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Collective Bargaining Agreement




Collective bargaining is the process of negotiation between representatives of a Union and employers, represented by Management in respect of the terms and conditions of Employment of employees, such as Wage s, hours of work, working conditions and Grievance procedures, and about the rights and responsibilities of Trade Union s. The result of the negotiation is often referred to as a Collective Bargaining Agreement .


UNITED KINGDOM

The term is reputed to have been coined by the British academic Beatrice Webb in the late 19th Century to describe a process alternative to that of individual Bargaining between an employer and its individual employees. Other writers have emphasised the Conflict Resolution aspects of collective bargaining, but in Britain the most important refinement was that made by Allan Flanders , who defined it as a process of rule-making, leading to joint regulation in Industry . The term is usually seen as necessarily containing an element of negotiation and hence as distinct from processes of Consultation , from which negotiation is absent, and where outcomes are determined unilaterally by the employer.

In the United Kingdom collective bargaining has been, and has been endorsed as, the dominant and most appropriate means of regulating workers' terms and conditions of employment, in line with ILO Convention No. 84 for many years. However, the importance of collective bargaining in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the industrialized world has been declining considerably since the early 1980s .

Despite its significance, in the United Kingdom there remains no statutory basis for collective bargaining around learning and training, a situation that has attracted the attention of both the Trades Union Congress and members of the Royal College of Nursing. There is an active coalition that has already been established which seeks to remedy this situation by expanding the scope of collective bargaining to encompass learning and training.


UNITED STATES

In the United States , collective agreements are covered by the National Labor Relations Act .

The most notable collective bargaining agreements (CBA's) in the United States are those involving major professional Sports leagues. Because of historically poor relations between the players' unions and owners of all the various major leagues, as well as 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 2004-05 NHL Hockey season, making the NHL the first major American sports league to lose an entire season to labor issues (an agreement was reached in time to play the 2005-06 season).

In the NFL , there were fears that disagreements over revenue allocation may force teams in 2006 to cut numerous star players in order to stay under the agreed-upon Salary Cap . Beyond this year, if an agreement had not been reached 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 (the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals voting against it) vote to accept the NFLPA 's proposal, and also settled the revenue sharing controversy, preventing the above from occurring.

The NBA 's CBA also expires soon. Labor relations in the league have historically been poor, resulting in numerous Lockouts of players and the shortening of a season.


SEE ALSO



REFERENCES

  • 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.




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