargaining is therefore an
effective instrument which facilitates adaptation to economic and technological change and to
the changing needs of administrative management, often in response to demands from
society.

Public employees should have access to a bargaining process based on their primary status as
employees, not as citizens or voters. The legitimacy of collective bargaining is strengthened
by the additional fact that those who must bear the negative consequences of certain clauses
of collective agreements have accepted them by the intermediary of their representatives
within a process of mutual concessions agreed between the parties. At the same time, public
employees occupy a special, unique position in the budgetary process given their substantial
share of public finances. They also face unusual challenges in forming political coalitions to
protect against pressures generated as a result of real or imagined economic imperatives.

The Committee underlines that collective bargaining can, moreover, effectively assist in the
fight against corruption and for the promotion of equality. The Committee also draws
attention to the weakness of the State and public administration in many developing countries
and in least developed countries, where vast areas of territory sometimes lie outside effective
state control and where public revenues are very limited (in some African countries, for
example, development assistance provided by other States or international organizations
makes up a substantial proportion of the state budget, along with resources derived from
taxes and agreements with multinational enterprises) owing to high levels of poverty and the
extent of the informal sector. This has a negative impact on the real scope for economic and
social development. The Committee points out that sustainable development can only be
effective through the agency of democracy and its essential premises: free elections; the
rule of law; the separation and independence of powers; and the effective observance of
human rights, including social and economic rights and, in particular, freedom of association
and the right to collective bargaining, which must be guaranteed irrespective of the level of
development. The Committee recalls that Conventions Nos 151 and 154 can be ratified
regardless of the size of the public service and its staff, of the population or the extent of
informal employment.

The Committee emphasizes that under Convention No. 154, which covers terms and
conditions of employment as a whole, public employees should be able to negotiate
wages collectively (mere consultation of the unions concerned, which would be allowed
only under Convention No. 151, since it affords member States the choice between
collective bargaining and other methods of determining public employees’ terms and
conditions of employment, is not sufficient – after a certain time has passed since the
ratification – to meet the requirements of Convention No. 154 in this respect).

However, the special characteristics of the public service justify a certain degree of
flexibility in collective bargaining on wages, for instance, in view of the complexity of
the budgetary procedure, where the state authorities must take economic constraints into
account and reconcile various different interests – including those of trade union
organizations – taking into account and within the possibilities of prevailing economic
and social conditions.

The Committee observes that, in general, the majority of governments indicate, in their
reports submitted under article 19 of the ILO Constitution, that collective bargaining in the
public service is limited by the obligation on the State as employer to abide by the budgetary
constraints imposed by law on the state budget. Several governments specifically indicate
that wages and certain other benefits are excluded from the scope of collective bargaining in
the public service. For example, the Government of the Philippines states that Rule XII,
section 3, of Public Sector Labor–Management Council Resolution No. 2 of 2004 stipulates
that salary increases, allowances, travel expenses and other benefits that are specifically
provided by law are not negotiable. The Government of Romania indicates that, under section
138 of Act No. 62/2011 and the Public Servants Regulations, wages and other related
entitlements are not subject to collective bargaining; it specifies that wage entitlements can be
negotiated, under certain conditions, within the limits of the budget approved by the
institution concerned. The Government of Serbia states that wages are excluded from
collective bargaining in the public service and in government bodies, while other benefits are
open to collective bargaining. The Government of the United States indicates that the wage
rates of most federal executive branch employees are determined by federal law and are
therefore not subject to collective bargaining.

In general, public spending – including public employees’ remuneration, whether or not it is

determined through collective bargaining – requires prior approval by the Collective
bargaining in the public service: legislative assembly of the relevant sectionsof the draft state
budget submitted by the government. The same principle of prior approval by the competent
authorities applies to federal States or territorial corporations. Preparation of the state budget
is an extraordinarily complex exercise which requires a high level of coordination among
government bodies to establish overall criteria, priorities and objectives, as well as to analyse
expected expenditure and allocations based on economic data and forecasts (revenues,
inflation, growth rate, interest rates, level of indebtedness, etc.), while taking the preferences
of the population into account. Political parties, local authorities and various organizations
and interest groups have an influence on this procedure.

Accordingly, during the collective bargaining process, it may happen that public
administration representatives adjust their initial positions on overall wage increases for the
budgetary period to take account of calculations, economic forecasts and consultations with
other authorities or the actions of other stakeholders.

The Committee considers that legislative provisions that allow the competent budgetary
authority to set upper and lower limits for wage negotiations or to establish an overall
“budgetary package”, within which the parties may negotiate monetary or standard-setting
clauses, are compatible with the Conventions. Provisions that give financial authorities the
right to participate in collective bargaining alongside the direct employer are also compatible
with the Convention, provided that they give collective bargaining a significant role. It is
essential, however, for workers and their organizations to be able to participate fully in
designing this overall framework, which implies in particular that they must have access to
all the financial, budgetary and other data required, in a transparent manner.
The Committee also draws attention to the fact that, for collective bargaining on public
employees’ wages to work properly, the inflation and growth forecasts of the government
bodies that prepare the state budget must be drawn up using objective and transparent
mechanisms that are trusted by the population and by the trade unions, thereby excluding
“creative accountancy” and deliberately pessimistic or optimistic calculations motivated by
political opportunism, which indirectly hinder the proper exercise of the right to collective
bargaining. Successive economic crises have highlighted the need for competent independent
bodies to determine and verify fundamental economic data and, in particular, macroeconomic
figures, including the real level of public deficit.

The Committee stresses that, when the public authorities and the trade union organizations
conclude a collective agreement on wage increases in the public administration or other
clauses with budgetary implications, it is essential that the legislative assembly ratifies the
outcome of collective bargaining. The Committee also highlights the importance of this
culture of respect of collective agreements within legislative assemblies, including in cases
where the government does not hold the majority in Parliament, and that it is acceptable and,
in certain cases, very useful for parliamentary committees or their members to be involved,
formally or informally, in the negotiation or consultation process, under the special
modalities of collective bargaining in the public service, in order to ensure that the legislative
assembly abides by the collective agreements adopted.

References:

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---
relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_205518.pdf

http://www.negotiations.com/articles/collective-bargaining/

http://www.mywage.org/zimbabwe/main/decent-work-check/employment-
security/collective-bargaining

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---africa/---ro-addis_ababa/---sro-
harare/documents/publication/wcms_228800.pdfhttp://dpeaflcio.org/programs-
publications/issue-fact-sheets/the-benefits-of-collective-bargaining-for-professional-and-
technical-workers/