Collective bargaining methods and practices: why the system of plant and company bargaining in the USA has been virtually absent in most european industrial relations systems

Abstract

Collective bargaining is a process of decision-making. Its overriding purpose is the negotiation of an agreed set of rules to govern the substantive and procedural terms of the employment relationship, as well as the relationship between the bargaining parties themselves. Although institutional arrangements in the industrialised countries of the Western world are quite diverse, there are enough common elements of fundamental importance to allow a comparative examination of contemporary methods and practices of collective bargaining. This paper is an attempt to determine and analyse the different dimensions of bargaining in the US via contrasting with practice in Europe; and to try to account for the differences by exploring some of the historical explanations regarding industrialisation patterns.