FREE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Free Collective Bargaining

Free Collective Bargaining

This paper is based on a case study involving the management of Sealitt Putty & Sealants and the Transport and General Workers' Union. The case addresses the issue of collective bargaining negotiation and the problems faced by the two participants before the agreement was finally reached.

Ans: 1

When competition is tough, wage increases become eroded by continuing piece-price negotiation. An outsider is not technically competent to judge this question, nor is data readily available. Testimony of union officers as to the effectiveness of the programs varies (Weber, 1961). While internal competition would no doubt be much more severe without union control, there is a continuous problem of making the controls effective.

The difficulties of collective bargaining in industries with intense price competition should be given at least an enlarged footnote by cost-push theorists. Total employment in such industries is not insignificant. Also the review serves to emphasize that collective bargaining can fail to resolve long-run basic problems (Weber, 1961).

In this case, the foremost problem was that of the wage claim where both the parties (i.e. the management and the union) were at logger-heads to reach an agreement over the wage claim as no one was ready to accept each other's point of view. So it is common practice, during the course of a collective bargaining agreement, to provide for the settlement of problems at the lowest possible level. Employee grievances ordinarily are disposed of by the foreman and the union committeeman. Only when they are unable to agree is the problem passed on to higher level union and management representatives (Weber, 1961).

Management also cannot overlook the structure and organization of the unions with which it deals in weighing alternative decisions in bargaining. One factor has already been mentioned--the extent of unionism within the industry. A ...