Negotiations: walking in, not out

In collective bargaining, the union reflects collective interest as the ensuing negotiations have to be for the benefit of employees as a group. Essential conditions to be satisfied in collective bargaining, include the existence of freedom of association and a labor law system.

Further, since the parties involved in collective bargaining interact daily with each other, negotiations have to reflect this and this should motivate the parties to resolve the issues.

Historically, collective bargaining has addressed equity issues such as a fair wage, working conditions and the equal distribution of wage increases to all.

Until recently, deliberations of efficiency, a key element of productivity were either not discussed, or given comparatively little significance.

In today’s economic environment both the private and public sector entities are forced to be less dependent on government, so they must pursue improvements in competitiveness.

Not only how the gains of improved performance are distributed but consideration of how to increase productivity is critical if pay increases are to be afforded without eating away profitability and threatening competitiveness.

The factors which have influenced pay increases through collective bargaining include enterprise profit, job evaluation, seniority, cost of living, manpower shortage or surplus, and the negotiating strength and skills of the parties. The ILO report indicates that performance measures such as productivity or profit related to groups or individuals have not featured prominently in collective bargaining.

Further, though wage rates negotiated through collective bargaining do reflect wage differentials based on skills, such differentials have not been geared to the encouragement of skills acquisition and application.

Employers as well as unions should be concerned to negotiate pay systems which are able to achieve strategic objectives; contain a variable component which can handle downturns in business and reduce labour costs; focused on productivity, quality, profit or whatever performance criteria are agreed upon; capable of improving remunerations of employees via enhanced performance; capable of decreasing the incidence of redundancies during times of recession or poor enterprise performance through a flexible component of pay; able to incentivise good performance through improved productivity without increasing labour costs to total costs, and able to entice and keep competent staff.

Globalisation means that wage increases through collective bargaining must have a wider range of criteria than has traditionally been the case.

Failure to achieve this could leave the employer without the financial capacity to adjust pay based on group or individual performance, as well as on skills acquisition and application.

The issues of crucial importance may not be the same in the case of both union and employees.

It is an essential principle of negotiation — indeed of human relations — that one’s style of negotiation may need to be adapted to the style of the other party.

The negotiator who adopts only one approach to negotiations can achieve success in some cases but experience adverse reaction in other cases.

Negotiations have to be an exercise with both sides walking towards each other, rather than away from each other. A key objective has to be a satisfactory agreement by the identification of common ground while also addressing the differences.

Counter proposals and conditions attached to concessions have to be understood. A wage increase as an additional cost has to be absorbed. Today it is advisable for unions to take the initiative to suggest methods of absorbing an increase. It is in everyone’s interest for a company to be profitable, competitive and survive.

Timely negotiation can maximise gains to workers, as in the present environment one wonders at the ability of Petrotrin to survive far less afford a dated pay increase.

The nature and the conditions necessary for successful collective bargaining involve an engagement of parties — the present economic environment being key to that engagement. There is no way to avoid that, we can only hope good sense prevails and there is, by both parties, continued walking in rather than out.

It could also mean pouring some of that considerable profit into training for employment for persons with disabilities.

We could add job coaches who would both mentor and liaise between individuals and employers.

Now there is a thought that might raise the financial sector’s profile! It might also temper the sense that all that is important is profit. After all people do matter.

Banks might also even consider providing special services for those whose eyesight might make it difficult to see numbers, or who through age or infirmity might make mistakes. This would go some way to reducing the incidents of errors from which they, the bankers, undoubtedly profit.

There would be fewer occasions when that “repair fee” needs to be applied.

Or again what about businesses in Trinidad banding together so that between them they might create just one job for a person with a disability? This would be in recognition of the fact that there are many individuals in the world who do things more slowly than the average person. But it would also recognise that to be slow does not mean an inability to work. What is more, it would reinforce the knowledge that persons with disabilities have skills that often go unrecognised.

The gift of empathy, for example, is found in abundance among people with Down syndrome.

Think how such a gift might add to customer comfort and good relations.

Of course all of this, if applied, may well mean that there will be reduced profits, but I can only think of the way we will all gain.