Labour Management Collective Bargaining Training
Negotiation skills are essential for collective bargaining, dispute settlement and bipartite relations to improve terms of employment, working conditions and the overall labour management relations with a view to promoting efficiency, stability and equity at the workplace.
Background
Conflict is inevitable in employment relationships and it affects workers, investments and economic activities – therefore establishing effective dispute prevention & resolution procedures is critical for fair, harmonious employment relations & productive enterprises. While there are many immediate causes for conflicts in labour relations, the underlying root cause often is the inadequacies of social dialogue and collective bargaining mechanisms which then lead to industrial disputes being piled up in the judiciary for resolution. Judicial resolution takes time, is often costly and neither promotes labour-management collaboration nor prevents disputes. It would be in the interest of economic efficiency of investments, productivity and workers welfare if culture of bipartite social dialogue, collective bargaining and mediation as dispute resolution system and process is strengthened in Indonesia.Law No. 2 of 2004 is the primary legal basis for settlement of industrial relations dispute. The law gives precedence to bipartite negotiations for the voluntary settlement of labour disputes, followed by out of court processes of mediation, conciliation and arbitration. The success of these out of court processes will not only promote the use of voluntary approaches in dispute settlement but can also strengthen collective bargaining culture in the resolution of disputes. Omnibus Law on Employment Creation enacted in October 2020 also seeks to give importance to collective bargaining as a tool for regulating labour relations – but the practice of this will require support and capacity building, especially for negotiation skills and relationship building.
Negotiation skills are essential for collective bargaining, dispute settlement and bipartite relations to improve terms of employment, working conditions and the overall labour management relations with a view to promoting efficiency, stability and equity at the workplace. At its most fundamental level Interest Based Bargaining (IBB) can be defined as an alternative style of negotiating that trained negotiators use to achieve positive results for both parties. It is a style that uses beliefs, principles, steps, and techniques that are distinctly different from traditional adversarial bargaining. IBB is a problem solving/consensus approach to negotiations that focuses on the interests of the parties. This training will focus on how labour and management can use new techniques that involve joint problem solving and interest based bargaining. They will practice consensus decision-making plus negotiation skills through a bipartite workshop.
Outcomes to be achieved:
- Greater success of negotiation and collective bargaining as a dispute prevention and resolution mechanism (example: number of cases settled through bipartite mechanism and increased number of collective agreement)
- Growth in collective agreement culture for dispute resolution.
Trainers and Facilitators
- Ms. Elizabeth Brenner and Mr. Jimmy Valentine, Commissioners of FMCS will be the main trainers.
- Mr. Sahat Sinurat will be the national resource person.
- Ms. Lusiani Julia from the ILO will be the facilitator.