Working with trade unions: employers
Collective bargaining
You’ll need to work with unions to discuss changes to your employees’ terms and conditions. This is called ‘collective bargaining’.
Collective bargaining covers the terms and conditions of workers in a defined ‘bargaining unit’. This can include all employees in a workplace or just certain groups of workers, for example technicians.
It’s up to you and the union to agree which terms and conditions are covered but it’s usually things like pay, holiday, working hours etc.
Running collective bargaining
Employers and unions need to work out how to run collective bargaining, for example:
- who’ll represent the workers
- who’s included in a bargaining unit
- when and how often meetings will happen
- what to do if more than one union is recognised
- what will be discussed
- what to do if the union and employer cannot come to an agreement
Information to help with collective bargaining
Employers must give certain information to the union to help it with the bargaining process, for example the company’s pay and benefits structure or information about its profits, assets and liabilities.
Collective agreements
If collective bargaining leads to an agreement, for example about a pay increase or change in working conditions, it’s called a ‘collective agreement’.