Collective Bargaining

Abstract

Collective bargaining has been being used in democratic organizations for the welfare and rights of employees, particularly their right of incomes, improvement in the working conditions, elimination of workplace discrimination, and ensuring that the employment relations of the organization are fair. The trend of employee labor unions has been decreasing over the past years and the increase in global and economic integration has led to the increase in the bargaining power of the employees worldwide. This article is written to serve as a review of the history of collective bargaining. It aims to examine the strategy of the collective bargaining process and discusses about the congress and the distributive collective bargaining. The paper also reviews the good faith bargaining and the grievances that the employees usually come up with. In the end the paper reviews the global market economies and the effects of globalization on collective bargaining. Collective Bargaining

Introduction

History of Collective Bargaining

The process of collective negotiations of the labor and the management of businesses started in the early 18th century when the trade unions were formed by the employees to negotiate their needs with the employers. Collective bargaining as a specific term was used in 1891 by the famous economist named Beatrice Webb. After the introduction of the National railway act and the national labor relations act allowed the employees to participate freely and have representation in the trade unions.

Collective Bargaining has been under use in the American organizations for the past several decades. The concept of collective bargaining was introduced in the United States of America when in 1935 the president Franklin Roosevelt introduced the Wagner act into the law of United States of America. This act gave the employees the right to practice collective bargaining in business organizations of United States of America. The collective bargaining concept was introduced in Michigan when almost 33,000 employees of General Motors went for a sit down strike in Flint (Welden, F., n.d).

It was after this event that the skilled workers of the business organizations started to use their skills for bargaining with the employers to have their demands fulfilled. In general the collective bargaining is arranged by and conducted by labor unions in which the labor unions act as representatives of the employees who want the employer to consider their needs. The labor unions are formed by the employees who voluntarily join the unions to present their needs to the management.

Then again the president Kennedy in 1962 issued an order in the law which approved the participation and formation of labor unions. This order inspired the other governments of the world to implement the act of labor union formation in their countries for the employees to have representation in the business decisions. It can be seen in the history of the organizations that the employees who are members of trade unions have been enjoying their due wages and benefits without having to worry about the practices of the organizations regarding the remuneration of the employees, their treatment and their ...