Bargaining is one of the goals of US labor relations, employees are encouraged to negotiate collectively their terms and conditions of employment with their employer. Components of union contract negotiations includes,compensation wages, benefits, vacations and holidays as well as as shift premiums and profit sharing. The second component is Personnel policies:layoff, promotion and transfer policies, overtime and vacation rules. The third component is employee rights and responsibilities:seniority rights,job standards, and work place rules. The next is employer rights and responsibilities:management rights,just cause discipline and discharge subcontracting and safety standards. The next component is union rights and responsibilities:recognition as bargaining agent bulletin board, union security, dues check, shop stewards and no strike clauses. The last component is dispute resolution and on going decision making. this includes greivance procedures committees,consultation and renegotiating procedures. The bargaining process begins several months before bargaining starts. The first step is to assemble a team. Union team members and committees are elected by rank and file. Employer team includes managers and their responsibilities. National union staff is usually part of the union team. Each side have their priorities. Union team consults national staff on trends, recent settlements. Each side gathers information that help to determine their interests,options, external bench marks, the other sides interest and the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. There are four types of bargain structures, the first is decentralized bargaining structure, this involves limited group of workers in a single workplace. The other type of bargaining structure is pattern bargaining. This involves bargaining with a single employer in an industry until an agreement is reach. This contract agreement becomes a model or pattern for subsequent negotiations in the industry.Other bargaining structure are multisided bargaining. SEE PAGE 240-241, FIG.7-2. Bargaining power depends on the bargaining environment, the bargain environments includes a set of diverse set of external influences on labor and management.SEE TABLE 71 and 72. These environments are the legal, economic and sociopolitical environments.Negotiators use their communication relationship-building and problem solving skills to reach agreement acceptable to both sides. Some negotiators act like actors in a theater, each of them has a role to play.PAGE 244.One of the tools used in negotiations is contract costing.TABLE7-3, it is used to evaluate proposals and for estimating their monetary cots.PAGE 245-246.LORA expects both sides to negotiate in good faith. Making unilateral changes is an act of bad faith bargaining. This is when an employer changes benefits and other terms, without first bargaining with the union. There are mandatory bargaining items that are mandated by LORA, such as wages, hours, etc.Permissive bargaining items are items that are not mandatory or illegal.PAGE 247-248 , TABLE 7.-4 When there are disputes between negotiators, LORA can issue a ruling. There are unprocessed and strategies when bargaining.Distributive bargaining is adversarial bargaining over conflict of interest.Integrative bargaining occurs when there are cooperation, collaboration solving problems. Altitudinal structuring involves managing attitudes and trust in the labor management relationships. Internationalization bargaining is when consensus are reached between union and management teams.PAGE 489-.257.TABLE 7. 5. Collective bargaining in the public sector is similar to that of the private sector. Some states have sun shine laws that requires public sector negotiations to be in public.PAGE 259-260. QUESTIONS: 1 Which aspect of bargaining would you like to change? 2 Discuss the different bargaining environments and how they affect bargaining. 3 Discuss bargaining unprocessed. 4 Discuss bargaining structure
