Short-circuiting old bargaining machinery
Article Abstract:
British firm National Power PLC had to discard its public sector-style negotiating arrangements when it was privatized. As a private company, the electricity supplier found that it could no longer continue with the old system of federated bargaining that involved negotiating across the industry, at the company level and at the local committee level, as well as separate negotiations with manual employees, engineers and administrative staff. Aside from being inefficient and slow in solving industrial disputes, this public-sector bargaining was unacceptable to the newly privatized National Power because it required negotiating with competitors, customers and the labor unions. The company decided to re-assess existing terms and conditions of employment, and to negotiate on its own. However, it chose to retain the practice of negotiating separately with the manual, administrative and engineering groups so that it could better deal with their specific concerns.
Publication Name: Personnel Management
Subject: Human resources and labor relations
ISSN: 0031-5761
Year: 1993
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Prognosis for bad bargaining in health and education
Article Abstract:
Decentralized decision making in collective bargaining increasingly is being applied to the education and the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. Personnel managers implementing decentralized structures often will be faced by inadequate resources, planning, and information, and typically will be faced by workforce opposition. In the restructuring of the NHS, labor resistance will be exacerbated by the tight labor market; most workers and unions prefer the comparability model to performance bargaining. In the area of public education, local bargaining is dependent on the emergence of a free national system. Collective bargaining will be uncertain due to staff shortages, uncertain bargaining procedures, a history of large strikes, and the introduction of the concept of the local management of schools.
Publication Name: Personnel Management
Subject: Human resources and labor relations
ISSN: 0031-5761
Year: 1990
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