Types Of Collective Bargaining Relationship

One of the important factors determining the relationship between union and management is the attitudes of management toward unions. This attitude plays a major role in determining the strategic approach used by management. The degree to which labour and management accept collective bargaining as an important institutional consideration, has been found to be the most important element affecting union/management relations.

Management union relations in collective bargaining can follow one or several different types:

1.Conflict

Under this strategy management takes a totally uncompromising view with an attitude of `burning the union'; the management adopts the old western movie phrase the `the only good union is a dead one'.

2.Armed Truce

The management representatives take the position that the vital interests of the company and the union are poles away and will always be. However, the management realises that the union is not likely to disappear and so will not force a head-on collision.

3.Power bargaining

Here the management realises also the powers of the union. The management philosophy here then becomes that management's task is to increase its power and then use its power where possible to offset the power of the union.

4.Accommodation

Accommodation involves learning to adjust to each other and attempting to minimise conflicts, to conciliate whenever necessary and to tolerate each other. This strategy in no way suggests that management go out of its way to help organised labour. However, it does recognise that the need to reduce confrontation is helpful in dealing with common problems that are often caused by external forces such as imports and government regulations.

5.Co-operation

This involves full acceptance of the union as an active partner in a formal plan and is a relatively rare occurrence. In co-operation, management supports not only the right but the desirability of union participation in certain areas of decision making. The two parties jointly deal with personnel and production problems as they occur. Examples of co-operation are co-determination and labour management committees.

6.    Collusion

This is a form of mutual interest monopoly and is unconcerned with interest except its own. These situations which are relatively rare in American labour history have been deemed illegal. This is because under the collusion strategy, union and management engage in industrial price fixing designed to inflate wages and profits at the expense of the general public.