Employment Laws

What is Collective Bargaining?

• One of the best ways to prevent or solve industrial disputes
• An approach to promote industrial harmony/peace for the economic welfare
• COLLECTIVE + BARGAINING
• Collective: representatives are negotiating an agreement for groups of persons
• Bargaining: process of meeting, presenting demands, discussing, presenting
counter offers, haggling, cajoling, threatening, etc.
• CB is “Negotiations about work conditions and terms of employment
between an employer, a group of employers, or one of the employer’s
organization, & one or more representatives of workers organization with a
view to reaching an agreement”…. ILO
Collective Bargaining vs Negotiation
Basis For
Collective Bargaining Negotiation
Comparison
Parties Only two parties Two or more parties
involved involved
Nature Competitive and Cooperative and
aggressive compromising
Relationship Win-lose relationship Win-win relationship
Stresses on Who is right? What is right?
 Characteristics of Collective Bargaining
1. It is a group action as opposed to individual action and is initiated through the
representatives of workers
2. It is flexible and dynamic, and not rigid or static
3. Based on the principle of give and take
4. It is industrial democracy at work
5. It is a process; a continuous, formal, and complimentary
6. It is bipartite
7. It is an advanced form of human relation
8. It improves industrial relations
9. It takes care of day-to-day developments, interests, capacities, policies, etc.
10.It is a sort of political activity