COLLECTIVE LABOUR LAW

Collective Labour Law

[Institution Name]

Collective Labour Law

Introduction

The paper discusses the legal issue concerning collective labour law. The legal advice for the Union, as well as Fred will be incorporated as the main focus of the paper. An in-depth analysis of collective labour law will guide the way in providing a feasible legal advice.

Background

Italia Bakeries Ltd. is a medium size company owning a number of bakeries and shops across the Greater London Area. Collective bargain is purposed, Italia claims that this is not financially viable. Talks with management have finally broken down without agreement. Fred, the shop steward at the East London bakery, walked out of the meeting, threatening industrial action. Fred immediately informed Head Office that he was organizing industrial action and began preparations for a strike ballot. The President of the Bakers Union was not prepared to support Fred's call for industrial action and asked his deputy to immediately inform all parties concerned that any strike would not have the backing of the union. Italia are now applying to the High Court for an injunction against the Bakers Union to end any further industrial action, and are also preparing to submit a claim for damages. Fred and his fellow union officers have also been told they face disciplinary action and possible dismissal.

Collective Labour Law

Fred and Union can positively work together with an attempt to follow the process and structure of collective bargaining. The term 'collective bargaining' is credited as having first been coined by Beatrice Webb who, with her husband, Sidney Webb, were eminent British trade union historians writing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Webb and Webb, 1897, pp. 173). In their description of collective bargaining, the Webbs first explained the process by distinguishing it from 'individual' bargaining. This account will follow their example and begin in the same way, before examining the structure of bargaining and changes in the context and style of negotiations.

If an individual employee were to enter into a contract of employment with an employer purely on the basis of his/her individual circumstances, on what the employer was prepared to offer and making no reference to contractual conditions applying to other employees, then this would be an 'individual' bargain. But the dynamics of the employment relationship are such that an individual employee is unlikely to be equally matched to bargain with his/her employer. The employer has greater economic power and, as Webb and Webb (pp. 217) pointed out, 'wherever the economic conditions of the parties are unequal, legal freedom of contract merely enables the superior in strategic strength to dictate the terms'. The effects of this power will be most apparent in conditions of monopsony, where an employer or group of employers, has a monopoly of control over the demand for labour, for example, where there is just one main form of employment within a particular locality. The power of the employer will also be enhanced in conditions of unemployment, where there is a large pool of labour competing for ...