Collective Bargaining: An Introduction

Collective bargaining is an essential feature of the concept of Social Partnership, towards which labour relations should strive. Collective bargaining replicates the processes by which conflict is and should always be resolved in a democracy; it projects democratic values into the workplace; it preserves the autonomy of social forces as against the pervasive influence of the State; it makes the conventional market place techniques of economic ordering in a capitalist economy more acceptable; by its mobilization of countervailing power it ensures the participation, and, thereby, the moral commitment, of those most directly concerned with outcomes. The book focuses on the theme that there has been a global trend towards decentralization of collective bargaining. Decentralization has largely taken the form of a controlled and coordinated devolution of functions from higher to lower levels of the industry. This has been to address some of the main concerns of employers, such as productivity, quality, performance, skills development, the need to be competitive and to make changes to adapt to the global market place that have led to decentralization of collective bargaining. The book also highlights the multifaceted dimensions of collective bargaining, along with divergences, to provide the readers, in a synchronized format a bird’s eye view of the emerging trends, in the form of well-written articles by experts. The book, it is hoped, will serve as a valuable reference for employers, practicing managers, research scholars and labour economists.