Collective Bargaining

Posted: October 17th, 2013

Collective Bargaining

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Collective Bargaining

By allowing the employees to strike in order to get their demands met, the employee unions in the public sector have attained a higher power as compared to their counterparts in the private sector. The negotiations between the public sector employees and the government and the negotiations between board of governors in privatized institutions and their employees, are not the same (Keizer, 2011). When employees in a privatized hospital decide to strike, the people can always go to the neighboring hospital or go to a public hospital. However, if the employees in the public hospitals decide to strike, it does not affect only one hospital, but it only affect all the hospital that are run by the government. The government will be quicker to act as compared to the employee in the private sector.

A number of differences have been cited as being between the private and the private sector unions. The financial incentives are not a great concern to the managers in the public sector as they are to the private sector. While the private sector tries to minimize the labor costs, the public sector tries to increase it. Managers try to pursue the salary increase of the subordinate employees so that they (public sector managers) may also receive the salary increase. Since the public unions are highly recognized by the government, lawyers are present on both sides of the parties during the negotiation process. Due to such cases, board members who are also union members may not take place in union negotiations in such cases as school ones. These rules are not applicable in the private sector thus bringing a conflict of interest. Public agencies, unlike private ones cannot move business to places where there is lower labor cost. Public goods such as education have few substitutes as compared to private goods (Caisley, 2007). I would prefer the public sector unions.

References

Caisley, K.T. (2007). Collective Bargaining. Auckland: CCH.

Keizer, G. (2011). Public or Private, It’s Work. New York Times, June 24. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/opinion/25keizer.html