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Significance of Trade Union & Collective Bargaining

-Dr. Debasish Mukherjee, eminent Advocate

   Trade Union is an organisation of workers, acting collectively to protect the interest of the workers through collective bargaining as well to achieve common goals such as protecting the integrity of their trade, higher pay and working conditions. Trade Unions have three cardinal principles e.g. unity of strength, equal pay for equal work, security of employment. 

   An individual employee/worker possesses very little bargaining power as compared to that of his employer. To come out from this situation, collective bargaining power is essential. The phrase “Collective bargaining” was first introduced by British Labour reformers Sidney and Beatrice Webb of Great Britain which was the home of collective bargaining in the 1890’s.

                  

  According to K-Alexander “Collective bargaining is a process of bargaining between the employers and their workers by which they settle their disputes among themselves relating to employment or non-employment or terms of employment or conditions of labour or the workman, on the strength of the sanctions available to each side”. 

  According to W. Friedmann, “The vital significance of collective bargaining for the law of contract thus lies in its following aspects; first it resembles a standard contract of business and industry in that standardized terms regulate the conditions of employment of millions of individuals. Secondly it is a most important instance of a public law function delegated by the permissive or even imperative authority of the state from government to social groups. Thirdly, the freedom of the individual to bargain in his terms of employment is inevitably curtailed by the prevalence of collective bargaining. It is even excluded where the closed shop is recognized either legally or de facto. Fourthly this lack of freedom is compensated by a substantial restoration of equality of bargaining power. It is not the individual employee who has regained equality, but the trade union negotiating on his behalf. Although the trade union is not strictly speaking the agent it has in effect absorbed and consolidated the bargaining power formerly vested in the individual.” 

   According to Harbison, “Collective bargaining is a process of accommodation between two institutions which have both common and conflicting interests”.

  In the words of N.W. Chamberlain - “Collective bargaining is the process whereby management and union agree on the terms under which workers shall perform their duties.”