Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • Free Essays • My Term Papers • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Miscellaneous cb cb Collective bargaining's origins lie in one of man's primary instincts; defense. In an industrial relations context this is defense of proper working conditions, secure employment and proper pay. Collective bargaining allowed this by gaining pay increases through the increased power of the workers as a joint force. Collective bargaining, in its most basic form, is the process by which an organized group of employees, in the form of trade unions, negotiate with employers, their representatives or their associations in relation to any aspect of employment within the employers’ organization. The reason that collective bargaining and trade unions are used is that; "There's strength in numbers". The individual threat by a single employee to withhold labor is not very great. But when the majority of a workforce in an organization threaten to strike, or threaten any other form of industrial action this threat becomes altogether more substantial. Collective bargaining gives redress to the imbalance of power between individual workers and employers. This is the main purpose that collective bargaining is used in industrial relations, and essentially gives collective bargaining a political purpose; the equalization of power. Once this extra power is attained, collective bargaining is then used for primarily economic purposes. It is only in recent times that social issues have been included in the negotiations in collective bargaining. As this process tends to lead to equal pay for all workers doing the same work, there is as a consequence a social benefit; equality amongst the workforce. While this can have its downside, namely complacency among the employees, as there is little incentive to do better in work, this disadvantage has been partly collapsed in recent times with the advent of productivity deals. Collective bargaining is also a political institution in that it regulates and defines the interaction between trade unions and management. In a social context, the consequences of this are a system for regulating industrial conflict. This can help ensure that any industrial conflict is kept within reasonable bounds, and that in most cases the more aggressive elements in trade unions are kept under control by virtue of the fact that the majority of the workforce see an alternative avenue of dealing with disputes. Bibliography: Word Count: 364
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