Companies
Giving collectivization a go
By Wang Wen (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-01 13:27
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Workplace bargaining revamp could give workers room to negotiate, carefully
Dozens of businesses in Beijing have been selected to take part in a collective bargaining test intended to establish more reasonable wage standards for workers and try to resolve long-existing problems with instituting a platform for negotiation between employers and employees.
About 60 companies located in all of the capital's 18 districts and counties are participating in the study. The companies are small-to medium-sized and come from industries, including security, and housekeeping, said Huang Wei, director of the labor rights department of the Beijing Municipal Federation of Trade Unions, which is overseeing the research.
"The key problems of a collective bargaining system is to balance the rights of employees and profits of employers," Huang said. "We are building up the industry wage standard to give bargaining criteria to both sides."
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between workers and managers to determine wages and conditions. During the bargaining process, workers are typically represented by a trade union that negotiates with employers.
Feng Tongqing, a professor with China Institute of Industrial Relations, said collective bargaining should be implemented with caution.
He said societal unrest could emerge if wage increases are distributed unequally between different trade unions, resulting in some workers earning more while others do not. Industry wage standards would adjust income gaps and reduce labor disputes, Feng said.
However in Beijing, according to Feng, the income gap is mainly between monopoly enterprises and small-sized enterprises.
"Besides bargaining with employees, trade unions also need to help employers bargain with monopoly enterprises," he said.
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