Collective Bargaining
Categories: Econ, Entrepreneur, Company Management
The kind of employment negotiation that goes on when a union is involved. Rather than individually negotiating things like pay or vacation time with each employee on their own, employees negotiate as a block, usually through a union or other organization.
Unions have lost sway in many industries over the past 40 years. There are still powerful unions within certain industries, like the auto workers' union, but the most high-profile examples of collective bargaining now come from the areas of sports (various players' unions for the NBA, NFL, and MLB, etc.) and public employees (like teachers).
Collective bargaining basically sets as competitors both sides: the unions negotiating on behalf of the workers, and corporate America (or the government...yes, even military people have unions). There's an HBO special worth watching that revolves around the extremely fast pace in which robots, driverless cars, artificially intelligent computers, voice recognition, and myriad other functions that used to be the dominant sphere of union labor...are going to dramatically tilt the bargaining power of unions in this country, and around the world. The mano-a-mano style of negotiating that evolved over time will, in fact, be tested. And like...how does a human compete with a $14,000 robot that does what they do, 24x7, with no complaining, days off, or food-spitting?