adminand regulations will take charge.
Workplace collective agreements ultimately lead to collective bargaining. Collective bargaining came from the modern Middle East as a foreign practice, was untried by fledging unions, mistrusted and rejected by tradition (Ziskind 1990-203).
It came backed by years of reassuring experience abroad and with firm recommendation of the International Labour Organisation and other world agencies.
In time, it was seen as an alternative to mass demonstration and political rebellion. As unions multiplied, it was tried continuously.
It was a technique to be mastered and, in time, capable persons learned to manage it. In social theory, collective bargaining has been presented as the application of reason and the balancing of opposing interests in a peaceful manner (Zskind 1990-203).
It has also been expounded as a process of extending the benefits of the industrialisation of workers at a place that can be ascribed by capital.
On the other hand, the recalcitrant entrepreneurs and autocratic rulers have regarded it as an invasion of their initiative and prerogative by radical leaders exploiting false dogmas for their personal gain.
A collective bargaining agreement is defined in the Labour Relations Act as a written agreement concerning the terms and conditions of employment or any other matter of mutual interest concluded between one or more registered trade unions on the one hand.
On the other hand will be one or a combination of employers, registered employers’ organizations, or a combination of employers and employers’ organizations (Grogan 2000:274)
It is pertinent to note that only agreements entered into by registered trade unions and employers’ organisations receive statutory recognition.
The central objective of modern industrial relations legislation is to promote collective bargaining as a means of regulating relations between management and employees and for settling disputes between them.
The primary thrust is to promote collective bargaining at the workplace. The labour laws confers on the parties the right to resort to industrial action in support of their positions as well as desire to avoid it, which in the final analysis induces the parties bargain (Grogan 2000:263)
The first step in a collective bargaining relationship occurs when an employer recognizes a trade union as a bargaining agent for its employees in a particular bargaining unit. This relationship can be formalized in a document as the recognition agreement, which defines the structures through which the bargaining takes place at a plant, a company or sectoral level according the parties specific rights and usually providing procedure for the resolution of disputes. The concept of a recognition agreement is provided for in the South African Labour Relations Act of 1995, but it is not provided for in the Labour Act of Zimbabwe.
The rationale for a recognition agreement is to ensure that only genuine trade unions can carry out the collective bargaining process on behalf of their members.
In South Africa, only registered trade unions can acquire organization rights in terms of Section 21 of the Labour Relations Act of 1995. It is in the laws of the organizational rights and the employee rights enshrined in the labour legislation that the employees’ capacity to bargain is effectively enhanced.
The employers have a duty to bargain with the employees. It is of fundamental importance to note that employers are obliged to consult and reach consensus with workplace forums before implementing a wider range of decisions. This clearly seeks to promote collective bargaining at the workplace and eliminate dictatorship. In Zimbabwe, the promotion of collective bargaining is embedded in terms of Section 2A (1) (c ) of the Labour Act (Chapter 28:01).
This clearly states that the purpose of the Act is to advance social justice and democracy at the workplace by inter alia, providing a legal framework within which employees and employers can bargain effectively for the improvement of conditions of employment.
From the foregoing, it is patently clear that the duty to bargain is clothed with the force of law and employers are legally bound to participate in the collective bargaining process with the employees or their representatives. It must be pin pointed that Section 2A 91) (e) of the Labour Act (Chapter 28:01) reinforces the importance of collective bargaining at the workplace by setting out that one of the purposes of the Act is the promotion of the participation by employees in decisions affecting their interests at the workplace.
The impact of this provision is that an employer cannot unilaterally implement a decision that adversely affects the interests of those employees at the workplace without consulting them. In such a solution, the employees would have a legitimate expectation of being heard before such a decision can be made.
A crude example is that an employer cannot unilaterally slash or reduce the salaries and benefits of employees without hearing their representations.
This is so because such a drastic act goes to the root of the employer-employee relationship, which is underpinned by the employee’s duty to work and the employer’s reciprocal duty to remunerate for the services rendered by the employees.
The duty to bargain also emanates from the fact that the employer-employee relationship is based on the voluntary consent of the parties involved as opposed to a situation of forced labour where the labourer is working against his or her will. Collective bargaining has three pronged functions in society. The first function is economic. It serves as a device for the regulation of individual and collective workplace relations and the institutionalization of industrial conflict.
For the employers, it is the charter of temporary reconciliation, which guarantees production planning, whilst for the workers, it guarantees the creation of certain generalized standards, in particular wages and employment security (Gwisai 2006:311). The second function is social. It establishes a system of industrial justice or workplace democracy, which protects workers from draconian action by employers and allows them to participate in decisions that affect them in their working lives and thus realize their fundamental right to human dignity. The third function is political. It brings a measure of democracy to industrial life.
Some of the information in this article taken from A Guide to Collective Bargaining by Advocate Caleb H Mucheche.
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