This document summarizes the key aspects of the collective bargaining process between unions and employers. It discusses preparing for negotiations, bargaining structure and power dynamics, strategies used at the bargaining table, subprocesses like distributive and integrative bargaining, how agreements are reached, and how the process provides for efficiency, equity and voice in employment relations. Preparation is lengthy and involves assessing priorities, options and alternatives. Agreements must be ratified by union members and management to take effect. While the process has continuity, it also adapts to changes in the bargaining environment.

1. BARGAINING
Chapter Seven
Jennifer Daniell
Linda Alspaugh
Labor & Management Relations
Professor Marc Codd

2. Bargaining Process
• Preparing to Bargain
• Bargaining Structure
• Bargaining Power and the Bargaining Environment
• At the Bargaining Table
• Bargaining Sub processes and Strategies
• Reaching Agreement
• The Contemporary Bargaining Process: Continuity
and Change

3. Preparing to Bargain
• One of the goals of the U.S. labor relations system, they want
to allow employees to be able to negotiate their terms and
conditions of their employment with their employer as a group,
instead of having to take or leave whatever their employers
offers.
• “the union at work is a union negotiation contract”
• The process of collective bargaining, employers and unions
negotiate terms and conditions of employment and put these
terms into written contract.

4. Preparing to Bargain
• The written contracts are also called collective bargaining
agreements.
• In the United States these contracts are legally binding and
can last one to five years, the most common is 3 years
• The U.S. union contracts usually include the following
subjects:
• Compensation: wages, benefits, vacations & holidays,
shift premiums, profit sharing
• Personnel policies & procedures : layoff, promotion &
transfer policies, overtime and vacation rules

5. Preparing to Bargain
• More subjects that are included in the U.S. union contracts:
• Employee rights & responsibility: seniority rights, workplace rules, job
standards
• Employer rights & responsibility: management rights, just cause
discipline and discharge, subcontracting, safety standards
• Union rights and responsibilities : recognition as bargaining agent,
bulletin board, union security, dues checkoff, shop stewards, no strike
clauses
• Dispute resolution and on going decision making: grievance
procedures, committees consultation, renegotiation procedures.

6. Preparing to Bargain
• There is a timeline of the negotiation process, the longest portion
of the time line is the preparation stage.
*Preparation stage: usually begins several months before bargaining begins.
*A team needs to be assembled, for the employer team usually management,
for the Union usually elected rank and file
*Preparing for negotiations is collecting information. Managers should collect
external benchmarking data on labor costs
*Union negotiating committee will usually survey the rank and file to identify
their top priorities, example; wage, benefits, vacations

7. Preparing to Bargain
• Timeline negotiation process continued
• Both sides should thoroughly review how the expiring
collective bargaining agreement has worked, and which
sections have created problems.
The following pieces of information form the basis for each side
to determine five essential things:
1. What they are really concerned about
2. Options for achieving these interests
3. External benchmarks of fairness
4. The other sides interest
5. Their best alternative to a negotiated agreement

8. Preparing to Bargain
• Sixty days before the current contract expires, both sides
provide official notification to each other and to the
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service that they
intent to negotiate a new contract.
• The bargaining teams then set a schedule of bargaining
sessions and set ground rules .
• If both side desire a joint training session might be
completed at this time.
• Then it is time to bargain.

9. Bargaining Structure
• The organizational structure for the collective bargaining
process.
• Bargaining structures range decentralized to centralized.
• Decentralized is limited to a group of employees in a single
workplace(meat cutters at a single store, or bus drivers in a single
school district)
• Centralized involves numerous occupations and locations
• Employers prefer decentralized and tailor contracts to local situations.
• Unions prefers centralized because they can consolidate their powers.
• Compared to other countries the bargaining structure in the United
States is typically decentralized

10. Bargaining Power and the
Bargaining Environment
• Bargaining Power -what happens at the bargaining table
reflects differences in bargaining power between labor and
management.
• A reason that the U.S. labor laws protects workers efforts
in forming a union and engage in collective bargaining is
to balance the bargaining power.
• If management realizes that it is more costly to disagree then
they accept the proposal
• A union strike can be very costly to a company

11. Bargaining Power and the
Bargaining Environment
• Bargaining environment -these are external influences on
labor and management , such as legal, economic and
sociopolitical, these pressures shape the ability of
employers and unions to achieve their goals.
-Laws specify what bargaining environments can and can’t do, the
dimensions of the bargaining environment apply equally to
private and public sector
-2 key difference between public and private.
1.In the private sector for example if you don’t like this car
dealership for their high price you can go to another, in the public
if you don’t like the police in your city you don’t have another
choice except to move.

12. Bargaining Power and the
Bargaining Environment
2. Public services are not bought and sold in the economic market, instead
the services are determined by taxpayers, voters and elected officials.
•None of this evidence supports that that Public sector has unlimited
bargaining power
•Overpaid workers can be replaced by others willing to work for less
•Many laws forbid public employees from striking.
•Public sector managers and employees are disciplined by government budget
restraints.

13. At the Bargaining Table
• Once at the table both sides need to use their negotiating
skills to reach an agreeable contract.
• When in the presence of an audience that negotiations
can get a little crazy.
• Experienced lead negotiators will try to meet in private in
order to come to an agreement without an audience
• Contract costing is a negotiating tool , this is used to
evaluate proposals monetary cost.
• This often requires making projections on complex issues,
such as health insurance, early retirement, parental issues

14. At the Bargaining Table
• Bargaining in good faith versus bad faith is not always clear
• 4 examples of bad faith
• Unilateral change- when employers change wages, benefits or other terms
and conditions of employment with out first bargaining with the union
• Direct dealing- when an employer illegally tries to undermine or
circumvent the union by dealing with employees directly regarding
bargaining issues.
• Employers refusing to provide information in certain situations to the
union that is necessary for representing workers effectively
• Surface bargaining-when an employer or union goes through the motions
bargaining, but does not sincerely want to reach an agreement

15. At the Bargaining Table
• Mandatory bargaining items-Wages, hours, and terms and
conditions of employment: They are required to bargain over these
• Illegal bargaining items are those that would break the law,
racial discrimination, working for less than minimum wage.
• Permissive bargaining items – Drug & alcohol screening,
benefits for retirees, plant closings , etc. employers can argue over
these items but they are outside the boundaries of the NLRA
(national labor relations act & NLRB(national labor relations
board)
• Effects bargaining-the decision to close a plant is not mandatory
bargaining, but the effects that it has on employees such as layoffs,
severance packages, are mandatory issues that must be bargained.

16. Bargaining Subprocesses And
Strategies
• The Four Subprocesses of Labor Negotiations
1. Distributive bargaining – Resolving conflicts of interest; often
adversarial “AKA” Zero-sum bargaining.
2. Integrative bargaining – Solving joint problems (that do not
involve conflicts of interest) by creating solutions for mutual
gains; often collaborative. “AKA” Win-win bargaining.
3. Attitudinal structuring – Managing attitudes and the overall
labor-management relationship; often trust-building.
4. Intraorganizational bargaining – Achieving consensus within
each group; often complex.

17. Bargaining Subprocesses And
Strategies
Collective bargaining in both the private and public
sectors is a mixture of all four subprocesses for three
reasons.
1.Mainstream industrial relations views employment
relationship conflict as a Mixed motive – a mixture of
conflicts of interests and shared opportunities for
mutual gain- so both distributive and integrative
bargaining are important.

18. Bargaining Subprocesses And
Strategies
2. The employer-employee-union relationship is a
long-term, ongoing affair, so attitudinal structuring
is significant.
3. Both employers and unions have constituencies
with diverse interests, so intraorganizational
bargaining is present.

19. Reaching Agreement
Negotiations are almost always settled at the last
minute. On the union side, the approval proves typically
involves a contract ratification vote by the rank and file,
Before a ratification vote, unions will usually have a
membership meeting in which the terms of the
agreement are presented to the rank and file and
intraorganizational bargaining occurs as the leaders try
to convince the members that the agreement is a good
one.

20. Reaching Agreement
On the employer side, management negotiators
typically have the authority to agree to a final settlement
, and intraorganizational bargaining takes place before
the final agreement. If the contract is not ratified or
approved, the negotiators might return to the
bargaining table to negotiate a revised contract, or a
strike or lockout might occur.

21. The Contemporary Bargaining
Process: Continuity and Change
Bargaining between unions and employers is one of the
important processes of the U.S. labor relations.
Institutionally ,collective bargaining serves efficiency,
equity, and voice: Efficiency is served by having
employers’ interests represented at the bargaining table,
equity can be achieved by harnessing employees
collective strength to balance employers power and
produce fair outcomes, and voice is fulfilled by having
the terms and conditions of employment negotiated
rather than unilaterally imposed by someone else.

22. Any
Question?