Q 4.

Collective agreements are not contracts for the reason that the parties do not intend them to be contracts Comment on the statement with reference to collective bargaining in India.
Collective bargaining negotiation between labor unions and corporate employers constitute a specialized area in the field of general negotiations, but the underlying legal and relationship aspects make them distinct. Unlike a general business negotiation and law suit negotiations that are not regulated by statutory provisions, a collective bargaining negotiation is mandated and governed by external laws. Many different statutes come into play during the negotiation process. Under the applicable statutes, employees have the right to organize and to select exclusive bargaining agents to negotiate collective agreements defining their wages, hours, and working conditions. They may engage in concerted activity for mutual aid and protection. For private sector workers, this allows them the protected right to strike. Labor unions are chosen by a majority of workers in an appropriate bargaining unit, which may consist of homogeneous skilled workers or heterogeneous industrial workers, become the particular bargaining agent for all of the individuals within that unit. They have the right to demand bargaining over the wages, hours, and working conditions of the affected employees. One aspect of labor-management negotiations that is different from many other types of bargaining interactions involves the on-going relationship between the parties. After collective discussions are completed, the parties must continue to deal with each other. Union and management negotiators must continue to meet to resolve disagreements that may occur with respect to the application of bargaining agreement provisions, and employees and managers must work together to produce profitable goods or services if the firm is to be successful.

Whereas Collective agreements are the result of negotiations between the representatives of the employer's association and trade union These agreements can be made on matters like rate wages, hours of work, holidays with pay and the disciplinary procedure etc. In short, they may relate to working and service conditions. In India, collective agreements were not common in the past. The Royal Commission on Labor found that the only attempt made to set up machinery for regulating the relations between a group of employers and their work-people was at Ahmedabad. However, the situation has changed since independence, the trade unions have been growing and agreements with employers have become more common. A sample study made by Employers Federation of India for the years 1956-60 reveals that the number of disputes settled by collective agreements during the period in question varied between 32 per cent and 49 percent in the units studied. Broadly the agreements are of the following types: (i) Agreements which have' been drawn-up after direct negotiations between the parties are purely voluntary in character for the purpose of their implementation; (ii) Agreements which combine the elements of voluntariness and compulsion i.e. those negotiated by the parties but registered before a conciliator as settlements; and (iii) Agreements which acquire legal status because of successful discussion between the parties when the matters in dispute were under reference to industrial tribunals/courts and could be considered subjudice, the agreements reached being recorded by the tribunals/courts as consent award. In this respect, it may be mentioned here that, this is the most welcome trend and provides a healthy climate for industrial peace. The changing attitude of the employers and the emergence of a new generation of employers and workers have also helped. Legal measures, in spite of their limitations, have lent as much support to collective agreements as joint consultations in bipartite and tripartite meetings at the national and industrial levels.

Most of the collective agreements have been at the plant level, though in important textile centers like Bombay and Ahmedabad, industry level agreements have been common. These have a legal sanction under the state Act and have to be distinguished from other where no statutory sanction prevails; such agreements are also to be found in the plantation industry and in the coal industry. Now as far contract is concerned, it is an agreement enforceable by law. It is true that collective agreements are not contracts. Collective agreements may be taken place either by bipartite agreements or by tripartite agreements. The 1st one is taken into consideration by two parties viz Union and Management. The main disadvantage of this type is that it cannot be applied on a new entrant or on a outgoing one as it is not enforceable. Whereas in case of the second type this disadvantage does not come into play as it considers three parties viz Union, Management and appropriate Govt only three parties arrived at a consensus in course of conciliation, and in that case penalizing any party is possible for unfair practice by it if any contravention occurs. So collective agreements through a third party can be regarded as settlements looking for a specific purpose, and prima facie it is enforceable for both the parties viz Union and management.