What Is The Essence Of Collective Bargaining

1013 Words5 Pages

III. SETTING THE SCENE AN OVERVIEW OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN SOUTH AFRICA
The essence of collective bargaining is to establish a relationship where the employer and employees or their trade union can negotiate on issues of mutual interest. The idea that employers need to negotiate with trade unions regarding issues that affect their members goes against the employer’s prerogative to manage its business in a way it sees beneficial to it (Globler,Warnich, Carrell, Elbert & Hartfied, 2008).
Collective bargaining follows a reactive approach either than a pro-active approach, the negotiation process between employers and trade unions is initiated as a result of an unfavorable decision made by the employer or demands made by the trade unions. …show more content…

Labour law has been said is at the center of collective bargaining in that, it concerns itself with the way in which the workplace is governed (Jordaan, 2009). From these developments the rules, rights and principles of collective bargaining were established.
The law, in other words, protects the organization of collective bargaining, while maintaining a hands-off attitude towards the bargaining process itself. The process and its outcome should be managed by parties in the employment relationship. As previously stated the different parties to the employment relationship have different power base and the LRA is there to create equilibrium.
Union's bargaining power depended on its ability to control the labour market by recruiting a significant number of its participants as members to be able to have bargaining power. Collective bargaining fulfills a social need to protect employees from unfair labour practices and to give them a voice in the …show more content…

The South African collective bargaining system

The South African model to collective as prescribed by the LRA for collective labour law was designed in a manner that both limits the potential for judicial intervention in determining the level of collective bargaining and topics of collective bargaining while explaining the legal position of collective agreements established during collective bargaining (Theron, Godfrey & Fergus, 2015).
Due to the nature of collective bargaining following a voluntary approach, to counteract possible resistance against collective bargaining, statutory organisational rights were afforded to trade unions to have access to information required for collective bargaining or consultation, to be able to enter the employer’s premises for meetings and for recruiting members. This model is coupled with the right to strike if employer and employee do not reach an agreement.
The LRA is viewed to be more in favor of centralized collective bargaining while retaining voluntarism to engage in collective bargaining, this is achieved through the establishment of bargaining councils (Venter & Levy,

Open Document