collective bargaining

collective bargaining A system for the fixing of earnings and conditions of employment, in which the processes of price (or wage) competition in the labour-market between individual workers and individual employers is replaced, either in whole or in part, by rule-fixing. These rules are of two kinds: procedural, regulating the forms and institutions under which collective negotiations are to be conducted; and substantive, regulating the actual content of particular agreements. Typically, collective bargaining occurs between trade unions and an employer, or organization of employers. However, during the twentieth century, governments and the law in industrial societies have increasingly become parties to both the procedural and the substantive aspects. Bargaining may therefore take place at the workplace, company, regional, or industry levels. Britain is unusual in having no legal compulsion on employers to bargain in this way and collective agreements are rarely directly enforceable in the courts.