Compilation of decisions of the Committee on Freedom of Association

Collective bargaining15

The principle of bargaining in good faith

1. The Committee recalls the importance which it attaches to the obligation to negotiate in good faith for the maintenance of the harmonious development of labour relations.

1. It is important that both employers and trade unions bargain in good faith and make every effort to reach an agreement; moreover genuine and constructive negotiations are a necessary component to establish and maintain a relationship of confidence between the parties.

1. Both employers and trade unions should bargain in good faith and make every effort to come to an agreement, and satisfactory labour relations depend primarily on the attitudes of the parties towards each other and on their mutual confidence.

1. The principle that both employers and trade unions should negotiate in good faith and make efforts to reach an agreement means that any unjustified delay in the holding of negotiations should be avoided.

1. In the context of voluntary collective bargaining and a spirit of good faith, a request made by trade union organizations to suspend the work of the Public Sector Salary Negotiation Committee for some days, to allow for internal consultations on a proposal which the Government submitted during that meeting and about which further technical details were needed, is not unreasonable.

1. The act of postponing or arranging negotiation meetings unilaterally at the last minute and without prior warning, if it occurs without good reason, is a practice that is harmful to the development of normal and healthy labour relations.

1. While the question as to whether or not one party adopts an amenable or uncompromising attitude towards the other party is a matter for negotiation between the parties, both employers and trade unions should bargain in good faith making every effort to reach an agreement.

1. Agreements should be binding on the parties.

1. Recalling that meaningful collective bargaining is based on the premise that all represented parties are bound by voluntarily agreed provisions, the Committee urged the Government to ensure the statutory enforceability of every collective agreement among those represented by the contracting parties.

1. Mutual respect for the commitment undertaken in collective agreements is an important element of the right to bargain collectively and should be upheld in order to establish labour relations on stable and firm ground.

1. Collective bargaining implies both a give-and-take process and a reasonable certainty that negotiated commitments will be honoured, at the very least for the duration of the agreement, such agreement being the result of compromises made by both parties on certain issues, and of certain bargaining demands dropped in order to secure other rights which were given more priority by trade unions and their members. If these rights, for which concessions on other points have been made, can be cancelled unilaterally, there could be neither reasonable expectation of industrial relations stability, nor sufficient reliance on negotiated agreements.

1. A legal provision which allows the employer to modify unilaterally the content of signed collective agreements, or to require that they be renegotiated, is contrary to the principles of collective bargaining.

1. The Collective Agreements Recommendation, 1951 (No. 91), which guides governments in their understanding of the principles of collective bargaining, explicitly recognizes in its Paragraph 3 that collective bargaining agreements should bind the signatories thereto and those on whose behalf the agreement is concluded.

1. Failure to implement a collective agreement, even on a temporary basis, violates the right to bargain collectively, as well as the principle of bargaining in good faith.

1. All the parties to the negotiation, whether or not they have legal personality, must be liable for any breaches of the right to secrecy of the information which they receive in the framework of collective bargaining.