Collective bargaining

A collective agreement is a labor contract between an employer and one or more unions.

Collective bargaining consists of the process of negotiation between representatives of a union and employers (represented by management, in some countries by employers' organization) 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 parties often refer to the result of the negotiation as a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) or as a Collective Employment Agreement (CEA).

United Kingdom

The British academic Beatrice Webb reputedly coined the term "collective bargaining" in the late 19th century: the OED quotes her use of it in 1891 in Cooperative Movement. Webb aimed to characterise a process alternative to that of individual bargaining between an employer and individual employees. Other writers have emphasised the conflict-resolution aspects of collective bargaining, but in Britain the most important refinement in usage came from Allan Flanders, who defined collective bargaining as a process of rule-making leading to joint regulation in industry. Most commentators see the process of collective bargaining as necessarily containing an element of negotiation and hence as distinct from processes of consultation, which lack the element of negotiation and where employers determine outcomes unilaterally.

In the United Kingdom collective bargaining has become, and has received endorsement for many years 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 the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the industrialized world has declined considerably since the early 1980s. Its decline in the public sector stems in part from the growth of Review-Body arrangements provided through the Office of Manpower Economics for groups of workers, including for the majority of National Health Service staff.

Despite its significance, in the United Kingdom there remains no statutory basis for collective bargaining in the fields of learning and training, a situation that has attracted the attention of both the Trades Union Congress and members of the Royal College of Nursing. A coalition has formed which actively seeks to remedy this situation by expanding the scope of collective bargaining to encompass learning and training.

United States

In the United States, the National Labor Relations Act covers most collective agreements in the private sector.

Many notable collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in the United States involve major professional sports leagues. Because of a history of poor relations between the players' unions and owners of all the various major leagues, as well as because of the tremendous amounts of money involved, it has become difficult in recent years to work out agreements. A total breakdown in talks between the sides wiped out the entire 2004 2005 NHL hockey season, making the NHL the first major American sports league to lose an entire season to labor issues (the relevant parties reached an agreement in time to play the 2005-06 season).

The National Football League (NFL) had fears that disagreements over revenue allocation might force teams in 2006 to cut numerous star players in order to stay under the agreed-upon salary cap. Beyond this year, without an agreement for 2007, the salary cap provisions would have sunset. This could have caused players and owners both to seek substantially disparate compensation guidelines in their next CBA (e.g., sizes of pay increases year-to-year, the effect of signing bonuses on a team's cap, etc), raising the spectre of a strike in 2008. However, on March 8, 2006 the owners agreed in a 30-2 vote (the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals voting against it) to accept the National Football League Players' Association's proposal, and also settled the revenue-sharing controversy, forestalling the above scenario.

The National Basketball Association's CBA also expired in summer 2005, and though the two sides ultimately reached an agreement, its last expiration caused the cancellation of one-half of the 1998-99 NBA season due to lockout. The NBA league has historically had poor labor relations, resulting in numerous lockouts of players and the shortening of a season.

European experience

Many contintental European countries, like Austria, Netherlands and Sweden, have a social market economy where collective bargaining over wages, is done on the national level between national federations of labour unions and employers' organizations.

Enterprise Bargaining Agreements in Australia

An Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) consists of a collective industrial agreement between either:

1. an employer and a trade union acting on behalf of employees, or:
2. an employer and employees acting for themselves.

On the one hand collective agreements, at least in principle, benefit employers, as they allow for improved "flexibility" in such areas as ordinary hours, flat rates of hourly pay, and performance-related conditions. On the other hand collective agreements benefit workers, as they usually provide higher pay, bonuses, additional leave and enhanced entitlements (such as redundancy pay) than an award does.

Unlike awards, which provide similar standards for all workers in the entire industry covered by a specific award, collective agreements usually apply only to workers for one employer - although on occasion a short-term collaborative agreement (for example, on a building-site) yields a multi-employer/employee agreement.

Parties endorse proposed enterprise bargaining agreements between themselves (in the case of employers the matter goes to a vote). The Australian Industrial Relations Commission then certifies them. (With the introduction of Workchoices, agreements now renamed "collective workplace agreements" are lodged with the Office of the Employment Advocate and are not checked for breaches of the Act.)

History of enterprise bargaining agreements

The Federal Keating government of 1991 - 1996 introduced enterprise bargaining agreements into the Australian industrial scene.

Use of enterprise bargaining agreements

Enterprise agreements have proved quite popular; on 30th of June 2006, 14383 Collective Agreements were active. June Trends in Enterprise Bargaining

In practice they served to complement awards, and in combination they became the basic mechanisms for setting wages and conditions in Australia.

A standard enterprise bargaining agreement would last for three years.

EBAs had one unique feature in Australia: whilst negotiating a federal enterprise bargaining agreement, a group of employees or a trade union could, without legal penalties, undertake industrial action (including strikes) in pursuit of their claims .

Issues regarding enterprise bargaining agreements

A major legal question associated with enterprise agreements stemmed from the High Court of Australia's decision in the case of Electrolux v The Australian Workers' Union. The question revolved around what these industrial instruments could cover. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission determined the matter in 2005 in the Three certified agreements case.

The future of EBAs in Australian industrial law

In the context of Australian labour law, the industrial reform of 2005 - 2006, known as "WorkChoices" (with its corresponding amendments to the Workplace Relations Act (1996)) changed the name of such agreement documents to "Collective Agreement". State industrial legislation can also prescribe collective agreements, but the enactment of the WorkChoices reform will make such agreements less likely to occur.

Parties to Australian federal collective agreements now lodge and certify these with the Office of the Employment Advocate. At state level, the appropriate state Industrial Relations Commission certifies state agreements.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• 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
• Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law school

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