Negociacion Colectiva

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ART III:

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

CHAPTER S

At tbe Bargaining Table

Outline of Key Contents
• Key characteristics of the bargaining t able process
• Why negotiations today cali for much more sophistication than they once did
• What it takes for both sides to p repare adequately for the bargaining
• Why exaggerated demands and e qually unrealistic counterproposals typically
markthe early negotiation sessions
• Major ingredients in the bargaining: packages, trading points and
counterproposals, and costing
• What motívales bargaining table agreement and, in some cases, disagreement
• Crisis situations and how to avoid them
• What's involved in testing and proofreading
• The growing threat to labor of multinationals
• Why Boulwarism has both succeeded and failed asa bargaining technique, and
why it's not necessarily now dead at all
• Some f urther complexities: the current healths of both the economy and the
industry, technology, the relative strengths of the parties, unión politics,
assessment of the other side's strengths, unión rivalries, management
heterogeneity, and the role of personality

owever much specific unions may differ, virtually allof them share at least the
same primary objective. Whatever in the way of concrete demands may be
; sought f rom the employer, the union's m ajor goal is to n egotiate with the
employer a w ritten agreement covering both employment conditions and the
union-management relationship itself on terms that are acceptable to the unión. But
the employer, too, must be able to live with these terms, andit is because of this second
requirement that the 50,000 labor negotiations that take place every year in the U nited
States almost unavoidably contain stresses and strains; more for one p arty—not only in
the economic áreas of the contract but, as will be seen, in many of the so-called institutional and administrative áreas—all but invariably means less for the other. Moreover,
thelabor-management tensions are recurren! in their nature because contraéis are reg-

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178 PART I

Collective Bargaining

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ularly renegotiated—most commonly, today, every 3 or 4 years. No contractual
can thus ever be said to have been permanently resolved.
There is always a certain glamour to any interorganizational bargaining situ;^a
particularly w hen such conflicts as those justmentioned can be anticipas
Labor-management negotiations constitute no exception to this rule, and the prccaí
of arriving at a labor relations agreement has actually been viewed in a n umber
orful ways.
The process has been depicted as (1) a poker game, with the largest pots goir_Eí
those who combine deception, bluff, and luck, or the ability to come up with a s:: :mj:
hand on the occasions onwhich they are challenged or "seen" by the other side: 11
exercise in power politics, with the relative strengths of the parties being decisive: má
(3) a debating society, marked by both rhetoric and ñame calling. What is done a: -3
union-management bargaining table has also been caricatured in a somewhat less oa
matic way—as (4) a "rational process," with both sides remaining completely flexiland willing to be persuaded only w hen all the f acts have been d ispassionately re:
sented.1
All these characteristics have marked most negotiations over a period of time."HJ
increasing " maturity" of collective bargaining implies enlargement of the ratioaJ
process, but it is doubtful that there can ever be such a thing as complete escape ira
the other elements.
And a number of additionalfactors will also, almost inevitably, have a beara
upon the conduct of the negotiations. ítems such as the personalities and trainini a
the negotiators, the history of labor relations between the unión and management. -om
the economic environment opérate to influence what happens at the bargaining tabi
Some negotiators try to bluff or outsmart the other side; others would never e^í
think of...