An Analytical Study of the Role of Collective Bargaining and the Strike in Industrial Disputes in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The word “collective bargaining” alludes to the idea of workers working as a group. A single labourer is forced to accept any job offer given to him since, in the majority of situations, he is extremely poor having no savings, and needs to work quickly to prevent himself and his family from hunger. He typically makes disastrous deals. The circumstance is different, though if the same worker is one of numerous workers who are unified with one another. Together, they consult and provide each other with counsel. They either accept or reject a body. In these situations, people stand to gain not only increased security but also higher earnings. The company recognises that the arrangement is unavoidable and must accept its terms or risk losing the workers completely. Because he knows who to deal with and that the workman’s leaders will oversee the remainder, he too benefits somewhat from this system. Furthermore, employers are shielded from unfair rivalry amongst them on pay and other employment-related issues. These agreements, which were first created in England during the industrial revolution, have progressively spread to many other industrialised nations. They cover every aspect of employment conditions, including pay, work hours, holidays, allowances, discipline, bonuses, gratuities, leave workload, layoffs, and workplace hygiene. There is, in the expression “collective bargaining” the idea of the workmen acting collectively. If an individual workman seeks employment, he must accept any terms upon which it is available, for he is almost always poor; he has no reserves at all, and saving his family and himself from poverty and malnutrition is a top priority. He usually makes a poor deal. The position is different, however, if the same workman is one of a large number of workmen, who are all united among themselves. They all confer and hold counsel with one another. They refuse or accept in a body. Under such circumstances, they have the prospect of better wages and moreover, much greater security. The employer considers the arrangement as unavoidable since he must accept their terms or completely do without the workers. He, too, has a certain amount of edge under this system, for he knows whom to deal with; the leaders of the workers will control the rest of them. Employers are moreover protected against unfair competition with each other in the matter of wages and other conditions of employment. Such arrangements evolved with the Industrial Revolution for the first time in England and have gradually been developed in many industrial revolutions for the first time in England and in many industrial countries: they govern all questions of conditions of employment—pay, work hours, benefits, holidays, discipline, bonuses, gratuities, time off, workload, layoffs. Industrial hygiene, etc. Any revision of these conditions of labour, whether for the group or for the individual, will have to be agreed to by the employer on the one hand and the workmen as a group on the other. As this system involves bargaining by the workmen collectively, whether there is peace or dispute in the industry and whether the dispute is to be settled by the method of conference and conciliation or by adjudication and award- this system is called “collective bargaining”. With the above idea in mind, this research is conducted to know the flourishing concept of collective bargaining vis-a-vis the strikes and its development and acceptance in statutory laws and endorsement in judicial pronouncements. This study has examined the development of the concept especially in the field of labour and industrial arrangements basically in the United Kingdom from where the concept transmits to the world over.