- The emergence of performance related pay, employee commitment and cultural
change also changed the way trade unions are perceived and used in employment re-
lationships. - Using human resource management techniques to meet employees’ demands by
side-lining trade union representatives. - Less government intervention and hence more control of employees by the organisa-
tions’ management.
Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between the employer associations
and employee associations with the objective of reaching an agreement on the terms and
conditions of employment. The objective of collective bargaining is to ensure that the
contents of agreements between employers and employees are maintained; create an
enabling environment for better productivity and avoid more work disruptions that re-
sult from conflicts, provide better cooperation, as well as fair and reasonable protection
of both employees and employers. There are conditions necessary for the emergence of
effective collective bargaining:
- The parties must be sufficiently well organised. Workers should be aware of the
importance of trade unions and freely join them. Similarly, the employers have to
have some kind of organisation such as a member of employers’ associations. - Employers should recognise trade unions as parties in the negotiation process.
Opposition, hostility and restrictive regulation will stifle collective bargaining.
Collective agreements are not usually legally binding unless parties decide them
to be. Therefore, they are more good will agreements rather than enforceable
contractual obligations.
Labour laws of particular countries usually prescribe the nature of collective bargaining
and the process, which in many ways is similar across countries because such laws ad-
dress the same fundamentals of employment relationships. For specific regulations per-
taining to collective bargaining in Tanzania, see Appendix 9.2.
The genesis of workers participation in management in Tanzania
The history of workers participation in management in Tanzania dates back to 1968.
This is when the first Tanzanian President Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere visited
China and witnessed the power of socialist based worker participation in industrial pro-
duction. He was particularly impressed by the way Chinese workers felt that they owned
factories, which led to a sense of pride and total commitment. Two years later 1970 he
issued Presidential Circular No. 1, which stipulated that:
The top management must have an attitude which regards the workers and the lower levels
of management as partners in common enterprise, and not just as tools like the machines
they work with.
There must be provision of workers to be represented on bodies which consider matters of
production, sales, and the general organization of the enterprise, and give the workers a
greater and more direct responsibility in production (par. 5 of the circular).The circular led to the formation of the workers education committee and workers
council which must represent workers in decision making, including approval of organ-
isational annual plans and budgets. Nyerere’s idea was to: