Strategies to Effective Negotiations and Collective Bargaining

¶ … Successful Collective Bargaining The following is labor relations interaction between one of the supervisors, Dr. Gael and me, Nordic. The interaction touches on the idea called collective bargaining processes. Me: As we have learned in the past six weeks, collective bargaining is the simple process of taking bargains between the employees and employers. The main aim of carrying out a collective bargaining in an organization is to determine the working conditions and the terms fixed in the employment process.

Moreover, it serves to regulate the nature of relations between employers, workers, and the representatives of them. The process of collective interaction includes the interactions that take place parties participating in the collection of the bargaining process agreement. Tomal & Schilling, (2013) state that collective bargaining includes a collection of all the communications and correspondences that take place during, before, and after negotiations. If I may ask you a question, Dr. Gael, What do you think are the stages followed in a successful collective bargaining process? Dr.

Gael: The main stages followed in a collective bargaining process include Preparing, Arguing, Signaling, Proposal, Packaging, Bargaining, Closing, and Agreement in that order. Me: can you expound more on what these stages entail? Dr. Gael: Yes, I can. Let me expound on them one by one The first step is preparation. Preparation involves putting together the requisite measures like the contents of the agreements, identifying the immediate problems, exploiting the problems, and brainstorming on the possible remedial measures.

When representing workers, the immediate activities involve picking the representative for the group. The best of the proposals are made, based on the main conditions like the internal conditions of the company or organization, the financials, the external environment, among other factors as stated by Creighton & Forsyth, (2012). The second step is called arguing. In this stage, the members or the group representing the workers engage in the process of arguing and substantiating the available proposals.

Moreover, the process involves managing and countering, trying the claims of the workers, together with their contentions. The negotiators from the different groups argue out their cases using the available and collected relevant data and figures, benchmarks, analogies, precedents, among others. The two participants representing the two groups place their thesis statements without having to confuse one another. The third step is called signaling.

When the representatives make the presentations, they have their targets, but as a matter of engagement and bargaining, they are willing to settle for something even lower. On the other hand, the management is also willing to settle for less than it concedes more than the public proclamation. The signals are delivered through different avenues like non-verbal body cues, change of tone, body language, among others. The purposes of these cues help to relay that the proposals are likely to be met with some negotiations and modifications.

Moreover, they also show that they have a slight chance of acceptance. If the signals are not sent, the two proponents are likely to take to their stands. In such a case, the negotiations may be subjected to breakdown and impasse as mentioned by Tomal & Schilling (2013). The fourth step involves submission of the proposal. This is the most important stage through which proposals are made and delivered with the aim of ending the argument arriving at some settlement.

The proposals represent the reconciliations of the arguments made based on some issues like the signals received. The fifth stage is called packaging. A good negotiator will always package his or her proposals. This process involves making concessions while placing items that are quite tempting to avoid other than other compromises needed for the other divide because the proposal comes as a whole and not with breakages. The main work of the other side is to make counter-packages. The sixth step involves bargaining.

The negotiations proceed with different groups trying to outdo the packages placed.