V. The process of collective bargaining on flexibility
D. Formal versus informal bargaining and collective versus individual agreements at the workplace
The national agreements are formal and solemn agreements agreed by the social partners at national level but, in line with the principles of voluntarism, they are not legally binding. Formal local agreements may be negotiated extending either flexibility or payments at local level. Informal work arrangements are always possible with the agreement of the union committee at the work place. Even within unionized work-places there are many occasions where work groups or individual employees and managers may agree on flexibility without making a referral to the union or engaging in the process of collective bargaining. Within the retail sector, for instance, functional flexibility is normally accepted as a matter of course. There has been a growth in team-working in recent years, although the extent of this has not been measured, with a concomitant increase in informal flexibility outside of the ambit of formal collective bargaining. Some union authorities are concerned that such team working can threaten the place of trade unions and collective bargaining at the level of the shop floor. Naughton (1993, p.2), writing in a SIPTU manual, enumerates the risks for workers arising from management strategies for the reorganization of production and work as follows:
-- Individualization and de-unionization of specific changes in production;
-- Marginalization of shop stewards and union grievance procedures;
-- Detrimental self regulation and work intensification;
-- The undermining of collective labour relations;
-- Job loss, redeployment, fewer opportunities for promotion.
The opportunities on the other hand are:
-- Involvement in joint regulation of work practices and the organization of production;
-- Development of the capacity for monitoring and quantifying changes in production based on more representative structures;
-- Pay bargaining in a competitive context.
It would require a detailed survey to establish which of the two possible trends -- identified above -- of greater individualization or union involvement in change, are predominant. Only in this way could one establish, with any confidence, the extent of formal versus informal bargaining. What is certain is that both developments are taking place.