Collective Bargaining Process Research Articles

Competitive balance in professional sports: A multi-dimensional perspective

What constitutes competitive balance is a contentious issue in professional sports. We contribute to this debate with a simple framework encapsulating multiple viewpoints of competitive balance and highlight how this framework suggests that there could be an inherent tradeoff along two common dimensions. Using the framework as a lens for comparing North American professional sports leagues, we then demonstrate how important changes over time in the collective bargaining process have influenced the competitive balance of these leagues in different ways. Finally, we discuss and provide descriptive evidence for the influence of differences in non-gate revenue growth across leagues and how it might have affected their competitive balance in recent years. (JEL L83, D63, C23).

Exploring How House Staff Unions Impact the Program Director-Resident Educational Alliance.

In 1999, the National Labor Relations Board determined that residents function as employees, thereby allowing them to freely unionize. From 2020 to 2023, house staff (i.e., resident physicians and fellows) unions have significantly increased, and 8 physician training centers, representing nearly 4,000 house staff, have unionized since March 2021. While unions provide residents with an important tool in effecting change in their workplace, their introduction into the educational milieu has the potential to alter the program director (PD)-resident relationship. In this article, the authors use the educational alliance framework to detail 3 factors required to support a quality educational relationship between a resident and their PD. They also elaborate on how the introduction of unions may impact the PD-resident relationship and explore the potential unintended consequences of unionization as it pertains to this relationship. The authors then use 2 social psychology theories, naïve realism and motivated reasoning, to describe common framing dynamics that lead to conflict during collective bargaining processes. They conclude by offering strategies that PDs may use to mitigate tensions that arise in contract negotiations, even without a direct seat at the table. Ultimately, PDs should anticipate continued growth of resident unions and prepare themselves and their programs for the tensions that may arise from this action. The PD role as a neutral third party ought to be preserved, which is possible if all parties set reasonable expectations for the changes in the PD's role and responsibilities under a union. PDs should understand the 3 core aspects of the educational alliance and the importance of establishing credibility with their residents early on to build a strong foundation.

Knowledge Management: A Challenge for The Company

In our complex and rapidly changing environment, personal knowledge is enriched and more effective in the collective bargaining process, thereby creating social capital. Combining individual knowledge into collective wisdom is the key to innovation, which is considered a major social and human phenomenon. By delving deeper into our reasoning, this social and human dimension gives sustainability to any business. This organizational capacity is crucial because having knowledge confers a substantial advantage. It is the ability to mobilize and deploy them that will produce value. The growing recognition of the importance of knowledge management, as a source of organizational competitiveness, has pushed many organizations to overcome obstacles through the use of knowledge in different ways. Indeed, our objective is to offer a theoretical perspective on knowledge management, its issues and its capabilities.

Collective Bargaining and Strikes

During the collective bargaining process, company campaigners should avoid emphasizing the “inevitability” of a strike. Moreover, management should not threaten the loss of strikers' jobs (which is, in fact, unlawful) or of plant closure, or create the impression that a loss of job would be the direct result of unionization. Lastly, management should not convey the impression that collective bargaining would be futile.

The Impact of Knowledge Acquisition on Technical and Administrative Innovation: Case of Tunisian Companies

In our complex and rapidly changing environment, personal knowledge is enriched and has become more effective in the collective bargaining process, thereby creating social capital. The combination of individual knowledge in collective wisdom is the key to innovation, which is considered a major social and human phenomenon. By deepening our reasoning, this social and human dimension gives sustainability to any company. This organizational capacity proves to be crucial because possessing knowledge confers a substantial advantage. It is the ability to mobilize and deploy them that will produce value. This research makes it possible to analyze the relationship between the acquisitions of knowledge with innovation within Tunisian organizations. In order to determine this relationship, a quantitative method was adopted. The results reveal the existence of a significant influence between the acquisition of knowledge and administrative innovation.

Understanding Workers’ Financial Wellbeing in States with Right-to-Work Laws

As public interest in labor unions has increased in recent months, along with an increase in union representation petitions, it is valuable to understand the economic implications of labor unions. Previous empirical studies on the effects of labor unions and collective bargaining processes have focused on several economic outcomes ranging from workers' pay and productivity to firms' profitability, investments, and overall economic performance.

A STUDY ON EMPLOYEE ABSENTEESIM AT UNIFY TECHNOLOGIES

In the Indian IT industry, absenteeism is a common occurrence. Both employers and employees need to pay quick attention to this important matter. Absenteeism is a regular pattern of skipping out on a task or commitment. It's erroneous to believe that absenteeism is always the result of indolence or people who aim to avoid work whenever possible. This essay aims to shed light on avariety of absenteeism-related factors, such as personal problems, a poor work environment, occupational diseases, poor production planning (flow of work), poor working and welfare conditions, a shortage of trained laborer’s, job insecurity, the collective bargaining process, a strictcontrol system, a lack of supervisory support, a lack of interest, a lack of a cohesive and cordial culture, etc. The present research is to focus on absenteeism and measures to reduce for successfulgrowth of the company.

If You Hear Knocking, It May Be Too Late

It can be said that all union prevention efforts start with a common thought along the lines of “I want to be nonunion.” The reasons can vary. For some employers, it is a concern over the economics of union contracts. For others, it might be the complications of dealing with union representatives, an increased likelihood (either real or perceived) of concerted work actions or the rigors of the collective bargaining process. Some employers simply have a philosophical opposition to unionized workforces. Whatever the underlying reason(s), the desire to remain union free is the first step in maintaining union‐free status.

THE MANTLE OF THE SHOP STEWARD IS NOT AN EASY ONE TO WEAR NUMSA obo Motloba v Johnson Control Automotive SA (Pty) Ltd (2017) 38 ILJ 1626 (LAC) Revisited

NUMSA obo Motloba v Johnson Controls Automotive SA (Pty) Ltd (2017) 38 ILJ 1626 (LAC) (Motloba) raises four discrete, yet interrelated issues that require close examination. The first relates to the constitutional and statutory protection accorded to trade union membership and activities. The second engages the exercise of organisational rights in the workplace. With the demise of the duty to bargain, created to breathe life into collective bargaining and provide the lifeblood to recognised trade unions in the workplace. The third brings to the surface the recurrent headache for management concerning the dual and contradictory role of the shop stewards on the shop floor. The point of immediate relevance is that, while conducting union activities, a shop steward in theory, at least, operates on equal footing with management. It merits emphasising that the theory becomes murky when the union official is also an employee. (Re Workers’ Compensation Board and Workers’ Compensation Board Employees Union (1990) 15 LAC (4th) 332, 335). Put simply, “the ordinary rules applicable to the normal employer-employee relationship are then somewhat relaxed” (FAWU v Haverstime Corporation (Pty) Ltd [2007] BLLR 638 (LC) par 42 (Haverstime)). Be that as it may, a shop steward is still an employee of a company with the usual obligation to conform to all workplace rules.Fourth, and possibly most important, shop stewards’ propensity for an “anything goes approach” in their dealing with management. The contentious issue encountered here concerns the tendency of shop stewards to exceed the bounds of acceptable conduct in fulfilling their representational responsibilities. As a result, trade union representatives have been disciplined and in extreme cases dismissed for misconduct. Accordingly, the marginal line separating insubordination and insolence, the interconnected acts of intimidation and assault, disruptive conduct in the course of collective bargaining process, misconduct at disciplinary or arbitration proceedings as well as the breakdown of the trust relationship and intolerability occasioned by dishonesty deserve critical scrutiny.

A classical model of speculative asset price dynamics

In retrospect, the experimental findings on competitive market behavior called for a revival of the old, classical, view of competition as a collective higgling and bargaining process (as opposed to price-taking behaviors) founded on reservation prices (in place of the utility function). In this paper, we specialize the classical methodology to deal with speculation, an important impediment to price stability. The model involves typical features of a field or lab asset market setup and lends itself to an experimental test of its specific predictions; here we use the model to explain three general stylized facts, well established both empirically and experimentally: the excess, fat-tailed, and clustered volatility of speculative asset prices. The fat tails emerge in the model from the amplifying nature of speculation, leading to a random-coefficient autoregressive return process (and power-law tails); the volatility clustering is due to the traders’ long memory of news; bubbles are a persistent phenomenon in the model, and, assuming the standard lab present value pattern, the bubble size increases with the proportion of speculators and decreases with the trading horizon.

Comparative Analysis of Seafarersʼ Collective Agreements in the Republic of Croatia and Montenegro

Seafarers represent a special category of workers, since their living and working conditions differ in many respects from those of other workers. Therefore, the legal regulation of the employment status of seafarers is particularly important. In the Republic of Croatia and Montenegro, there is no comprehensive legal act regulating the working, social and living conditions of seafarers. Relevant provisions are contained in various legal regulations. Collective agreements are of crucial importance in regulating the employment status of seafarers. In the Republic of Croatia, the National Collective Agreement for Croatian Seafarers on Board Ships in the International Shipping (2021-2022) entered into force in 2021. In Montenegro, the Collective Agreement for ship crew concluded at the end of 2020 with the employer Crnogorska plovidba a.d. Kotor is still in force. In this paper, the author provides an overview of the collective bargaining process and focuses on the comparative analysis of collective agreements.

Non-Inclusive Trade Unionism in the Tea Estates in Assam

Abstract The state of Assam alone produces nearly 53 percent of the total tea production in India. Around one million workers are engaged in the tea industry in India. Tea – as a commercial product first cultivated and expanded by the British – is an outcome of the toil and struggle of the Adivasi workers or indigenous people of central and east India who were made to migrate to Assam under extremely brutal conditions, and they form one of the most oppressed communities in the state. This section of the population has been waging struggles to protect its rights in the state. Tea production is a labor-intensive enterprise in which trade unions should ideally play an assertive role at every stage. However, trade unions in the tea estates are gradually being questioned on their functionality in shaping industrial relations and upholding the rights of the workers. The key respondents, comprising plantation workers, trade union members, owners of the tea estates, and management staff, belong to the major tea producing districts of Assam: Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, Jorhat, Golaghat, Sonitpur, and also the lesser producing district, Kamrup. The present study ascertains the role of trade unions in dealing with the key issues faced by plantation workers, such as non-inclusion of women workers and casual workers and its failure to play an effective role in the negotiation or collective bargaining process with management and the state. It is observed that the trade unions function under the principles of the political parties and acquisition of political power is their sole motto.

THE GOVERNANCE ROLE OF LABOR UNIONS IN IMPROVING INVESTMENT EFFICIENCY

We focus on the role that labor unions can play in influencing firms’ efficiency in corporate investment decisions where investment efficiency is defined as the extent to which deviations from optimal investment levels are minimized. We argue that unions may not simply be adversaries of managements as is often believed but have incentives to monitor managements in ways similar to that of other corporate governance players. These incentives stem from the fact that unions, like other corporate stakeholders, are adversely affected by investment inefficiencies that may result from firm-level overinvestment and underinvestment decisions. Consistent with this explanation, we find that labor unionization is indeed positively associated with improvements in investment efficiency and that these effects are generally stronger in bargaining environments that are favorable to unions. For instance, union effects in improving investment efficiencies are stronger in states where the Democratic Party is more influential and in states which have not enacted legislations that restrict union activities. These results indicate that union monitoring of investment efficiency is more likely to occur through channels that are a part of unions’ collective bargaining processes. Our results are robust to different measures of investment efficiency, different empirical specifications, and endogeneity of union membership.

Abdul, G., A., & Sehar, S. (2015). Conflict management and organizational performance: A case study of Askari Bank Ltd. Research Journal of Finance and Accounting. 6(11), 201. Adhiambo, R., & Simatwa, M. (2011). Assessment of conflict management and resolution in public secondary schools in Kenya: A case study of Nyakach District. International Research Journal 2(4), 1074-1088. Adomi, E., & Anie,

The Constitution of Kenya specifically recognizes the freedom of association to form and belong to trade unions. However, despite the adoption of the Labour Relations Act, union practice is still hampered by excessive restrictions. The EPZ companies are labor intensive requiring a large amount of labor to produce its goods or service and thus, the welfare of the employees play a key role in their functions. This study sought to determine the effect of trade union practices on employees’ welfare at export processing zones industries in Athi River, Kenya. The specific objectives sought to determine the effect of collective bargaining agreements, industrial action, dispute resolution and trade union representation on employees’ welfare at export processing zones industries in Athi River, Kenya. The study employed a descriptive research design. Primary data was collected by means of a structured questionnaire. The target population of the study was employees in EPZ companies in Athi River, Kenya with large employees enrolled in active trade unions. The unit of observation was the employees in the trade unions. The findings indicated that collective bargaining agreements had a positive and significant coefficient with employees’ welfare at the EPZ industries. Industrial action had a positive but non-significant effect with employees’ welfare at Export Processing Zones industries. Dispute resolution had a positive and significant coefficient with employees’ welfare at the EPZ industries. Trade union representation had a positive and significant coefficient with employees’ welfare at the EPZ industries. The study recommended that trade union should avoid the path of confrontation but continue dialogue through the collective bargaining process and demands should be realistic in nature with what is obtainable in the related industry. An existence of a formal two way communication between management and trade unions will ensure that right message is properly understood and on time too. Keywords: Collective Bargaining Agreements, Industrial Action, Dispute Resolution, Trade Union Representation, Employees Welfare & Export Processing Zones

Role of Trade Union on Labour Administration on its Associate’s Performance in TNSTC, Kumbakonam Division–I

The existence of a recognized and strong trade union is vital for an industrial process to run smoothly. Act 651, also called the Labor Act 2003, was formed to help, and act as a guide to maintain a peaceful relationship between the employees and the management. It becomes important to acknowledge the major role the Union Activities have for an organization. These roles include maintaining harmony among employers and employees of an industry; negotiating or dealing with employees; serving as a director and guide for the employees for directing their concerns; and other similar roles. Decisions taken through a process of collective negotiation and bargaining between unions and the employer are highly influential. Trade unions, along with their important roles, are also helpful in maintaining an effective communication channel between the management and the workers. However, this study revealed the purpose of Job security, to protect from economic hazards, get respect from peers, express grievances through a trade union, get economic security, restrain management from acting, and gain more Bargaining Power is, a few reasons which compel a worker to join with the Trade Unions. The participation of all the employees in trade union activities can be motivated for the success of the trade union of the Corporation. The Union is involved in managing the working hours, holidays, or leaves, Managing the reshuffling or temporary transfers, Managing the dismissals or mandatory retirement, managing the collective agreement, Managing the labor hiring, Managing the employment, and staffing standards, Managing the bonus and wages, the standard for retirement allowance and annuity, Union manages the employee welfare. Hence the trade union has to take serious steps and bargain with the Corporation to ensure the job security of the employees. Hence the present study was aimed at analyzing the union activities on labour management on its member’s performance in Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation Kumbakonam Division – I.

ПРОБЛЕМИ РОЗВИТКУ СОЦІАЛЬНОГО ПАРТНЕРСТВА В УКРАЇНІ

The article analyzes the current problems of social partnership in Ukraine and examines foreign experience in the mechanisms of its implementation. Social partnership is one of the basic principles of functioning of a modern democratic society, an important tool for the implementation of social policy of the state, a means of preventing and resolving social conflicts. Its special role in the system of social and labor relations necessitates the study of the current state, trends and problems of development in order to find ways to solve them. The need to improve the domestic social partnership system is due to significant problems in the labor market facing the country, such as low employment with a gender gap, high labor emigration, high unemployment and significant skills mismatch. According to the reports of the National Mediation and Conciliation Service, an increase in the number of social and labor disputes (conflicts) in Ukraine has been revealed. An analysis of the structure of claims made by participants in labor disputes, found that 50% of them relate to non-compliance with labor legislation. The indicator of arrears of wages is analyzed, the conclusion about its active dynamics is made. The article draws attention to the existence of gender inequality in Ukraine in terms of access to decent work, analyzes the causes of discrimination against women in employment and pay. The author notes that the effectiveness of the social partnership system in Ukraine is low, it does not meet the requirements of society to address important economic and social issues. Among the reasons for this situation are the dominance of paternalistic sentiments in the minds of citizens, the weakness of trade unions, the formal nature of the collective bargaining process, the dominance of employers in social dialogue, non-compliance with collective agreements, corruption and a significant share of the shadow economy. Foreign experience of mechanisms of realization of social partnership is investigated. Foreign models of social partnership, such as Swedish and German, are singled out, their content and features are revealed. According to the results of the study, a conclusion was made about the need to use foreign experience to increase the effectiveness of the social partnership system in Ukraine.

Scope of Collective Bargaining Process in the Small Tea Garden – A Study with Special Reference to Jalpaiguri District of West Bengal

The Tea Board of India (TBI) has defined a Small Tea Growers (STGs) as an entity having tea plantation areas of up to 10.12 hectares (or 25 acres) without any processing facility since the early 1990s. The mode of production in tea plantations has undergone a major structural shift from a centralized estate sector system to the emerging small tea growers (STG) bought leaf factory (BLF) system, which broadly represents a flexible and decentralized production system. The labour relations in tea gardens are well defined in the organized sector and covered under the Plantation Labour Act 1951. However, the small tea growers (STG) and Bought-Leaf Factories (BLF) specializing solely in tea manufacturing do not have the distinct industrial identity categorized under the unorganized sector in the tea plantation industry. STGs are no longer a small or marginalized group, as they produce more than half of India's green-leaf output while depriving organized-sector workers of the benefits they should get. The moment has come for small tea garden owners to think about their employees' occupational safety, health, and working circumstances. Given the substantial changes in tea plantation methods, the authors sought to determine the scope of collective bargaining for workers in tiny tea gardens in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri region.

Charting a New Course in a Fissured Economy? Employer Concepts and Collective Bargaining in the US and Canada

The legal concept of the employer plays an increasingly important and contested role in the modern economic context of broad-sweeping organizational fissuring. This article focuses on the role of employer concepts specifically in the collective bargaining domain, where they hold the unique potential to substantially affect access to regulated collective bargaining, its efficacy, and the extent of worker bargaining power. Building on a critical engagement with previous normative literature on fissuring and on the concept of the employer, the paper examines the interaction of fissuring and employer concepts in the context of the US and Canadian ‘Wagnerist’ collective bargaining regimes, and compares the trajectory of employer concept doctrine in each of these two countries in recent decades. The comparative analysis suggests that while employer concept reform within collective bargaining regimes remains constrained in important respects in both the US and Canada, these concepts have also recently diverged in important formal respects shaping their effects in fissured contexts. This divergence is comprised of a formal expansion of their scope in Canada; a narrowing of their scope in the US; and an effective inversion of the US joint employer concept consequentially into less of a remedial, and a more restrictive device. As a heuristic, comparison of US developments with those in its neighbour’s regime that has much else in common, help to highlight the extraordinarily restrictive nature of most recent US doctrine, including the 2020 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) final rule on joint employer status, its facilitation of fissuring, and the formidable task confronting US labour of somehow bringing lead firms into the regulated collective bargaining process. Employer Concept, Fissuring and Collective Bargaining, Joint Employer, Scope of Collective Bargaining Regime

DISMISSALS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Competitive forces in the market force employers to change the way they operate their businesses. The changes that employers have to make often demand an alteration of the employees’ terms and conditions of employment. By law employers are not permitted to effect changes to the employees’ terms and conditions of employment unilaterally. They have to obtain the consent of the affected employees. This is where collective bargaining fits in. The employer has to negotiate with the employees. One way in which, through the process of collective bargaining, an employer can exert pressure on the employees to accept the changes is to effect a lock-out.Under the Labour Relations Act 28 of 1956 within the context of a lock-out, an employer was permitted to use conditional dismissal as a bargaining weapon. This conditional dismissal had to be coupled with an offer of re-employment should the employees accept an employer’s demand. In essence, the lock-out had a bite in the form of the conditional dismissal. This made the lock-out quite effective.The 1995 Labour Relations Act prohibits in no uncertain terms the use of a dismissal as a means of compelling employees to accept an employer’s demand in any matter of mutual interest. Within the collective bargaining context, dismissal is not a legitimate option. The employer only has the lock-out as a tool of compulsion. The definition of a lock-out in terms of this Act does not accommodate the use of dismissal. This makes the lock-out option to be less potent than it was under the 1956 Labour Relations Act. However, employers are permitted to dismiss on operational grounds, provided that they follow a fair procedure. Terms and conditions of employment greatly feature in the operational requirements of a business. If the employees’ terms and conditions of employment are not responsive to the operational requirements of the business and they are unwilling to accept changes to those terms, the employer has the right todismiss them. The employer will not be dismissing the employees as a way of inducing them to accept the changes. He will instead be dismissing them on the basis of operational requirements. The question that then arises is how should a dismissal that is intended to compel employees to accept an employers demand (falling within section 187(1)(c) of the 1995 Labour Relations Act) be distinguished from a dismissal that is genuinely based on operational requirements as contemplated by section 188(1)(a)(ii). The question arises whether the fact that section 187(1)(c) explicitly prohibits the use of dismissal within the context of collective bargaining gives rise to some tension with section 188(1)(a)(ii) which categorically gives employers the right to dismiss on operational grounds.

Collective Rural Women Access, Use, and Control Over Communal Land in Mexico: A Post-capitalist Feminist Political Ecology Approach

Rural women's access to land is fundamental for their individual and household well-being, equity, and empowerment. In Mexico, the agrarian reform of 1992 and customary gendered rights shaped land use, access, and control. Rural women's access to collective land is relevant since social property—ejidoandagrarian communities—represents 52% of the national territory. As an expression of the collective organization, commons were also performed to use and control communal land and biophysical resources collectively. This paper examines the collective peasant women's bargaining process to access, use, and control communal land. The post-capitalist feminist political ecology approach allowed us to distinguish and analyze gendered strategies employed by a cooperative led by women at different levels—household, community, and government—to access and use communal land and biophysical resources by the process of commons—commoning. Rural women's collective efforts are located in Hidalgo, central Mexico. Firstly, the Agrarian Reform modifications related to gender equality issues are investigated, followed by examining rural women's socioeconomic conditions. The case study permitted us to identify and analyze critical factors that enhanced long-term agreements to control communal land beyond the Agrarian Law scope by the commoning examination. The collective rural women's strategies to use communal land improved well-being based on gendered peasant knowledge, organization, and stakeholder support. Nevertheless, the strategies increased women's burden and reinforced the existing gendered norms such as female altruism. Furthermore, the need to discuss the bargaining process over communal land concerning a diversity of commons is argued: knowledge, social, and biophysical, in which gender and care are critical variables.