Liana Katrina Igna's Reaction to Outcomes of Collective Bargaining in the Philippine Manufacturing Industry

Windmuller (1987) defines collective bargaining decision-making process between parties representing employer and employee interests. Its overriding purpose is to negotiate and apply an agreed set of rules to govern the employment relationship, as well as to define the relationship between the parties in the process. Collective bargaining can thus be described as a dynamic and complex process of encounter between management and the union (Edralin 1991).

Collective bargaining is a foreign term to me before we were assigned to accomplish this reaction paper. I really thought it was a very technical term that I would not be able to understand the whole 35- page article. But I was very wrong.

After I read the definition of Collective bargaining, it made things look a lot simpler for me. I was able to understand what it meant. It wasn’t really technical at all. I even compared it to our house rules.

Our family has what we call House rules ever since my brother entered high school. These were unwritten laws my brother and I have to follow for as long as we are living with our parents. And similar to collective bargaining, we took time to discuss matters within the family. We sat and talked about what my parents want and what we want and end up compromising and meeting halfway.

According to the results of the thesis, many factors can influence the collective bargaining agreement like company size, ownership, labor unions, salary and wage provisions, etc. Just like our House rules. The agreement between me, my brother and my parents are affected by many things. Some are our age, our maturity level, our attitude towards studies, our honesty, etc. However, collective bargaining is much more complicated than just making any agreement like certain house rules.

Collective bargaining is done by managements to promote healthy relationships with their subordinates and to protect their rights. This may sound so simple. But we all know that the main objective of businesses is to earn profit and giving a lot of benefits and leeway to employees might be in contrast with the company’s goal. And most companies sacrifice their employees’ rights for profit’s sake unaware that this may cause negative motivation to their employees resulting to ineffective performance.

Another sad thing about collective bargaining agreements is most of them comply only with minimum legal requirements with respect to provisions regarding labor standards. This may result to violation of the employees’ rights.

The business of business is business - this is a famous quote by a wise person. This may be, in fact, true but we should also remember morals and ethics. Business may be centered on making money but we should make sure that no rights are being violated and everyone gets their fair share. Collective bargaining agreement is an effective way of having an organized company but the issue lies on how the company formulates these agreements. Authorities who have the prerogative of checking CBAs should do their jobs religiously so that no man will be deprived of his rights.