Collective Bargaining
| Author | Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps |
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The process through which a LABOR UNION and an employer negotiate the scope of the employment relationship.
A collective bargaining agreement is the ultimate goal of the collective bargaining process. Typically, the agreement establishes wages, hours, promotions, benefits, and other employment terms as well as procedures for handling disputes arising under it. Because the collective bargaining agreement cannot address every workplace issue that might arise in the future, unwritten customs and past practices, external law, and informal agreements are as important to the collective bargaining agreement as the written instrument itself.
Collective bargaining allows workers and employers to reach voluntary agreement on a wide range of topics. Even so, it is limited to some extent by federal and state laws. A collective bargaining agreement cannot accomplish by contract what the law prohibits. For example, a union and an employer cannot use collective bargaining to deprive employees of rights they would otherwise enjoy under laws such as the CIVIL RIGHTS statutes (Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 94 S. Ct. 1011, 39 L. Ed. 2d 147 [1974]). Collective bargaining also cannot be used to waive rights or obligations that laws impose on either party. For example, an employer may not use collective bargaining to reduce the level of safety standards it must follow under the OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT (29 U.S.C.A. §§ 651 et seq.). Furthermore, the collective bargaining agreement is not purely voluntary. One party's failure to reach agreement entitles the other to resort to certain legal tactics, such as strikes and lockouts, to apply economic pressure and force agreement. Moreover, unlike commercial contracts governed by state law, the collective bargaining agreement is governed almost exclusively by federal LABOR LAW, which determines the issues that require collective bargaining, the timing and method of bargaining, and the consequences of a failure to bargain properly or to adhere to a collective bargaining agreement.
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National Basketball Association (NBA) Commissioner David Stern (right) shakes hands with NBA Players Association Executive Director Billy Hunter during a January 1999 press conference in which a collective bargaining agreement between the league and players was announced.
Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (29 U.S.C.A. §§ 151 et seq.) in 1935 to establish the right of workers to engage in collective bargaining and other group activities (§ 157). The NLRA also created the NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD (NLRB), a federal agency authorized to enforce the right to bargain collectively (§ 153). The NLRA has been amended several times since 1935, most notably in 1947, 1959, and 1974.
The NLRA governs labor relations for businesses involved in interstate commerce only; thus, it does not protect the collective bargaining interests of all categories of workers. Several classes of employers fall outside the NLRA, including those working for the U.S. government and its wholly owned corporations, states and their political subdivisions, railroads, and airlines. The NLRA also does not protect certain types of workers, such as agricultural workers, independent contractors, and supervisory and managerial employees. But other federal and state laws often provide protection for workers not covered under the NLRA. For example, federal government workers enjoy the right to bargain collectively under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which is patterned largely after the NLRA and enforced by the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Railroads and airlines are generally governed by the Railway Labor Act, the predecessor to the NLRA. Plus many states have adopted statutes similar to the NLRA that protect the rights of state and local government workers to bargain collectively.
Sections 8(a)(5) and 8(b)(3) of the NLRA define the failure to engage in collective bargaining as an unfair labor practice (29 U.S.C.A. § 158[a][5], [b][3]). The aggrieved party may file an UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICE charge with the NLRB, which has the authority to prevent or halt the performance of unfair labor practices (§ 160).
The law of collective bargaining encompasses four basic points:
The employer may not refuse to bargain over certain subjects with the employees' representative, provided that the employees' representative has majority support in the bargaining unit.
Those certain subjects, called mandatory subjects of bargaining, include wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.
The employer and the union are not required to reach agreement but must bargain in GOOD FAITH over mandatory subjects of bargaining until they reach an impasse.
While a valid collective bargaining agreement is in effect, and while the parties are bargaining but have not yet reached an impasse, the employer may not unilaterally change a term of employment that is a mandatory subject of bargaining. But once the parties have reached an impasse, the employer may unilaterally implement its proposed changes, provided that it had previously offered the changes to the union for consideration.
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