Collective Bargaining Agreement
What is collective bargaining and how does it work?
The term collective bargaining means the negotiations between your employer and your trade union. It can only happen if your employer recognises the union. However, if enough employees become members of the union and support union recognition, the law forces the recognition of the union through 'statutory recognition'.
Your union can negotiate with your employer to improve the terms of your employment. They might do this for all the employees where you work or for a specific group that they represent.
For example: You are a member of a union that represents technicians, they negotiate for all the technicians at your place of work. The other employees are represented by different unions.
Your union can represent all the technicians at your place of work, even the ones who aren't members. This group of members and non members is called the 'bargaining unit'.
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Your trade union and your employer will have to agree amongst themselves:
- Who will represent the workers
- Who is included in the bargaining unit
- A schedule for when and how often the collective bargaining meetings will be held
- What to do if more than one union is recognised
- What terms are up for negotiation
- What to do if they cannot reach a collective agreement
When can an employer make a direct offer to their employees?
By law, Employers are prohibited from making offers to employees with the sole or main purpose of undermining collective bargaining by the union (unlawful inducement).
If a complaint of a breach of this law is upheld, the employer must pay £4,554 (accurate as of April 2022, revised annually) per union member receiving the offer.
An employer may make a direct offer to it's workers which falls into the scope of the collective bargaining only where they have exhausted the collective bargaining procedure. (Supreme Court: Kostal UK Ltd v Dunkley & ors).
What is an example of collective bargaining?
Through collective bargaining negotiations, your trade union can change many things, including your:
- Rate of pay
- Working hours
- Employee benefits
- Health and Safety
- Contractual holiday entitlement
- Flexible working policy
What is a collective agreement?
A collective agreement is a contract which is drawn up between your union and your employer.
The collective agreement will include the agreed changes to the terms of your employment. It is important to make sure that your contract of employment is updated to reflect the changes.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you sign an individual contract you might lose out on the better terms that your union is trying to arrange for you.
For example: Your employer may be trying to cut costs by offering individual employees a smaller pay rise than the rest of the bargaining unit will get in the collective agreement.
As long as the collective agreement is expressly incorporated into the employment contracts of everyone in the collective bargaining unit, it is legally binding. Otherwise you or your employment solicitor will have to imply that the collective agreement has been incorporated through custom and practise.
Where the collective agreement has been incorporated, expressly or impliedly, then each of the bargaining unit's contracts are subject to the changes, even if the individual employee does not want the changes, or is not a member of the union.
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This content is provided free of charge for information purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied on as such. No responsibility for the accuracy and/or correctness of the information and commentary set out in the article, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed or accepted by any member of our company. For employment law advice you can click here to organise meeting with one of our panel of employment law solicitors.
This content is provided free of charge for information purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied on as such. No responsibility for the accuracy and/or correctness of the information and commentary set out in the article, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed or accepted by any member of our company. For employment law advice please get in contact and speak to your employment law solicitors.
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